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Jon Halsey: on Frustration trying to get answers on telephones

The bigger the company, the more frustrating the phone service
Click headline read a story that you, like we, probably have experienced from large companies who use phone trees to obfuscate. Shouldn't there be a law against such devices??? Or should we just talk with our dollars and do no business with them. - CM

By Jon Halsey

After listening to my wife trying to resolve a simple problem with a large corporation, I realized that "too big to fail" has a corollary: "Too big to be of service."

The best analogy that I could come up with is a scenario of three companies called "Grammar"

  • A phone call to the small Grammar company results in a live person who is prepared to answer any grammar question you pose.

  • A phone call to the mid-size Grammar company results in a recording which directs you to the Punctuation Department where your question is readily handled.

  • A phone call to the large Grammar company results in a recording who requires answers to a series of inane, unrelated questions before transferring you to the Punctuation Division.
The Punctuation Division now requires answers to the identical questions you have already answered.

Assuming you have not tossed the phone out the window by now, you are faced with the following questions:
"Would you like to speak to the Department for the dot over the i or would you like to be connected to the Department for the dot under the exclamation point or would you like to be connected to the Department for the dot under the question mark, or would you like to be connected to the Department for the dot at the end of a sentence. Press 223456789 to repeat the question.

"I'm sorry I didn't get that, please answer the following questions and then listen carefully to the available options and make your selection again."
Assuming that you are still of stable enough mind to make a selection you hear the following: "I'm sorry, that Department is not currently available. Please try again later, Have a nice day! Goodbye"

--Jon H




This story was posted on 2017-08-11 11:15:59
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