BAD CUSTOMERS

I stopped into a "bodega" in Brooklyn the other night, and saw a sign on the beer cooler - it said, "No beer for pregnant women."

I want to say that's sad, but that would be too cliche. So, instead, I'll say, that's gay -- which is a cliche, too, almost implying I'm saying that "gay" is the new "sad", but it's not, I swear.

Being gay is fine. Being pregnant and drinking beer is not...unless you're 100% sure you're pregnant with a little retarded baby. Then, you might as well...it ain't getting any better from here.

Even Satan gets bad customer service

This politically incorrect essay was sent to me by Tshirt Hell's cutthroat writist. I love the style, tone, and unclean feeling it gives me to laugh at his blatant disregard for humanity. It explores the problems of getting help over the phone. It's quite well written, and mean just in the way I like. And - it's about customer service - the theme of this blog.

Please read and enjoy.

Customer Disservice

"Hello and how may I provide you with excellent customer service?"  
Do these words strike fear in your heart, too? There's nothing worse than
trying to get something done over the phone these day.  And nothing
sets my tits on fire faster than when some oily stammering goat herder
in New Delhi wants to start off our conversation with something we both
know is complete bullshit. If they just had the courtesy to begin by
saying, "how may I provide you with barely acceptable customer service"
at least we wouldn't have to start off on the wrong foot.  If you need
to handle something over the phone, you better pop in a porno and pack
a lunch because it will take all fucking day.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. At this point you're nowhere near
talking to a person, yet.  One time I went so long without getting a
person on the phone I ended up talking to a bloody volleyball.  Unless
that was Tom Hanks. Yes, I ended up talking to Tom Hanks.  Bor-ing.  
Anyway, before you get any help you have to navigate through 35 levels
of  voicemail. They always start with the same question.
"For English, press 1: nachos Espanol, sombrero numero dos."
How the fuck did this happen? Last time I checked this was America.
And in America, no one speaks English, but they're certainly not all
jabbering in Spanish.  And besides, how many people in America actually
have a Spanish phone with a numero dos on it?

Nice job setting up the voice mail by the way.  God forbid you should press
'1' to get customer service.  '1' is always some department that no one could
possibly want to speak to like, 'Resource Market Development'. How do they get
to be first?  I blame the Spanish. If you do manage to get the right department,
then you have to punch in every number associated with your life.  Your 48 digit
account number, your social security number, your birthday, how many inches is
your father's cock, how many inches can your father take in the ass? When you're
finally through this maze; you used to get a human being. But now you get a robot.
Like I'm supposed to believe this robot wants to help me?  That sweet sounding
robot just wants to find out where I live so it can tear out my heart and stop
me from fulfilling my destiny of leading the rag tag army of human resistance
fighters. Never talk to the robot.  Never do what the robot tells you to do.
They will eventually let you speak to one of the last humans tucked away in
the back: the ones they're saving for their robot zoo.

Although the human is generally no more help.  Apparently, the robots have
lobotomized the humans so they can only read from a script.  They're waiting;
slowly eating their steaming bowls of curry.  They're waiting for you to mention
one or two key words so that they can give you directions on something completely
unrelated to what you asked them.

This is him:  "Hi this is Steve (or some other phony American name).  How may
I provide you with excellent customer service?"

This is me:  "Hi Saptajit, thanks for helping me out."

Him:  "Out?  If your cable is out, please turn off your cable box."

Me:  "Wait a second."

Him:  "Second?  If you'd like to add a second cable box you need the Sales
department.  Please hold while I connect you.

Me:  Damn you Saptajit!  Don't make me kill your cow!

When they put you on hold they do one of two things.  They play some horrible
easy listening music.  This is a complete misnomer.  This music is anything but
easy to listen to.  They should call it "stab yourself in the ears with an icepick
to make it stop" music.  Or, they play some advertisement for the company
(over the same crappy easy listening music) telling you how happy they are to
have some of your money and why you should give them the rest of it.

When they transfer you., they always give you the phone number of the person
they're connecting you to, in case you're disconnected.  It's 2005. How are we
still getting disconnected?  There is no giant switchboard where they're plugging
and unplugging the lines into little holes?  The telephone was invented in 1876.
I think transferring calls should be ready by now. I eventually manage to get back
to the Billing department.  It's the same guy. He now has no idea who I am.  
He needs to ask me all of my information again.  And then the dreaded question:
what is your password?

