when it comes to customer service in the us what’s the first thing that comes to mind?

41 comments

1. Calling and being transferred and having to explain your situation again and again and again

2. Indian call centers

3. Hell is other people

4. Just the tip.

5. People that look like they’re 13 years old calling me “Sir”.

6. Pain

7. Mostly off-shored if it’s large scale. Which is a shame because the only time I’m ever making voice to voice contact with AT&T, it’s because there’s a problem

8. Indian Call Centers where I can’t properly understand some of the people with thicker accents.

9. REPRESENTATIVE

10. Being put on hold for 15 minutes to get someone else who still doesn’t have the answer.

11. Lots of smiling

12. asshole customers

13. Being put on hold.

14. Waiting on hold for 30 minutes, only to reach a non-tech-savvy Indian customer service rep named Walter. Then having to waste more time waiting for him to go through his script, all the while being told not to worry and that he apologized for the inconvenience.

15. Getting put on hold only to get get transferred to someone who will also put you on hold before transferring you to someone else.

    Also guys named Ranjeesh who are *so desperate* to convince you that their name is actually Robert that I’m kinda worried they’ll get beaten if either of you breaks the facade.

16. Indian people pretending to have American names.

17. Outsourcing and someone who is clearly Indian or Asian doing their damndest to hide their dialect.

18. Honestly, annoying and pestering. Don’t miss it one bit.

19. Some wild Karen getting up in my face because she’s upset she can’t use her expired coupon from a store that isn’t even ours.

20. A deep, twisting mine – downward sloping, byzantine passages – as if a labyrinth carved by greedy dwarves, thousands of feet beneath a lonely mountain.

    This is what you must traverse in order to pass between the gnashing jaws of the automated robosystem and reach a live human.

    Fully nine thousand seven hundred and thirty three of the ten thousand different dial-tone options end in an automated response about checking the website, and then you are automatically disconnected and must begin the maze anew.

    If you somehow reach one of the rare exits from these twisting, stone intestines, you will come face to face with a minotaur guardian:

    A man named “Jason,” who mysteriously speaks only broken English in an indecipherably thick accent. As people shout angrily in Hindi in the background, he will demand you answer his riddles, or else be ejected back to the very start of the labyrinth.

    Nobody knows what happens if you successfully guess what “the needful” is, for none have passed further than this point.

21. Friendly, smiling, even bordering on obsequious sometimes. Efficient, polite, and did I mention friendly and smiling?

    I’ve been to a bunch of places and customer service was non-existent in many of them. The ex Soviet countries don’t seem to understand that the customer is important to the continuation of the business.

22. “No problem” says the underpaid, unengaged, indifferent person helping me.

23. As an American call center representative. “I want your supervisor”

24. India!

25. Your call is important to us.

26. Fakeness

27. I’ll go counter to most comments here and say to me it means the customer is always right. I think until you travel outside the US a lot, it’s hard to appreciate how consumer focused US business culture is. Sometimes to the point that it gets out of whack.

    I’ve been in countries where the business side of things has ZERO fucks to give about the customer. Cause there isn’t much competition, there ain’t nobody to complain to, and nobody cares. Coming back to the US where there is an almost manic focus on the customer is nice as a consumer, but feels a bit weird.

28. Fries with that?

29. Automated menu trees that try desperately to never get you to an actual person usually ending with “check out our website” or if you are lucky “leave a message.”

30. Chick-fil-A

31. Excessive

32. Indian call centers.

33. Other countries taking the.call

34. “The customer’s always right” mentality – used to drive me insane as a lowly cashier.

35. Calling, listening to a 20 minute “press 1 for f@cking off,” “press 2 for a delay,” “press 3 to hold and listen for more options.” “You pressed 1, is that correct?” “Ok, for f*cking off with …”

    Last time I called my US bank, it took me 10 minutes to navigate the menu, to be put on hold for 15 minutes, to get to talk to a human, who transferred me to someone else, after a 5 minute delay I got to talk to someone else, who then transferred me…

    Holy F@@@.

36. That a few companies do it right. LEGO (not an American company but has a presence in the US) has incredible customer service.

37. People yelling at me for situations beyond my control, or worse, for situations within my control that they don’t like (Why do you let homeless people into the library???? Well ma’am, that would be because they’re customers too. This is a public service. They’re members of the public.). Being asked eighty million times if I’m finding everything okay when I’m already overwhelmed just by being in a store. Smiling and smiling and smiling and *smiling*…. Thank you come again!!!!!

38. That damn hold music.

39. Never. Again.

40. Chase & Amazon has best.

41. Indians named “Betty”