They are carrying the world on their shoulders. Or at least, the responsibility for being courteous and capable when dealing with customers.
posted 11.26.05
WILL DENISE AND ROBIN SHRUG?
I recently moved to another state, and, like everyone who has ever experienced a major move, I was prepared for a difficult couple of weeks.
To my surprise, however, it started out great. The movers were excellent—swift, conscientious, and handled all of our belongings with tender loving care. Unfortunately, that was the end of the good news.
In today's world, the problems with a major move begin after the movers leave. That's when you have to deal with corporate behemoths like Dell Computer, Verizon, Comcast, and Konica—companies that have absolutely no regard for their customers' time and no qualms about inconveniencing them.
I don't believe I had a serious understanding of just how insane, insulting, frustrating, and time-consuming it is to deal with our brave new world of corporate, hi-tech rude-mongers until I made the decision to eliminate secretarial help some years back. Ironically, the reason for this decision was that I wanted to simplify my life by being able to rely solely on myself and my computer skills.
Following is a very small sampling of what my move has been like without a human buffer to do battle with the faceless companies that hide behind voice-mail prompts and the Internet. Due to space constraints, I will limit my comments to just three of these shameless entities.
Dell Computer
Let me start with Dell, which I only recently began to believe might be on the verge of securing a monopoly in the computer industry. Forget it; it's not going to happen. Dell has made the mistake of selling out to the "discourage the customer from bothering us" philosophy in an effort to continually shave overhead and other operating expenses.
My brand-new Dell PC, which cost me $1,500 in technician fees just to properly configure and install, would not even boot up when I arrived at my new home office. I know for a fact that it was handled with care, because I personally packed it in its original, protective Styrofoam molds and carton, then brought it to my new house in my car.
Following are bits and pieces of my 17 phone calls to Dell during a one-week telephone holocaust, intended to give you only a tiny sampling of what transpired:
"Welcome to Dell. Your call may be recorded."
"To dial an extension, please press 1." (Normally, this leads you into a new menu, with more prompts, and almost never to the rep whose extension you dialed.)
"To make a purchase, get pricing information, or complete an online order, press 2."
"For technical support or for software and technical questions, press 3."
"For all other issues related to a purchase already made, press 4."
"To repeat a menu at any time, press 7." (Translation: "If none of these items are what you're calling about, tough luck." Most companies, as you are undoubtedly and painfully aware, no longer have an option that says, "Or, just stay on the line and a representative will answer your call." And if that option does exist, it's usually so well hidden in the depths of a sub-sub menu that very few callers ever succeed in finding it.)
My recollection is that I pressed 3, and the game started all over again:
"If you are calling regarding a business...blah, blah, blah..."
"Let me ask you a few questions." (I didn't call for you to ask me questions. I called to ask you questions!)
"If you get stuck, just say 'Help.' " ("Help!")
"Let me confirm that. You said [unintelligible]?"
"I'm sorry, I didn't understand what you said." (That's because you're a !@#$! robot. If you were a real person, you'd understand.)
"For better service, go to our website." (Translation: "You don't fit into one of our automated cookie-cutter slots, so get stuffed!")
"Did you know that most of the information our technical people provide you with is available on the Web?" (Translation: "What we're trying to tell you, pest, is that we're busy—so figure out the solution to your problem yourself.")
About a half-hour into the call, the robot said:
"To help expedite your call, please have your Dell Service Tag or Dell Express Service Code available." (Translation: "Heh, heh, heh...that'll discourage a lot of those pesky customers who haven't a clue what their Dell Service Tag or Dell Express Service Code is.")
"Our technicians are aware of your call, and are working very quickly to get to you." (This is the mother of all big lies. For more information about such chutzpah, read my article titled "A Tsunami of B.S." in the June 18, 2005 issue of Early To Rise).
"Thank you for waiting. A Dell technician will be with you shortly." (Again, go back and reread "A Tsunami of B.S.")
"We apologize for the wait, but we are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls. (The grandmother of all big lies.)
"If you still wish to speak with a technical support representative, stay on the line." (I've already been on the line for a half-hour waiting for that to happen.)
