That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose (theatlantic.com) 62
Companies deliberately design customer service friction to discourage refunds and claims, according to research into a practice academics call "sludge." The term, coined by legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein and economist Richard H. Thaler in their updated version of "Nudge," describes tortuous administrative demands, endless wait times, and excessive procedural fuss that impede customers.
ProPublica reported in 2023 that Cigna saved millions of dollars by rejecting claims without having doctors read them. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Toyota's motor-financing arm to pay $60 million for alleged misdeeds including deliberately setting up dead-end hotlines for canceling products and services. The 2023 National Customer Rage Survey found that the percentage of American consumers seeking revenge for customer service hassles had tripled in three years.
ProPublica reported in 2023 that Cigna saved millions of dollars by rejecting claims without having doctors read them. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered Toyota's motor-financing arm to pay $60 million for alleged misdeeds including deliberately setting up dead-end hotlines for canceling products and services. The 2023 National Customer Rage Survey found that the percentage of American consumers seeking revenge for customer service hassles had tripled in three years.
Re: tortuous administrative demands (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Tortuous means long and complex, full of twists and turns.
Another example: Huawei (Score:2)
Do you imagine the sock puppet cares who feeds it? Or appreciates your reply?
Just adding Huawei as another example of a company that once had pretty good support. However you can argue for mitigating circumstances in Huawei's case. Or for extra culpability depending on how you interpret the Juniper fiasco with Chinese sauce.
Re: tortuous administrative demands (Score:3)
You're thinking of the word "tortious".
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I find tortuousness to be a torturous experience.
Duh (Score:2)
We know. Everyone knows customer service is now handled through bad Yelp reviews.
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Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, I give their custom to Amazon instead because every time I've ever spoken to their customer service they've understood one thing:
- Customer service is a necessary business expense.
So they normally just refund without question, let you keep the erroneous product, etc. - anything to get you off the line quickly, so long as your account is long-standing, has a good history, etc.
It's really NOT WORTH arguing with your own customers, or upsetting them... they will just go somewhere else for future purchases.
I have always said that - if they don't already - all CRM programmes should show, the second you connect to a phone call, your order history AND the amount of profit that company has made from that one single customer alone in the last year or so.
You're arguing with someone who's given you millions of dollars over decades about a single 2-dollar missing component on a massive order they made? You're insane. They're just going to go elsewhere. It's not even worth the time on the phone call to argue it.
Re: Amazon (Score:3)
Don't go back and forth with them. Just go to your credit card company. They need to learn.
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I cancelled Prime. I ain't buying anything from them until Bezos moves to Venus.
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You're arguing with someone who's given you millions of dollars over decades about a single 2-dollar missing component on a massive order they made? You're insane. They're just going to go elsewhere. It's not even worth the time on the phone call to argue it.
You're assuming companies don't understand that. What you're missing is that the companies that do this tend to be the companies that have their customers over a barrel. You have a choice in where to buy random stuff online. You don't have much choice in airlines. Only a few companies go to both of the airports that you need to fly between. They can screw you as much as they want, and unless you're prepared to lawyer up, you're gonna accept whatever they give you and like it, or you're not gonna fly, b
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Meanwhile, I give their custom to Amazon instead because every time I've ever spoken to their customer service they've understood one thing:
- Customer service is a necessary business expense.
Have you done that recently? One of the reasons I dropped Prime was over the course of a year it was progressively harder and harder and HARDER to get an actual human on the line. This was mainly over not getting packages TO MY HOUSE, their core business!!! My wife was recently complaining that Amazon was pushing her towards talking to their objectively-stupid chatbot to resolve issues.
Maybe our experiences are different, but Amazon's been on my "they don't give a shit about good customer service anymor
Re: Amazon outsources (Score:2)
Their shipping subsidiary is very outsourced.
They run the warehouses but franchises effectively do the transportation to users.
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For clarification- These are Amazon-branded delivery vehicles and drivers.
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Branding means nothing. Most of the FedEx Ground vehicles that you see on the street are contracted out and not owned or operated by FedEx itself.
Pointless debate. (Score:2)
I'm sorry, what exactly is the point of this nitpick? That there's some reason it's okay Amazon isn't getting shit to my house because a different person signs the driver's paycheck? Even if it was FedEx or UPS fucking it up (they find my place just fine....) I can't tell Amazon to use a different shipper, so I'd still drop Prime anyway.