That's right:  five years ago when you signed up for this service, you created
a password.  Now, I'm just trying to pay my bill.  I know they have to be careful
in this age of identity theft and other nefarious schemes; but are there really
a lot of people impersonating me trying to settle up my unpaid balance?  
Just wait until the West Africans get their hands on this sweet scam.  
They'll use their unclaimed millions to pay for everything! 

I never know what I used for my password and they won't give you a hint.  So now
I'm giving Saptajit the passwords to every account I have.  Now he can read my
email, access my bank account, and rent movies online.  I find that if I start
insulting them at this point, instead of guessing passwords, they eventually
give in.

Me:  "Hmmm?  Is it, 'you suck?'  Is that my password"

Him: "No."

Me: "Shitbrain? You're brain dead?  Your head is full of sand and fleas?"

Him:  "No, none of those."

Me:  "You sister is the dirtiest slut in Calcutta whose cunt is filled with the
broken off penises of all of the lepers who've fucked her?"

Him:  "(Sigh)  It might be your mother's maiden name."

Me:  "See?  Was that so bad?"

Him:  "Bad?"  If your reception is bad you need Technical Services. Please wait
while I transfer your call."

I was going to go to India and kill Saptajit and his cow.  I would tie him to
four different rickshaws and tear him to pieces.  But there was a problem with
my ticket and I'm not going to call the airline.  Soon Saptajit, soon.

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MORE BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE stories, one with a silver-ish lining

A THEORY OF BAD SERVICE

My friend Graham told me this story involving a product called "The Chopper." From all accounts, he told me that the chopper was a great product. It was one of those late night television ad products that sells via mail-order for $19.95 plus shipping and handling. You know, one of those items you buy instead of coming out and saying "I have completely lost at the game of life". That, or an item you buy as a gift for someone who's getting married -- who you HATE. The Chopper was a handy little hand-held device good for chopping up coffee beans, jelly beans, or what have you. However, it had a nifty safety mechanism in that if the lid weren't closed, it wouldn't chop (so you couldn't stick your finger in and chop it up for the bloody fun of it). This was a great feature, as long as the lid wasn't broken open, which was the case with Graham.

So, Graham did what any normal person would do. He called the company and asked them if he could purchase a replacement lid. The operator was insanely nice, and told him they'd send him one free of charge. He was appeased at that, but the operator went on, asking him if his blade was dulled, and offering to send along a new blade as well, at no cost to him. So, he waited patiently beside his mailbox for the seven to ten days it was to take for the postman to deliver it.

But something funny happened - the lid never showed up. Graham called the company back, and got an even friendlier operator who assured him that it was on its way. Still, it never arrived. So, Graham called back. Yet an even NICER operator took a new order, and told him to be patient, but it was on its way.

Six months later, Graham was still calling, being told by friendly operators that a lid was on its way.

Finally, Graham deducted that there was no replacement lid coming, because there was no replacement lid. There was no warehouse anywhere full of replacement lids. There was probably no company. There was just some guy, answering phones from his apartment while watching re-runs of Night Rider. Maybe the guy was paid per call, maybe the guy was the guy who owned the operation. But either way, it is a perfectly feasible story, if you think about it. Perhaps the person who invented the chopper simply didn't think to make replacement lids, so the business plan arranged a way to handle the problem -- hire operators to tell anyone who called that they were sending a new lid, and be sure to give them excellent lip service, and eventually the unsatisfied customer would get frustrated and/or just give up. Who's gonna sue over a $20 chopper machine? Probably no one.

Now, this story is not confirmed, just a theoretical idea of why he never received his lid. Whether that's their scheme or not, they get marks for bad customer service for lying to their customers.

Now, we focus on a company called CANON. They make cameras, they make photocopiers, printers, and stuff like that. My boss has a CANON all in one thing-a-ma-jig that does copies, printing, faxes and also does your laundry, makes your toast, etc. I'm responsible for putting INK in it when it runs OUT. So, I was at OFFICE MAX purchasing new ink and noticed a sign that said if customers return empty ink containers, they will get $2.50 off a new ink container. Bravo, OFFICE MAX! I asked if it was good for all printers, and she said, yes - except for CANON. Why? I asked. "Because they don't recycle their cartridges," she said. The way the ink canisters work makes them useless once the ink is gone. Multiply my boss's empty ink thing times 150,000 a month in NYC alone. That's a very large mountain of garbage. Not to mention, the CANON ink container packaging is six times the size of the actual ink. The entire product is complete waste, from beginning to end. Thanks a lot, CANON, for helping to leave my grandchildren with a legacy of unrecyclable trash. Maybe someday houses will be made out of garbage that is never going to break down, you know, old cars and broken fridges and things like that.

