IT’S DEFINITELY NOT WHAT YOUR GRANDPA KNEW AS CUSTOMER SERVICE
(…click…main menu…for this press 1…for that…press 2…for…)

In today’s automated digital world – customer service – is hardly that at all. Instead, it has simply become an oxymoronic euphemism for being an elaborate answering system… and not much else.

Nevertheless, and for purely PR purposes to maintain the illusion that someone at the firm you are calling really cares about what your problem might be, the first response to your call is usually a female smiley-voice giving you polite instructions with the firmness of a patient nanny trying to shepherd a five-year old…to go in the right direction.

It’s definitely not what your grandpa knew as – customer service -. What you get today is…click…main menu…for this…press 1…for that…press 2…etc., and more often than not you will also hear that same smiley-voice intone…to speak with a representative…press 0…only to find that this option usually has that smiley-voice then saying…all our representatives are currently helping other callers…your call is important to us…so please hold…and someone will be with you shortly…, this is then repeated at regular intervals in between patches of inane sounds passed off as “music”. All of that to keep you in a bovine cud-chewing passive acceptance of the fact that ten minutes have gone by and you have yet to speak with an actual human who, possibly, could provide you with some sort of…service.

Then there are some enterprises, especially those which prefer to continue pretending that they’re still people-oriented organizations who eschew such automated, robotic, interactive systems…by establishing – Call Centers – in some far-off lands where real people can be hired for peanuts to answer your calls. Of course this usually means that their version of your native language is unintelligible, so, if you don’t happen to have an interpreter handy, the happy fact that you’re communicating with an actual person becomes totally… irrelevant… leaving you frothing at the mouth in frustration and yelling back at them… goodness gracious me…I was just calling to get an increment… but all I’m getting is…an excrement…indubitably!

Well, if you love today’s automated world…just wait until you have tomorrow’s! (click)

CENTURION