I’m on hold with the bank. The recorded voice initially told me that I would have about a three minute wait and that time has passed. Typically, when I am on hold, an automated voice comes on every so often and says something like “please continue to hold you call is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received”. That is annoying and all but it is honest. For the past five minutes a voice has been coming on intermittently telling me that “A customer Accounts Representative is ready to assist you,” which is totally misleading. I would think that if someone is ready to assist me that I would not be kept holding for five additional minutes. What would possess someone to have that recording on for their customers?
The first time I heard it I got really excited. Wow, I thought, this was way less than three minutes. They have truly satisfied me as a customer. However, after the voice told me that someone was ready to assist me, nothing changed. The annoying hold music continued to play and no one was ready to assist me. I decided it was some kind of error and calmed down. The three minutes hadn’t passed so all was well. The second time I again allowed myself to get a bit excited. Hooray, I thought, they were just getting me prepared before. They wanted me to make sure I had my account number ready and complaint all well thought out. They were now ready to help me. They weren’t.
This continued for five minutes. Me telling myself not to get excited, that they weren’t really ready to assist me, and then being fooled over and over. This is not funny. This is torture. This is psychological manipulation. Why oh why, would this be the thing to do to people as they are waiting to talk about some errors made with their money? Don’t you think they would have wanted to have the clearest and nicest hold process possible? Something like, “You are the 12th caller in line and your wait time is two and a half minutes,” I want serious approximations when I am waiting and already tense.
The truly sad thing is that I have to go through all this mess for $15. I wish I didn’t care so much about $15, but I do. That’s like two dinners at least. See this store by Tony’s work said that he swiped the card through three times on Monday. Not only was he not at work on Monday but we didn’t even leave the house. The thing is how did the card get swiped then? I guess they can tell the difference between a swipe and a entering on a keypad? Either way someone ate $15 of food and it wasn’t either of us. I have to fill out forms and fax them in and then they have to decide if I am telling the truth and then they may give me back my $15. It seems like a lot of action. Whatever, a bitch is broke.
Que Sera, Sera, Sly and the Family Stone- This is pretty fitting for the above post. I guess being annoyed at the hold recording is just one of those whatever will be will be things. Apparently, I will be pissed.
Breaking The Girl, Red Hot Chili Peppers- This makes me want to drive a minivan. Nuf said.
Too Cute, Devin The Dude- If I were to be a musician, I would want a name as cool as Devin The Dude. Once I looked up dude in the dictionary and it said an ingrown hair in an elephants butt. I swear it did. I looked it up the other day and it said nothing like that.
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10 comments:
You should offer your services to the bank as a "customer service consultant" and charge them a lot of money to evaluate and improve their customer service.
Why did the Chili Peppers song make you want to drive a minivan???
Fifteen dollars is enough to fight over, hell, one dollar is enough to fight over.
What really is sick is my bank CHARGES me for calling an account representative.
i HATE automated lines...i have telephone service...oh wait...that's because i wasted a total of 2.5 hours in the last 6 days trying to get me phone line....
:-P
Those jerks!
But definitely worth the call.
I just downloaded a bunch of Sly and the Family Stone a couple of days ago!-- I'd lost all of my Sly songs in a hard drive crash a couple of years ago. "Hot Fun In the Summertime" is one of my all-time favorites (with "Family Affair" close behind).
I think that instead of "We value you as a customer" message, there should be silence. No voices, no music. Maybe a little quiet tone in the background so you know the connection has not died.
That way, you can totally "tune out" the phone receiver until someone actuall comes on it.
I also hate those automated knowledge base things that never have answers to questions.
"Breaking The Girl"? Always sounded like "Brick in the Grill".
Hate the bank.
Mom- Yeah, that is a good idea. I want to drive a minivan because I drove our minivan a lot when I listened to that.
Danielle- You need a new bank charging to call someone for help is crazy talk.
Not Fearing- I would have gotten a different phone company. 2.5 hours is too long.
Eve- Worth it but I just couldn't stand the teasing.
Johnny- Those are awesome songs. A Simple Song is my fave.
Dmarks- Mostly silent would be a really good idea. I suppose I could have put it on speaker phone but that sounded worse.
Phil- The bank is the worst. I'm going there right now.
We make our customer service reps ask a quality assurance question......"on a scale of 1-10, how would you rate the quality of customer service that I've provided for you today?"....
If I was a CS rep, I would have been so fired. No way I'm asking that question to some rude, disrespectful advertiser.
my fault, fell into a little rant right there.
I'd call, too. I spend more time than is reasonable on the phone with insurance companies, waiting, waiting, waiting - it's maddening.
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