Does this seem familiar?
You have a confounding problem with a service you’re using. You find the support or contact page on the provider’s site, and fill out the message form with details of your problem. Then you receive a message that looks something like this:
SUBJECT: [NHSUPPORT #APS-745420]
We are not currently experiencing any problems that would cause the symptoms you describe. Are you behind a firewall? If so, try disabling the firewall and see if this resolves the issue. You may also want to try changing to ports 7000, 8000, or 9000.Thank you,
Customer SupportTicket Details
===================
Ticket ID: APS-745420
Department: Support
Priority: High
Status: Closed
Fascinating, isn’t it? The ticket has been “closed” even though as far as they know you’re still in distress, just as confused as ever. Customer support can’t wait to wash their hands of you.
In the world of the trouble ticket we customers are not encouraged to have a relationship with the company’s we do business with. We do not exist until we have a problem, and then the job of customer support is to make the problem (i.e. us) disappear. For these few moments of visibility we are a number to be struck from a list.
Meanwhile, the support team is measuring its success by how many and how fast tickets are cut off at the pass. It’s a system that views customer interactions as a cost to be minimized. As brutally efficient as a machine.
It’s as the authoritarian Number 2 says in the 60’s cult classic The Prisoner: “By the time we’ve finished with him, he won’t know whether he’s Number Six or the cube root of infinity.”
All posts
2 Comments
Valid email address required for posting
Nice Prisoner reference. Great show. One of my favorites (next to Speed Racer, that is). I might have to dig out the DVD set today…
I have finally caved in. I never thought I’d say this but I’m now willing to pay extra for good customer service!
The worst is when my “service” is a product of two companies. For example, connecting a router to my DSL or, as has just happened, when the company we bought our new washer and dryer from refuses to take responsibility for the bad service we got from their subcontractor who installed the machines. It’s bad enough when one company sends you a cryptic email as you showed but when they pawn off shoddy customer service by telling you it’s the “other guy’s” responsibility, that’s when I feel less like The Prisoner and more like I’ve fallen into a black hole.