Posts

Showing posts from February, 2010

On Not Quite Official Holidays

These are days that are treated as a Holiday even though you won't get a day off work. Super Bowl Sunday; Valentine's Day; St. Patrick's Day; Groundhog Day; Halloween; Elvis Presley's Birthday. Still waiting for Obama or Congress to come up with a Holiday in August. Maybe a National Peace Day.

Real Customer Service Is Dead

The days of being helped with a single phone call are long gone. Companies nowadays are too big and have too many departments to help the average caller. First of all, the turnover rate is high in this job sector. You could be talking to someone who is just out of training and who knows if they are in the USA or overseas. When a rep puts you on hold for no apparent reason they most likely are asking someone for help. There is also too much pressure on agents or reps to "fix" the reason for the call right away. They are being checked for everything from time of call, what they say, (following scripts of course) and over a dozen different numbers regarding the length of the call. In other words they are treated as a number by the organization. A robot, droid or a voice on a machine. I remember being at Webvan in 2000 when they felt they would need maybe a dozen or so agents to staff the CS Center and that people would find answers online or through the IVR menu. Well....they h

On Super Bowl Week

Super Bowl week is the NFL at it's best (plugging a great match up) and it's worst (the flap over the Who Dat phrase). Did they put a ownership claim on the 'Aints or the paper bags? Or Johnny U ??