"If you want, you can e-mail your questions directly to our support staff." (Translation: "Please...PLEASE go away and leave us alone.")
"Once again, we thank you for your patience." (Translation: "We should just about have this turkey discouraged enough to hang up and leave us alone...heh, heh, heh.")
After 17 calls similar to the one above, all ranging in length from a half-hour to an hour-and-a-half, I actually managed to trap a human being on the phone who agreed to live up to the company's service contract and send a technician out with a new hard drive.
When the Dell technician finally arrived, he took one look at my computer and immediately told me that my three-month-old hard drive had failed. He then proceeded to install a new one.
But, alas, it was a dead end. He said he couldn't install the Windows operating system, because Dell, in its underhanded efforts to cut costs, no longer includes the operating system disk that the customer had paid for! Instead, the company encloses a cardboard disk that tells you to contact them if you ever need the real CD, in which case they will (reluctantly) send it to you.
How generous of them. It took another three calls just to connect with a human being in Calcutta who finally agreed to send me the disk.
The bottom line is that the Dell technician left me with a new hard drive installed in a still-dead computer. My personal technician is now a 150-mile round trip away, so it cost me $2,000 to have him come out and reconfigure my computer, properly reinstall all of my applications, and tweak all of the other nuances of my somewhat complex setup.
The story is far worse than the bits and pieces I've given you here, but I shall refrain from going into it in any more detail. I think you've read more than enough to be able to infer that I'm not a real good candidate for a Dell testimonial.
Verizon
I'm going to make short shrift of Verizon, and just say that when the Verizon technician came out to install my new phone lines, the first thing she said when she looked at the phone hub was, "Oh, we don't work on this kind of system any more. We stopped putting them in about two years ago."
She was a nice lady, which is why I'm happy that I will always have her close to me—I buried her under my basement floor. Of course, because you're a loyal reader, I feel confident that I can trust you to keep this a secret.
After considerable searching, I found a private telephone-installation company to come out and do the work. Naturally, it wasn't done correctly, but at least I have some semblance of phone service.
Comcast
All right, let's skip ahead to the really important part of this article. And the winner of the 2005 We-Hate-Our-Customers Award is: Comcast!
I am told that the stated goal of the Comcast Internet Department is to drive every customer totally insane in the hopes of eliminating all complaints, which will ultimately lead to the elimination of its customer-service department.
Before I moved, I spoke to no less than three different Comcast service reps who assured me that transferring my e-mails and e-mail addresses to my new account in a different location would be no problem. In fact, on two occasions, Comcast reps told me that the instructions for the transfer were already in their system.
The day after my move, a technician named Victor came out to do the installation. He was a knowledgeable young man who assured me that everything was working fine "on your end," but that Comcast was having a problem on its end. When I asked him if he had ever seen this kind of problem before, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "It happens in three or four out of every five installations I do." What a great advertisement for Comcast.
Over a period of seven days, I engaged in long, painful telephone conversations with Randi (extension 4330), Stephanie (forgot to get her extension), Roman (forgot to get his extension), Lynette (extension 4326), Christina (extension 4332), Adam (forgot to get his extension), Kim (forgot to get her extension), Yolanda (extension 7685), Jennifer (forgot to get her extension), Kina (extension 7186), Gina (extension 7234), and Melody (forgot to get her extension), among others.
All kinds of promises were made, but none were kept. Whenever I called the numbers these people left with me, I would be forced right back into the Comcast voice-mail asylum, starting over from scratch and wasting still more of my valuable time.
Finally, after seven days, I'd had enough and was prepared to do the unthinkable: switch to Verizon DSL. I say unthinkable, because I knew that such a decision was likely to lead to more Verizon bodies being buried under my basement floor.
On a lark, I called Robin Mays, a supervisor who had left me her direct number clear back on September 1, to tell her my decision. It turned out to be her cell-phone number, and, to my amazement, she actually answered my call.
Ms. Mays was driving at the time, but when I told her what I had been put through by Comcast, she immediately turned around and went straight back to the office. She said she would put me in direct contact with someone who would get me up and running quickly and get my old e-mails and e-mail addresses transferred to my new account (which was the mystery no one at Comcast had been able to solve in seven days).
