In defense of customer service
and pressing 0 until our thumbs fall off
A few weeks ago I did the thing where I called out a brand on social media to get their attention for more immediate service. To be fair, I did try actually calling first and couldn’t get through to a human. So I turned to Twitter.
Did it get their attention? Yeah.
Did the issue get worked out? Yeah.
Has this reinforced that the best way to get service is public shame? TBD.
For one thing, I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one of these messages. I spent years working at a small business where I answered all such vindictive tweets and a large share of the support emails. From experience, the positive interactions are few and far between and the critical replies can get nasty.
If you don’t answer them, they just get louder, because at our core, we really just want to be heard. When we’ve been wronged, we want to let the perpetrator know that they’ve hurt us. When our insurance companies or our cell phone providers do something borderline criminal we are prepared to make a citizen’s arrest. Yes, we want our money back, but we really want to vent. And when a reasonable request is denied, that makes us want to scream.
Unfortunately, the people on the other end really don’t get paid enough to play goalie here. They’re not setting the policies or charging the credit cards. They’re not cancelling flights or denying the claim. They’re probably just trying to pay rent and have enough left over for a few High Lifes at the end of the day.
When I’m on the phone with a customer service representative, I always remember how I felt being the punching bag for someone else’s (or likely no one’s) mistake. It wasn’t a fair fight because customers who’d been conditioned to bad service felt like they had to come in aggressively just to get the bare minimum. I had the backing of my colleagues to do what I needed to deescalate and preserve some mental health, but not everyone has those tools available to them.
I’ve since deleted the original tweet because once I was able to get through, the service was above average. This probably won’t be my last public poke, though, because while phone calls might go unanswered, public comments get attention, and we all just want to be heard. Let’s just try to keep our voices down once someone actually starts to listen.