The coffee grinder you ordered arrives broken, which is bad enough, but when you realize you’ll have to contact customer service, things get much worse. Ten digits later, you’re on hold listening to a never-ending loop of some Kenny G. imitator’s latest single.
With every minute that passes, an automated message assures you that your call is important, and with every minute you trust its sincerity less and less. By the time someone picks up the phone, it’s like you’ve never heard someone’s voice before. It takes you a second to remember how to speak, and why you even called in the first place. Right, the coffee grinder… it arrived broken. You want them to replace it, give you a refund, or something. Mostly you just want to be able to grind coffee.
No help. They tell you it isn’t their problem, and you’ll need to contact the manufacturer. The process starts all over again with different hold music. This time, it ends with the manufacturer telling you to contact the retailer.
You contact the retailer again, and by some miracle you’re connected with the most helpful customer service representative in the world. She listens to your problem and outlines everything she’s going to do to fix it. Then your phone dies, and you’re disconnected.
You call again, but no one remembers you.
“I was just talking to someone… she said her name was Cathy? I want to be reconnected to her.”
“Sorry, no one by that name works here, and we have no way of knowing who you were speaking to. Have you tried contacting the manufacturer?”
You’re pretty sure her name was Cathy. Katie, maybe? Where did she go? Was she ever really there in the first place? What if she’s just some psychological manifestation of everything your customer service experience has been lacking? The hold music must be playing tricks on you.
You hang up the phone, and decide to switch to tea.
Find Cathy at TUCON 2012. Hear how TIBCO is helping companies improve their customer experience and put an end to hold music hypnosis.
