Torn

This time of year tests the cheerfulness of even the nicest shop assistant, forced to wear Santa hats and apologise to every crabby customer for the wait in line whilst also suffering again and again from listening to the same old background Christmas songs that have been on repeat play in store since July.

I’m amazed these people don’t let off steam every few minutes by putting on a Grinch mask and shouting “Rudolph is a drunk” or “Santa’s going to throw up on your carpet”.

With the High Street going crazy just now, these customer helpers are doing a great job and, if I’m in a store that has as feedback button, I’ll always give it a punch with a smile that says “Happy With The Service”.

But now this “service comment thing” is spreading everywhere. Call up any company with a query and you’ll find that Customer Service people have sneakily become the best emotional blackmailers in the world.

Yesterday I had a problem with my mobile ‘phone, so I called Orange. The service agent was very helpful and resolved my query but, just as I was thanking him, he said “you will receive a text asking to rate me for my help today. I hope you will give me full marks as that would help me a lot in return”. Of course I should have said something like, “I’ll be the judge of that”, but instead I summoned up all my reserves of courage and strength and meekly said “Of course. No problem.”

This is not the first time this has happened to me. In fact it’s the fourth time in just a couple of weeks.

We had a new gas boiler installed by British Gas and, as he left, the engineer told me I would receive a questionnaire asking how he had done. He informed me he would be most grateful if I gave him full marks as it affects his Christmas bonus. Again I said I would help out, but inwardly I began to wonder what the point of these things is. If all of us are asked to give top marks then it’s a bit redundant, isn’t it? Why don’t they save time and effort and just let the engineer fill it in himself?

We also bought a new car a few weeks ago and I must confess the dealer was very helpful and kept us informed throughout. “In the next few days you will get a call asking how we did”, he told me. “Can I presume you’ll give us five out of five?”. Frankly, you can assume whatever you want but I’m going to give you zero just for presuming I thought, but when the call came I rolled over and had my tummy tickled, then gave him five. I only hope he’s getting his Christmas bonus too.

Perhaps all this charity I’m dispensing means I don’t have to tip the bin men, the postman or the paper girl this year. I’ll just pop in to my local council, post office and newsagent and tell them I’m giving their staff five out of five, and no need to come round my house for a tip and, by the way, a very Happy Christmas to one and all. Think it might work?

Last week my technical problem of the week was with my internet provider so, one chat with a call centre in India later, I was back on track with my problem solved. “Please stay on the line Paul as you will be asked a question about my service” said my new Indian buddy. “I would appreciate you giving me full marks.” Again, I did exactly as he asked so I think I’ve managed, indirectly, to give a Christmas tip in the Far East. Happy Diwali to you all over there.

But enough is enough. I don’t mind this nonsense in December – good will to all mankind and all that – but come January the gloves are off. Anyone who asks for feedback is going to get it in a string of words last put together by a freezing docker hanging naked from a frozen drainpipe when his girlfriend’s husband came home unexpectedly. I’ve had enough. My new year resolution will be that I’m not going to be bullied any more. You want feedback mister, you’re going to get it, big time.

I do hope you enjoyed the blog this week. The guy who looks after my internet site will be calling you tomorrow to give me a rating out of five. I assume you’ll give me full marks? Thank you.

Back To Life, Back To Reality

I don’t know if it escaped you but the Beatles broke up over the past few days, prime minister Harold Wilson looks like retiring, and Richard Nixon said he thinks this new fangled flower power thing will die out soon.

This week I felt that I was in a bad Sixties movie, all Albert Finney shouting at Rita Tushingham in the rain and everything available only in black and white, and I would not have been surprised at one point to see Gene Kelly swinging round a lamppost and jumping in puddles. I feel I stepped in to the Tardis and flew back to a time when typists manned customer service desks and filed their nails rather than complaints.

I’ve written about this before, which probably shows I’m becoming an angry old man, but what is it about some businesses that it seems a badge of pride to keep their customer service stuck in monochrome? Twice in the past week or two I have been left wanting to scream, shout, kick the cat and then send the vet’s bill to the companies that have driven me insane with customer service operators who are thicker than Russell Brand’s mattress. If a new tax was brought in on brain cells they wouldn’t pay a penny.

My satellite TV provider and the company who look after the water softener in my house should be shamed, exposed, have custard pies thrown at them, be made to clean toilets at a camel race in the desert and then forced to watch Loose Women. Well, maybe the Loose Women thing is a bit much, but, like the camels, you get my drift.

On a global scale of things to worry about (war, credit crunch and the decline of Coronation Street) I realise satellite TV and water softener employees making me mad is small beer, and that you’re probably thinking anyone who needs a water softener is a great big wuss anyway, but I just hate the rudeness and incompetence of some companies, especially since so many others seem to have smartened up their act and got it right.

Incidentally, I need the water company to stop the pipes in my house furring up with lime and not, as you probably thought when looking at my photo, to keep my amazing baby like skin soft and gentle. They didn’t call me after promising that they would ring back immediately, leaving me to do all the chasing for a whole week, and then didn’t even apologise when I finally got hold of them for the fourth time. The satellite telly company, meanwhile, made me take three different mornings off work to get my box renewed, turning up each time with replacements that didn’t work. And again, as that great philosopher Elton of Pinner said, “sorry seems to be the hardest word”. Apology? You are so clearly kidding that I am now laughing in HD.