And... yeah the branding does matter. Unlike Amazon I don't order shit from FedEx.
"Seeking Revenge"? (Score:2)
Curious what that means exactly. The poor person working the counter/phone has no say in the stupid procedures they are being made to follow or impart to the customer, and the real decision-makers are in their ivory towers, insulated from the consequences of their edicts.
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The poor person working the counter/phone has no say
That "poor person" is usually a chatbot.. Yell all you want, it doesn't care. We are entering a dark new age managed by sociopaths
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That "poor person" is usually a chatbot.. Yell all you want, it doesn't care. We are entering a dark new age managed by sociopaths
Your second sentence is incorrect. You used the 'perfect continuous' verb tense when you should have used the 'past' tense.
The advent of the "age managed by sociopaths" is a distant speck in the rear-view mirror.
If only government regulators existed (Score:4, Insightful)
With regards to TFA, I'm thinking of agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) [reuters.com], the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) [nytimes.com], and the the DOJ's Consumer Protection Branch [reuters.com], part of their Civil Division [slate.com]. If only those things still worked for us.
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Hint: they never did. They were always about expanding government under the control of specific people in government to use as a bludgeon against private industry when they need to score political points. Think that's a bogus claim? Why are there three agencies doing the same thing?
This should be good (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing generates clicks more than outrage.
And this story definitely pins the needle at 10.
Stupid companies view customer service as an expense to be minimized.
Smart companies view it as an opportunity to increase engagement and inspire loyalty.
Dropped Calls (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked dialup internet tech support over a summer (worst job I ever had - AI can have it).
Our performance was evaluated based on call time. So if someone was on a lengthy call, pick up and hang up on the next couple of calls to keep the average length within requirements. So that's why you sit on hold for 30 minutes and just get hung up on.
We also had to ask a computer for permission to use the bathroom. Too many people in the bathroom? Had to hold it.
Re:Dropped Calls (Score:4, Funny)
We also had to ask a computer for permission to use the bathroom.
At first I misread that as "We also had to ask the customer for permission to use the bathroom"
I was like "WTF company requires its agents to ask the customers calling in for permission to use the bathroom???"
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We also had to ask a computer for permission to use the bathroom.
At first I misread that as "We also had to ask the customer for permission to use the bathroom"
I was like "WTF company requires its agents to ask the customers calling in for permission to use the bathroom???"
That actually would be an excellent policy for the consumer. "Need to take a shit? Better help me solve this problem ASAP." Companies would never agree to it because it puts the CSR on the customer's side.
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Call centers want "Customer Frustration" ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Call centers wand "Customer Frustration". The "customer frustration index" in their call accounting reports was used as a metric to determine if they were "overstaffed" or not. All calls getting handled was considered a "bad thing" except for emergency services or revenue generating services related to sales. Bad as in you were spending too much money on staff. IIRC the goal was about 3% of customers getting frustrated and abandoning their calls in the customer service realm.
Re:Call centers want "Customer Frustration" ... (Score:4, Informative)
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agreed! Time to get rid of that moldy non-excuse.
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Time to close the CFPB /s (Score:5, Insightful)
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To bad the republicans decided that protecting consumers is not important and that big beautiful bill will defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Ahh, yes...because it was *top* priority for the Biden administration..or even got a mention on Harris's "four years of JOY!!!11" campaign trail that followed her four years of being VP where she could have attempted to get a subcommittee together in the Senate.
Or because Gavin Newsom or Kathy Hochul or Maura Healey have made it any level of a priority for businesses in their respective deep-blue states.
The Republicans certainly couldn't care less about the issue at all...but let's not pretend that the CFPB
Re: Time to close the CFPB /s (Score:1)
Hurr durr both sides durr hurr
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You do realize that defunding an already underfunded program is objectively worse than not increasing the funding, don't you?
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whataboutwhataboutwhatabout
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While I agree with your sentiments about the CFPB, it's important to understand that they never oversaw call centers or customer service. They were strictly focused on *financial* products like loans.
Well... (Score:1)
DUH
Of course, they don't wanna deal with a less-than-pleased customer (as judged by their script)
Heh Cigna (Score:2)
As a Cigna customer, I can confirm they make a special effort to confound both customers, and medical billing offices to create "friction".
Personally I feel this deserves a class action lawsuit. Unfortunately I get whatever my employer provides, and that's that.