Lo and behold, I finally hit the jackpot! Ms. Mays hooked me up with a remarkable, take-charge, enthusiastic lady by the name of Denise Price. After relating to her the highlights of my traumatic experiences with Comcast, and opining that Comcast had no interest in its customers, she responded, in a sincere and pleasant manner, "Every Comcast customer is important to me."
Ms. Price went on to tell me that she would personally see to it that my old e-mails and e-mail addresses would be transferred to my new account, and that my Internet service would be up and running by 2:00 p.m. that day. (I had told her right off the bat that I was under a deadline to get a document e-mailed by 2:00 p.m.)
She made it clear that she did not believe it was the customer's responsibility to spend hours talking to Comcast reps over the phone in an effort to get his/her Internet operating. She also understood that customers just want to pay for Internet service and have absolutely no interest in learning how to install it.
Would you believe that in less than an hour Denise had a high-level technician on my doorstep, and I was up and running within 30 minutes? I cannot tell you how impressed I was, and am, with this incredible lady.
Denise Price is the epitome of execution. She has a real-world sense of urgency, she doesn't hesitate to take charge and assume full responsibility, she understands the importance of detail, and, above all, she follows things through to completion. I can personally vouch for the fact that the buck stops at Denise Price's desk.
But Ms. Price's remarkable make-things-happen attitude begs a very interesting question: Why couldn't an army of reps and technical people at Comcast solve my problem in seven days if she could solve it in 30 minutes?
Comcast is going to bleed customers if it doesn't get more people on board like Denise Price and Robin Mays and train them on how to get quick results for customers—without the customers' involvement.
The moral of the story
The moral to all this is crucial. It's very much an offshoot of my Makeable Deal Theory, which states: Concentrate your efforts on finding a few makeable deals rather than working on a large number of unmakeable deals and clinging to the desperate hope that one of them will miraculously close.
There's no question that the most efficient way to handle today's inconsiderate, robotic-voice companies that have a total disregard for their customers' time is to delegate the kinds of matters I've discussed in this article. But if you're in a position where you have no choice but to make these nightmarish calls yourself, don't dissipate valuable energy talking to rank-and-file employees who don't know how, or aren't motivated, to make things happen.
Not only will you waste enormous amounts of time dealing with the average 9-to-5 customer-service or technical-support rep, but you're almost guaranteed to go insane in the process. Instead of engaging in hours of frustrating discussions with people who have no sense of urgency and whose gray matter registers zero on the Resourcefulness Scale, use your time and entrepreneurial intellect to figure out how to make contact with someone who is adept at finding a quick solution to your problem.
Denise Price and Robin Mays are my heroes of the week. I admit that from time to time I get a bit down when I see what's happening to the world, to Western civilization, and to America. Then, when I least expect it, people like this pop up and make me realize that there's still hope.
So long as there are enough people like Denise Price and Robin Mays out there, holding the world up on their shoulders, we can overcome everything from terrorism to hip-hop culture to the near extinction of customer service. But, as Ayn Rand warned decades ago, if producers ever decide to shrug their shoulders and walk away, the whole world might just collapse.
Thanks, Denise and Robin, for raising my spirits. And please understand just how badly Western civilization needs you. I urge you never to become so disenchanted that you decide to shrug your shoulders and drop the world in the process.
Copyright © 2005 by Robert J. Ringer. Reprinted by permission of the author. Robert Ringer is a professional speaker and the author of era-defining bestsellers like Winning Through Intimidation and Looking Out For Number One. You can sign up for a free subscription of his eletter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, by visiting RobertRinger.com.
Discuss this article at TheWebzine Blog
Read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Read Action! Nothing Happens Until Something Moves by Robert Ringer
Read To Be Intimidated or Not To Be Intimidated? That is the Question by Robert Ringer
Read Looking Out for #1 by Robert Ringer
Read Making Great Decisions in Business and Life by David R. Henderson and Charles L. Hooper
Gifts Books on liberty All books—and all else, also
Web Consultant
Eric D. Dixon
Proofreader
Elaine K. Ortiz
