Playing Telephone Isn’t So Much Fun Anymore.

Have you ever had to deal with the Phone/Internet/Cable company(I think you know who I mean), and had to sit on the phone for hours at a time only to either get transferred, or even worse, hung up on like I was the other day? Well, after I was hung up on after waiting for an hour and a half of trying to get answers I started to wonder, what the heck happened to the efficient and friendly(although not always)phone company that we used to know?

Have some American industries, like the Telecom industry, become ‘too big for their britches’, have they lost sight of what their bread and butter is, the American consumer, and gotten too caught up in the competition of corporate capitalism? It would appear so.

10 years ago when you would call for assistance with a problem with one of the major American industries(telecom, insurance, big-pharma)you would wait perhaps 10 or 15 minutes for someone(anyone)to answer the phone and provide you with the assistance you needed…..today, it can take a half hour, an hour, an hour and a half, even two hours to get on the phone with someone who will have to transfer you to someone else. This is because customer has been taken out of customer service these days.

However, I want you to notice something…..something I have noticed more and more lately. Whenever you contact, say, Technical Support(a department that is utilized to keep your services RUNNING)or Billing(a department that is involved in TAKING YOUR MONEY)as opposed to Customer Service, which often takes FOREVER to get through to, and when you do they very often will either have to transfer you or wont have the answers for you immediately. It’s all a matter of priority!

As I said earlier, when I got through to Customer Service and started asking real valid questions of the young lady(who shall remain nameless)I eventually was hung up on. Why is that? It is very often out of fear, not rudeness, the fear of not being able to answer a question that has been put to him or her, the fear of not being able to perform. These are deeply ingrained in our psyche, no one wants to fail at anything; with friends, with family, in relationships, and especially at work!

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