Cigna (Score:1)
Yup. After my first experience with Cigna, I didn't file a second claim worth about $700. Not worth the time and aggravation.
The 90s Symantec on-hold DJ (Score:3)
Back in the 90s when I worked tech support for a technology distributor, often had to call in to companies to get find info about their products. So I was also on hold a lot.
One cool thing Symantec had back then was the "on-hold DJ" (not sure what they officially called it), but basically think of a radio DJ putting on some tunes, and then talking in-between songs about stuff like "How to reach us", "current hold times are....", "Hey did you hear about our new product...", but was all live with a real person (no AI then!), and quite frankly was pretty entertaining (to the point where you didn't mind being on hold that much).
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Ugh, thinking about on-hold music brought back the old BellSouth Business Repair (800-247-2020) hold tune. I don't think I've called that number in 25 years (looks like AT&T still uses it for reporting line trouble)... the fact that I still know the number AND CAN HEAR THE TUNE shows just how much time I spent with it in the late 1990s.
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Cheerfully hanging up on you ... (Score:2)
Happened to me this morning. Sent email transfer, got confirmation number from screen with all details. Email from bank never arrived to destination. Called 1-888-etc. To cancel. Did not fall into their use cases. Me yelling "speak to a human!"
AI: thank you good bye!
Bank tellers? They didn't know anything. Could not help.
Go away. It's your problem.
You can always take them to small claims court (Score:1)
Yup (Score:4, Interesting)
The 2023 National Customer Rage Survey found that the percentage of American consumers seeking revenge for customer service hassles had tripled in three years.
This is consistent with what I've seen on Facebook. For the uninitiated- Facebook long ago decided that seeing what our friends are up to wasn't good enough, so they cram sponsored slop into your feed. Picture the comments section here, it's all /. users posting, right? Well imagine if the powers that be added replies to comments, only they're sponsored. So we're talking about 'Right to Repair', or something like that, and somewhere in the middle there's a post about custom paint jobs for John Deere tractors complete with a link on how to get YOUR tractor custom painted! Obnoxious? Fuck yes. BUT... there is an interesting perk, here- That comment can still be moderated. Even better, anyone can reply to that paid-for thread to tell them to f-off! Never had that ability with banner-ads!!
That's basically what FB is doing. So in my case, for example, I'm still super pissed at T-Mobile for reasons I can share if anyone cares. And since I once searched for T-Mob's Customer Support Facebook's Algo thinks I'm a fan of theirs. Soon T-Mob's sponsored posts started appearing in my feed. Not only can I reply to those sponsored posts, I can click 'like' on them... or even better, click the 'Angry' icon! When one interacts with a sponsored post FB actually shows you MORE of them. And that's where I'm actually seeing people engage in 'revenge for customer service hassles'. When T-Mobile pops up in my feed there are already other people there who have clicked the frowny 'like' and posted about their horror stories with doing business with them. They're trying to alert others to the perils of doing business with them.
One hilarious side-effect of FB's approach to monetization is now T-Mobile is paying to show me specifically their sponsored posts because of my frowny-face engagement. Normally I want an ad-free experience but this one is funny because I've told them I'm never returning as a customer, they're wasting their money! Ha ha!
Not something I expect to last forever, but I am seeing people find creative ways to get back at these companies for screwing them.
My father's advice (Score:2)
He used to say that if you needed to hang up on someone, make sure you do it while YOU are talking. Then they think there was a malfunction.
These guys have automated the art of hanging up on people, and have taken it to the extreme.
When mailing these companies (Score:2)
You might be tempted to mail these company execs something to express your displeasure. Just remember this important phrase if police might question you:
"OOps, my bad, I must have mixed their address up with Cologuard when I was addressing my packages..."
They've been given permission (Score:2)
Can an AI handle my call to these swine? (Score:2)
Re: Can an AI handle my call to these swine? (Score:2)
I'm yelling "human being!" as it cheerfully informed me "I'm hanging up now". Happened to me this morning on a call to a national bank.
It's all by design (Score:2)
Customer service is rarely domestically located. It always seems to be staffed by people who are culturally accustomed to pretending that they don't understand you so you'll go away in frustration. Furthermore, the phone systems waste time telling you that FAQs can be found on their website. Well, smack my ass and call me Judy, I would NEVER have thought to look on their fucking website! And, no, I don't want a callback because that just means YOU get to decide when it's convenient for YOU to not answer
Not the only reason (Score:2)