These companies are like The Fonz in Happy Days, but without the laughs. Arthur Fonzarelli, memorably, couldn’t ever say “sorry” for anything and the word stuck in his throat so that he’d get as far as “I’m sssssss” before going quiet again. Mind you, at least he tried.

Eventually, the TV people agreed that my taking mornings off was getting ridiculous so they said I should call them the day before on a special number at four o’clock and get a more specific time when the engineer would arrive. So, I did call at the appointed hour. It was an answering machine telling me the office was closed.

None the wiser I waited next day and the bloke, who I had been wrongly promised would phone me, turned up just before lunchtime. When I vented my frustration he, disarmingly, agreed with every word and told me he spends his working day apologising for his employer.

So, I’ve had enough. I can do the rude thing too, just like the head of customer service at the water softener company who was so soft himself he put me on hold and didn’t come back. I’m hoping it was because his car was nicked or his house broken in to and his stamp collection flushed down the toilet.

Behaving badly is easy, but being nice takes more effort. I can act like a badly brought up waste of skin who has never been taught that the word “sorry” goes a long way too. I’m going to stop my payments to these companies and, when they call to ask why, I’ll say that I’ll call them straight back.

And then I’ll go on holiday.

Hanging on The Telephone

www.paulcoia.com


Here’s a great idea for you if you feel that your life expectancy is unlimited and you can afford to chuck away some of the time the good Lord gave you. Call the Nationwide Building Society and count the hours as you wait, in vain, to speak to anyone at all. You’ll have more success selling Chinese takeaway at a rally for Tibet.

I realise that as a way of wasting your life, calling a building society isn’t up there with selling ice cream in Siberia or sun cream in Glasgow but, with financial markets in meltdown, you should really should cheer yourself up and try it as The Nationwide has come up with a novel way of not lending money.

Pick up the ‘phone to call them and your enquiry is now being directed by computer recognition software. None of the usual “press one for banking, two for insurance, three for a telling off because you’re poor,” that seems to proliferate everywhere. I swear we’ll find all walks of life using this nonsense soon. “Thank you for calling Dead End Funeral Directors. We’re sorry your loved one has kicked the bucket. Press one for burial, two for cremation…….”

But, at Nationwide, the recorded voice asks you to state what you want, then recognises a word or two and puts you through to the relevant department. So say to it “I’d like a mortgage” and it reacts to the “age” sound and you get put through to the mortgage department. Say something that sounds similar, like “I once slept with Elaine Paige”, and you’ll still get put through to the mortgage department. Then try saying “Whatever you do don’t put me through to the mortgage department” and, you’ve guessed it, you’ll be put right through to the mortgage department.

And here’s the clever bit. After the computer voice says she’s connecting you, the ‘phone goes deader than a Cheeky Girls’ career and you’re left waiting for ever. So, you call back and go through the same process, then make a cup of tea and try again, and before long summer has arrived and you’ve forgotten why you called in the first place.

While other institutions say, outright, that they won’t lend money just now, Nationwide flirts with you like a promiscuous Geisha and then cuts you off, penniless, and with not one single human being getting paid at their end to get involved. I can’t help but feel they could at least stump up a few hundred quid to make it more entertaining and get Morgan Freeman or Barney The Purple Dinosaur to do the voice. It’s a masterful way of pretending that they’re not withholding money, while at the same time giving none away, not even to telephone staff.

I then tried the Abbey Building Society and spoke to a real, live, human being. She referred me to the correct department where I waited for longer than a John Prescott lunch, listening to bland muzak. You’d think by now they’d employ a DJ who could ask you after, say, ten minutes of listening to music from the Big Blands whether you had any requests.

Eventually I spoke with a girl who was from the highly trained, highly bored, school of advisers and who read her script for probably the fortieth time that morning. I’m sure these people start the day full of enthusiasm and enunciate clearly but by the time I get to them they have word blindness as they search their script and elide all the words together. I could just about make out “Ihavetoadviseyou thatthiscallmaybe recordedandusedfor trainingpurposes”, but we then moved on to the next level of speech impairment with
“Areyoucallingregardinganexistingenquiryorareyoumakinganewapplication?.”

I was embarrassed saying “excuse me each time” as she simply sighed and read it again, even faster, and with an air of boredom that made me want to apologise for pulling her away from Hello magazine and spoiling her day. I’m not sure what my conversation with her means I have committed to, but as soon as I get my hands on a Klingon dictionary I intend to find out.

My brother used to supervise call centres and he tells me the most trusted accents are Scottish, Irish and Geordie, so what I can’t understand is why most call centre voices sound exactly like the nice man I call each Friday night at the Bombay Express for my Tikka Massala? I know all the off shoring financial reasons for siting complaints departments, sorry, Customer Service Centres, in India and the staff are invariably unflappable and speak better English than I do. Yet there’s a problem. Because these people are so very polite, I never feel I can get angry with them for the bad service that’s caused my call in the first place and I end up apologising to them instead.

So, I can’t win. If I call someone here in the UK, I end up apologising to some fed up, sighing, script reader for intruding on her day. If I call India, I end up apologising because they’re so nice. Either way I can never get anything off my chest by ranting in a release of frustration and anger. So maybe the Nationwide have got it right in just letting the ‘phone go dead.

I’ll call them back later and shout down the ‘phone anyway, something like “I want to complain about your phone system which hasn’t worked in ages!!”. I’ll then get “You asked for mortgages. I’ll direct your call”.