Disembarqing

We decided to change our phone provider after a few months of hit-or-miss service, unwieldy do-it-yourself website issues and general dissatisfaction with what is called "phone service." We were with Embarq, a relative newcomer to the scene whose products are priced right, if all you want is a phone that rings and allows you to take calls if you happen to be at home. If you want your voicemail indicator to function properly, if you want the additional service you paid for to block certain harassing calls to work, or if you want your voicemail messages to play in their entirety, because you find messages like "Heeeeeeeeeeey Da" to be insufficient, apparently there are hoops you must jump through. Well, I am tired of jumping, and I have made the choice to, well, disEmbarq.

Four hours later, I have been on the phone non-stop with two different phone providers (the old and the new) and I have had the distinct pleasure of being told what *I* should have done to make sure the basic services we pay for each month were working properly, been made to wait on hold multiple times, have talked to different people in 5 different departments because the ones I got were "not trained in" what was I was asking (and apparently weren't trained to know who HAD been trained to answer my question). All I was asking is how much I have to pay them to convince them to let me get my "service" elsewhere. I also had the gall to suggest that a website that purports to make my life easier by making me navigate through about 20 different menus to get to basic information could, perhaps, benefit from an encounter with intelligent design.

I know... this is the way of telecommunications. This is what *always* happens. It's also the way of business in general, these days.

Trying to set up new service was nearly as interesting as being scolded for not having fulfilled my obligations as a customer with the old provider -- that is, my obligation to spend an hour or a week with the "help desk." I also got sent to another department when I discovered that the unbundled service price was actually less than the bundled price for the same services. Pardon my cynicism, but I think a certain cable company which shall remain unnamed outsmarted itself.

(Abridged version)
Me: Hi, I am looking at your "plus" family plan including 1400 anytime minutes and premium multimedia services for $119.99 for two lines. I'm also seeing your voice-only plan with 1400 anytime minutes for $89.99 for two lines to which I can add your premium multimedia services for $25/month. Anyway, since the site does not specify, I would like to make sure that the $25 is a single fee per account, and not per line.
Rep: Yes, that's right. It's per account.
Me: Hmmm. Then can you tell me what the difference is between the premium multimedia bundled with the plus plan and the premium multimedia that can be added to the voice plan?
Rep: Let me look. [dramatic pause] Well, the premium multimedia plan that is added to voice doesn't include music service.
Me: Well, I am looking at your site again, and I see that the $25 additional media plan includes "premium music".
Rep: Oh, well, yes. It includes "premium music, it just doesn't include regular music."
Me: But it seems to me that premium music is actually the better service.
Rep: [reads from a chart] "regular music features 10 channels..."
Me: Right, and "premium music " features 40 channels.
Rep: [pause]
Me: Well, anyway, the reason why this confuses me is that the bundled price is actually $5 more per month. I just want to make sure that if I order voice with the added package I won't be charged for two lines.
Rep: Well, we always offer bundled services to customers for cost savings...
Me: More to the point, you always offer *lower* prices on bundled services that encourage people to pay more than they really need to because they are paying a "lower" bundled price for services they don't need.
Rep: [giggles nervously]
Me: The only problem is that you are actually charging *more* for the bundled services and offering the same services for less if people order them separately.
Rep: I think maybe you are the first person to notice that.

Maybe so.

I am reminded of a passage from Lynn Truss's book, "Talk to the Hand" in which she bemoans the fact that modern customer "service" is anything but! She starts by likening manners to good writing, an analogy I appreciate better than most:

The writer who neglects spelling and punctuation is quite arrogantly dumping a lot of avoidable work onto the reader, who deserves to be treated with more respect. I remember, some years ago, working alongside a woman who would wearily scribble phone messages on a pad, and then claim afterwards not to be able to read her own handwriting. "What does that say?" she would ask, rather unreasonably, pushing the pad at me. She was quite serious: it wasn't a joke. I would peer at the spidery scrawl, making out occasional words. "Oh, you're a big help," she would say, finally chucking the whole thing at me. "I'm going out for a smoke." This was an unacceptable transfer of effort, in my opinion. I spotted this at the time, and have continued to spot it. In my opinion, there is a lot of it about.

Just as the rise of the internet sealed the doom of grammar, so modern communications technology contributes to the end of manners. Wherever you turn for help, you find yourself on your own.Say you phone a company to ask a question and are blocked by that Effing automatic switchboard. What happens? Well, suddenly you have quite a lot of work to do. There is an unacceptable transfer of effort. In the past, you would tell an operator, "I'm calling because you sent my bill to the wrong address three times", and the operator, who (and this is significant) worked for this company, would attempt to put you through to the right person. In the age of the automated switchboard, however, we are all co-opted employees of ever single company we come into contact with. "Why am I the one doing this?" we ask ourselves. twenty times a day. It is the general wail of modern life, and it can only get worse. "Why not try our self-check service?" they say, brightly. "Have you ever considered on-line banking?" "Ever fancied doing your own dental work?" "DIY funerals: the modern way."

People who object to automated switchboards are generally dismissed as grumpy old technophobes, of course. But to me it seems plain that modern customer relations are just rude, because switchboards manifestly don't attempt to meet you half-way. Manners are about imagination, ultimately. They are about imagining being the other person. These systems force us to navigate ourselves into channels that are plainly for someone else's convenience, not ours. And they then have the nerve, incidentally, to dress this up as a kind of consumer freedom. "Now you can do all this yourself!" is the message. "Take the reins. Run the show. Enjoy the shallow illusion of choice and autonomy. And, by the way, don't bother trying to by-pass this system, buddy, because it's a hell of a lot smarter than you are."

This "do-it-yourself" tactic occurs so frequently, in all parts of life, that it has become unremarkable. In all our encounters with businesses and shops, we now half expect to be treated not as customers, but as system trainees who haven't quite got the hang of it yet. "We can't deal with your complaint today because Sharon only comes in on Tuesdays," they say. "Right-oh," you say. "I'll remember that for next time." In a large store, you will be trained in departmental demarcations, so that if you are buying a towel, you have to queue at a different counter - although there is no way you could discover this without queuing at the wrong counter first. Nothing is designed to put the customer's requirements above those of the shop. The other day, in a chemist's on Tottenham Court Road, the pharmacist accidentally short-changed me by 1 pound, and then, with sincere apologies, said I would have to wait until he served his next customer (whenever that might be), because he didn't have a password for the till. While we were discussing the likelihood of another customer ever happening along, another till was opened, a few yards away. I asked if he could get me my change from the other till, and he said, with a look of panic, Öh no, it has to come from this one."Now this is not some callow, under-educated youth. This was a trained pharmacist; a chap with a brain. I suggested that he could repay the other till later - and it was as though I had explained the theory of relativity. He was actually excited by such a clever solution, which would never have occurred to him. Lateral thinking on behalf of the customer's convenience simply wasn't part of his job.

Lynn Truss may be my new hero... even if I happen to disagree about the usefulness of online banking, at least. What happened to service? I hope the next time someone navigates to my extension through my own company's automated switchboard, that I can keep this all in mind. I'm not in customer service, thankfully, but the people I encounter are, in fact, people, deserving of more respect than they get. I should know, I am one of them.

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