But I doubt it.

CANON'S customer service isn't ALL bad, however. Two years ago, I purchased a demo-model video camera for $50 from Nobody Beats The Wiz's final sale store-closing-forever sale in Union Square. It broke in a week, so I called CANON and told them the story. They said that model was discontinued, but said if I sent a check for $50 and the old camera, they'd send me a brand new one of the newer model, in the box. So, I did, and a week later, I got a brand new video camera. So, I got about a $300 camera for $100. Not bad, considering the camera was probably made in China for $7. CANON should keep the good things and ditch the bad -- more fair treatment of customers and less waste.

TODAY - A GOOD DAY!

TWO GOOD EXPERIENCES and A RADICAL LESSON

Today, I had a terrific experience at STOP ONE grocery on the corner of Stanton St. and Allen St. (on the east side of the street.) I went in to buy a banana (to put in my pancake batter.) The gentleman behind the counter said, "35 cents." I started digging around in my purse, and all I had was 21 cents. I was digging, and digging, and couldn't find any other change. The man saw I was having trouble finding change, and said, "What do you have? A quarter? That's fine, whatever you have." I didn't even have that. "All I have is 21 cents, or a ten dollar bill," I said. "Just give me whatever you have, it's fine." He said. He was very polite, very courteous, and smiled while speaking to me, and not in a "I'd totally rape you if this place was an empty alley" kind of way, in a mutual kind of "We are interacting in a pleasant, humane way to one another, because we have no reason to act otherwise," kind of way. It was verykind and pleasant of him, and helped my pleasant city Sunday to be even that much more pleasant. Why would anyone do anything differently than the way he did?

MY SECOND GOOD EXPERIENCE happened at Bluestockings Bookstore. The very nature of the store is a good deed for society. There is a park bench that they leave outside (chained up) all night long, so citizens can use it. The CITY doesn't even leave benches out for people to sit on. Bluestockings seems to be an independently owned bookstore, but I don't know much about the owners at this point. As I walked around the store, I saw that, among their new books, they also sell USED books alongside the new ones, at discounted prices. EVERY STORE should do this. Obviously, some stores it wouldn't work with, for example, an underwear store. But in many stores, it would work. The entire front panel of the large reception/register area was a community board and pamplet distribution area. What a great idea. Every store should have a community board and encourage people to share information about what is going on in their neighborhood. As I walked along the board, I saw terrific information - free classes, free shows, free everything. It was all about people giving out what they had to give. I found a pamphlet for a store called the FREE store, where everything is free. What an excellent idea. Think of how much great stuff you throw away because you don't know anyone who wants it. Think of how much furniture and food you see in the garbage, and how cool it'd be to have someplace where you can just go get something if you need it, instead of having to go buy it at some lame shithole chain store. I had an example of poor, but not unforgiveable customer service at Bluestockings, also. As I was leaving, I turned to the lady at the counter and said, "This is really a great store." She didn't reply and barely acknowledged my statement. She just kind of half smiled. She might have said, "Yes, it truly is," or "No, actually it isn't that great." But maybe she was high, which is generally, a good way to be when you are working in the service industry.

A RADICAL CUSTOMER SERVICE LESSON TO ALL CASHIERS OF LARGE CORPORATIONS:
Kinkos, McDonalds, Fashion Bug, The Gap, Food Emporium, etc.

Every so often, as often as you feel comfortable doing it, as you are ringing up customers, pick up one of their items and just put it in the bag without charging the customer for it. The customer will be delighted and won't say a word about it. You probably shouldn't give them a knowing wink or smile. Just do it and know that they will appreciate it, even if they don't acknowledge it. The corporation will still make billions, and you'll have brightened someone's day.

*This service is best applied when a customer is kind to you, or at least pleasant, from the get-go. If a person is an asshole to you, you can still do it, because it might make them happy later which will pass on happiness elsewhere down the road, which won't necessarily benefit you directly, but who knows? Maybe they'll run into a friend of yours incidentally and be kind to them instead, and without even knowing the two of you are affiliated in any way. That thought can be internally fulfilling, and you may even just delight in the possibility of such a happenstance. I would.

* This service isn't smart if you work at a small independently-owned store. (Unless the people who own the store are lousy to their customers - marking prices way up, overcharging customers, not letting them use the restroom, or otherwise treating customers poorly.)

*Don't worry about getting fired. You shouldn't be working there, anyway. Plus, if you're subtle and don't do it at inopportune times (for example, when a manager is standing next to you) you should be fine.

Thank you for reading. It's been a pleasure to serve you. Until next time...