Is there anything else I can help you with Sir?
10 words guaranteed to drive me insane. You’d think it was a good thing. You’d think it was customer service. At least somebody does. Somebody who doesn’t work in a call centre and who gets paid a lot more money than the poor TNT rep I just yelled at.
The short of the backstory is this. I ordered two copies of OS X Leopard. Was meant to be delivered on the 25th, then the 26th and then 29th. It wasn’t. Eventually I do some digging and call TNT. Apparently it was recalled to the depot and has been sitting there waiting for Apple to tell them to redeliver this. ASFAICT the only way Apple would do this would be when I phone to complain that my item had not arrived.
I short circuited this and phone the shipper directly. Have a whole rant where I establish, that they were waiting for Apple or some divine force to tell them when to deliver my goods. So I get delivery sorted for tomorrow after getting quite annoyed and being told several times they can’t delivery it today no matter how much it’s not my fault.
So I’m like “Fine deliver it tomorrow”, and I hear the dreaded 10 words.
I know they have script they work from. I know this is how they work.
I’ve even got into infinite loops with the reps where I see how long I can push this
Me: Can you deliver this tomorrow?
Rep: No
Rep: Is there anything else I can help you with Sir?
Me: Well, can you deliver this tomorrow? Rep: No
Me: Well then I think not.
Rep: Is there anything else I can help you with Sir?
Me: Well, can you deliver this tomorrow?
Rep: No
Me: Well then I think not.
etc etc etc etc
Someone in call centres but realise that it’s insane pissing off annoyed customers. This line of the script which I presume they are forced to ask is just pointless.
Which probably indicative of the biggest problem with call centres (IMHO), is that the people on the phone have very little power to make decisions or take actions that help customers, and the people that make decisions and set policy never work in the friking call centre are are too distant from annoyed customers. So call centres land up with people that are basically human webpages (basic forms and direction) and not really customer service reps at all.
At least web pages don’t ask me if their is anything else they can do. And if they did I would close them. Close them right down.
1. Simon
Funny that, Apple apparently did exactly the same with their deliveries in the states…putting them on hold for no particular reason at all.
I’ll be installing Leopard when I get home tonight…..just on the offchance that you haven’t heard, but you may want to check you don’t have any of the Unsanity APE stuff on your system if you’re planning an Upgrade as opposed to Archive & Install or a Clean Install.
2. Adrian
I suspect the delivery companies tried to deliver them too soon.
I have had Unsanity APE crap on my machine but I have cleared it off. I’ll risk a upgrade as an Archive and Install will take too long to set up all my apps.
If it goes wrong I’ll blame Matt who sent me some dock crap to run once which used APE.
3. Simon
I had some of that on too, took it off and risked the upgrade and all went well.
4. Matt
Oh that’s right, blame me again. It’s always my fault.
Just out of interest, why exactly did you order two copies of Leopard?
5. Adrian
Well I need someone to blame.
One copy for me. One copy for Emma who works for me.
6. Matt
Erm… Like, would you not have gotten away with ordering one of those “family packs” with 5 licences?
Oh and if you hear me twittering or blogging or whatever about getting Leopard (I’ll get round to it eventually) make sure you remind me to remove that thing wot does make my dock look nice.
7. Adrian
Family pack … is called family pack because it’s not for business use. All computers have to be in the same house. In a home.
Remove the dock thing. Faux 3d is bad. Haven’t you been reading anything. You know you’re going to hose your system.
8. Matt
It wasn’t faux 3D, it was a transparency effect, and makes the dock look a million times better. Same way as I’ll be hacking the dock to remove the godawful reflections etc. as soon as I get Leopard.
And even though it’s called a family pack, it’ll still work. You both work in the same office, and like, an office is kinda sorta a house. Or something.
9. Adrian
Buying one copy will also work. It’s a legal license not a software MS style block.
Both are equally illegal.
10. Calista
Not pleasant. Sorry you had a crummy customer service experience. When I was a customer service rep (a short two weeks ago), we were trained to call UPS (or whomever was delivering the goods), tell them to deliver it asap, and eat the cost. Happy happy customers result.
11. Calista
Oh…and we are not required to say those 10 patronizing words and we don’t have much of a script.
12. The B
Oh my god even worse, the ones who ONCE they’ve asked you if there is anything else they can do have to go through their sign off: something like “great talking to you have a nice day with all best wishes from everyone here at this crummy company and many thanks from me personally for this delightful conversation” but about 10 times longer. And you’re pissed off with them, you’re done with the conversation, and just want to hang up, but have to PAY to listen to them say goodbye for 3 hours. And feel that it would be RUDE to hang up. What do we need manners, for, really.
13. Jack Pandemian
Why yes, yes there is. You can tell me why the top search term for my site over the past week has been “sevitz strip men naked”.
14. Adrian
Hey how did you know?