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I worked at a large-ish tech company for a while. I would frequently hang out with customer support people, and honestly stuff like this would come in from time

I worked at a large-ish tech company for a while. I would frequently hang out with customer support people, and honestly stuff like this would come in from time to time. You have to remember the whole world operates on systems such as slack. That customer service person can ask 10 people in a matter of minutes on how to deal with this situation. Ignorance is no longer a tolerable excuse. If something comes in and it sounds like it might be meant for the legal team, then you should probably ping the legal team.

jjeaff 9y ago
Only the newer companies (probably Netflix) have customer service that can actually ask anyone anything. Most big companies seem to have completely clueless or extremely siloed support. Probably because they have outsourced it.
- bri3d 9y ago
  The scripts they send to these silos and outsourcing companies should have a clearly defined "go to Legal" path, though. Even if it takes a "let me take down your contact info and send it to someone else." In my experience bigger corporations are better at this because they've been through it and have a good legal department of their own.
MechanicalTwerk 9y ago
> You have to remember the whole world operates on systems such as slack. Um, really?
- viraptor 9y ago
  Not slack specifically, but slack, hipchat, lynx, skype, jabber, or whatever flavour of text your corp office prefers. Email may still be the only way at higher levels, but for people who actually need to do stuff quickly, there's often going to be done chat system available.
sithadmin 9y ago
> If something comes in and it sounds like it might be meant for the legal team, then you should probably ping the legal team. You're vastly overestimating the competence and domain knowledge of the average customer service representative.
sgustard 9y ago
It's clear from the exchange that the CS rep wasn't a native English speaker, and I'd guess they're an outsourced contractor, certainly not in regular contact with actual employees. The entire goal of that department is to avoid bothering productive workers with trivial questions. The only interface to the rest of the company available to a CS rep is to file a ticket which will go into a deep triage pool.
- nothrabannosir 9y ago
  That’s sounds like a Netflix problem. They get the “benefits” of cheap labour; they’ll have to pay the price of bad pr.

jjeaff 9y ago

Only the newer companies (probably Netflix) have customer service that can actually ask anyone anything. Most big companies seem to have completely clueless or extremely siloed support. Probably because they have outsourced it.

bri3d 9y ago
The scripts they send to these silos and outsourcing companies should have a clearly defined "go to Legal" path, though. Even if it takes a "let me take down your contact info and send it to someone else." In my experience bigger corporations are better at this because they've been through it and have a good legal department of their own.

MechanicalTwerk 9y ago

> You have to remember the whole world operates on systems such as slack. Um, really?

viraptor 9y ago
Not slack specifically, but slack, hipchat, lynx, skype, jabber, or whatever flavour of text your corp office prefers. Email may still be the only way at higher levels, but for people who actually need to do stuff quickly, there's often going to be done chat system available.

sithadmin 9y ago

> If something comes in and it sounds like it might be meant for the legal team, then you should probably ping the legal team. You're vastly overestimating the competence and domain knowledge of the average customer service representative.

sgustard 9y ago

It's clear from the exchange that the CS rep wasn't a native English speaker, and I'd guess they're an outsourced contractor, certainly not in regular contact with actual employees. The entire goal of that department is to avoid bothering productive workers with trivial questions. The only interface to the rest of the company available to a CS rep is to file a ticket which will go into a deep triage pool.

nothrabannosir 9y ago
That’s sounds like a Netflix problem. They get the “benefits” of cheap labour; they’ll have to pay the price of bad pr.