Customer Service

Friday night I sat in my apartment for three hours, from 6-9 p.m., waiting for the buzzer fixer people to arrive. The buzzer fixer people who swore to me they would have the buzzer fixed in the beginning of August, when I moved in. Then, after much back and forth over the last couple of months I had finally landed an actual time to have them come. They wanted to come earlier, but I pointed out that I actually work 9-5 and can't take off three hours to sit in my apartment waiting for them.

So they suggested Friday night. Friday morning, even, I was suspicious of any technician that wanted to work on a Friday evening. It also meant dinner was going to be super late for me, and that my boyfriend would be forced to entertain me while I waited. We tried to make use of the time, watching Jeopardy, doing laundry. But I kept looking at the clock and noticing, as the hours passed, that they were not there. At 9:30 p.m. Friday night, religiously checking my cell phone every 30 seconds and noticing no missed calls, Boyfriend and I called it quits for the tech people and went out.

Maybe you're wondering why I didn't call them, demanding to know where they were? I'll answer that, because that's exactly what I wanted to do an hour into my wait. THEY DIDN"T GIVE ME THEIR PHONE NUMBER. And thinking about it, I've realized that's a fairly common occurrence in the Customer Service world these days. I get random, vague first names, if any names at all. Most of the time I've noticed it's a robot, saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand your selection." eighteen times before finally giving up on translating my southeastern accent and passing me over to an actual person. A lot of people say they wouldn't want to work in customer service because often the people are angry. My thing is we're angry because we just got through dealing with a robot for twenty five minutes, for a question that takes about twenty-five seconds to answer. Wouldn't it be easier if there were just real people hired to pick up the phone the minute it rings?

This morning I called my management company to complain and they took it to the mysterious buzzer people. What I like about my management company, is that while a robot answers the phone, all you have to do is press 0 to get transferred to a living, breathing person. And trust me, I use this all the time. 0 and boom I'm arguing with what sounds to be an elementary school student. But it's better than the robot. and much better than the no phone number, no last name policy of the mysterious buzzer people. They're supposed to be coming tomorrow, and I'm having to take a two hour (our compromised) lunch break in order to sit and wait. We'll see what kind of customer service comes about.