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The strength of a monopoly can be guessed at by calling customer support

330 points by arbuge 8y ago

gameguy43 8y ago
Totally different experience with the IRS. My one phone call with them was an excellent experience. I got someone much much more knowledgeable than me who quickly and clearly walked me through what I needed. My colleague has had a similar experience.
- tomohawk 8y ago
  Had a family member who was audited by the IRS every year for years. Each time IRS received a tax lesson. Only stopped when family member got US Representative and both Senators to lean on the IRS.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    It's funny how supposedly "random" computer systems can somehow target an individual. I had an issue with a sheriff's deputy pulling my wife over on her way home from work twice a week for a month. Same deputy each time, and unfortunately my wife couldn't take another route. The deputy would only say she looked suspicious and then ask her personal questions. I mentioned it to my boss, who was formerly an important person in the region, and he made a phone call. My wife never saw the deputy again. In what I can only assume was retaliation, I suddenly got called for jury duty. Every other week. After the sixth notice, I mentioned it to my boss. He made a phone call, and put me on a list of people who should never be pulled for jury duty (for celebrities, etc...) in that county. We moved to another state a few months later. Computers sometimes seem to make the system easier to corrupt, rather than keep it from being corrupt.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  As an Australian my experience of the IRS has thankfully been limited (not as limited as it should be), but each time I have had the misfortune of calling them they have just read out in a monotone the text on their websites word for word. Maybe my experience is because I am not a US tax payer, but it certainly wasn't helpful.
estro 8y ago
Could this assessment be extended to "companies can be guessed to be large by calling customer support"? I can think of few examples of large companies, monopolies or not, having good phone customer support; many large companies outsource their call centers, which could contribute. This method of assessing "monopolies" will give many false positives if the answer to my question is yes.
mathattack 8y ago
This is why SaaS companies created Customer Success. They need to win your business year over year. Once they realize you can’t switch, the audits and price hikes begin, and the support ends.
stcredzero 8y ago
Does this explain the DMV? The DA's office has a government monopoly as well. I'm also reminded of what it was like to hire a taxi in the days before Uber and Lyft.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  The DMV is also an expense center which is visited infrequently. There is little pressure to make it a campaign issue to run on. While a pain in the ass it isn't a pressing issue unless an area is completely un(der)served.
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    Indiana did such a thing, though. These things actually make folks hate goverment a bit less, I think. https://www.sagamoreinstitute.org/case-study-in-culture-change-how-reforming-the-bureau-of-motor-vehicles-can-change-a-state https://www.sagamoreinstitute.org/case-study-in-culture-chan...
CobrastanJorji 8y ago
I saw harvard.edu and was optimistic that this was going to be a real study. Instead it was just "haha, IRS support sucks, monopolies are bad." I've called the IRS support line multiple times for fairly non-trivial problems and had nothing but good experiences.
- stephenhuey 8y ago
  Without fail it was a minimum of one hour of wait time every time I called which isn’t good for me. How about you?
  - ghouse 8y ago
    I've got some sympathy for the IRS (in this limited case) -- their budget is cut by small-government crusaders, thus reducing service, angering taxpayers and thus aligning public sentiment against the IRS. Same political ideology also works to make the tax code more complicated, also achieving the same objective. But then they're prevented from simplifying - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383
    - hueving 8y ago
      Large government ideology doesn't help the tax code either. Complex tax codes are a result of special tax breaks for any purpose.
      - rtkwe 8y ago
        Poor service though is more about lack of resources than the complexity of the tax code.
    - United857 8y ago
      It's not so much the fault of those who want small government, but actually the likes of Intuit, etc. lobbying against tax code simplification so they can protect their business models: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...
gesman 8y ago
Today’s fast way to reach customer support is to make a post on Twitter
- muzani 8y ago
  Social media support might be a better option. I see a lot of monopolies blatantly ignore masses of complaints on their Facebook page. I can't imagine anything worse for PR. Post a "Happy New Year" picture and have 20 people mob that post complaining about terrible service and how they're unable to reach customer service.
Angostura 8y ago
The odd thing is, call the Inland Revenue helpline in the UK about your tax and I've always found them extraordinarily helpful.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Most of my interaction with HMRC is online now, this is far more effective for both sides.
basicplus2 8y ago
Sometimes the best approach is to do everything by registered mail, with a return confirmation. You keep copies of everything included in each mailing, that way if it reaches court you hand everything over and your documentation does the talking. I have found as soon as i take this approach it gets sorted straight away and is never a problem as they realise that they dont have a leg to stand on. In another case a business always had their used cheques returned to them once processed by the bank. When the tax office repeatedly stated a payment had not been made.. their accountant said over the phone to the tax office "thats funny because i am holding their processed check returned to them with the tax offices recieved stamp on it.." it was then magically immediately fixed. I think its because of people not wanting to do their job within their department so they handball it when ever possible, on the smallest excuse.
- oldgradstudent 8y ago
  I've been once told about how mail was handled by a certain Israeli government office. The mail was sorted into two piles, registered and unregistered. The unregistered was thrown in the trash. Always use registered mail.
Nasrudith 8y ago
Is that a very good heuristic? Some markets aren't supported in the first place either because of assumptions of knowledge (including being too simple to mess up) or commoditized enough that it is negligible.
mproud 8y ago
What counts as a monopoly? What about calling Apple?
- bitxbit 8y ago
  DoJ has a good review. https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...
- tomrod 8y ago
  Depends on how you define a market.
shmerl 8y ago
Indeed. Monopoly doesn't care about quality and support. Its users have no choice.
paulmendoza 8y ago
I had to call the IRS recently and had a pretty good experience. The lady was super helpful and provided me with some resources I didn’t know about before.
- autotune 8y ago
  Last time I called a week ago I was on hold for 2 hours before finally giving up.
- hueving 8y ago
  How long did you wait on hold? Was it before the recent filing deadline?
- Naga 8y ago
  This doesn't transfer to Canada. Calling the CRA is a chore. The agents are ill trained and often give incorrect information. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cra-blocks-calls-often-gives-taxpayers-wrong-information-auditor-says/article37036667/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cra-blocks-cal...
  - dude01 8y ago
    I've had good experience calling the business-side part of CRA, though I think they're small enough that they're a different beast from the department that has to handle all generic questions/complaints from consumers.
bitxbit 8y ago
Amazon’s customer service is still very good to excellent especially considering the volume they handle and the loss they take on return frauds. It’s still no Costco or Nordstrom but Amazon is the gold standard for online retail experience.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  In the last year Amazon stopped price matching themselves (used to be within the last 30 days). Now even if the item is still in the mail they require you to ship it back at your cost and re-order at the lower price. They've also modified their Wish List/Gift List to remove the "Buying this elsewhere" button. Now you have to purchase from Amazon.com or ruin the surprise if using a friend's Wish List. This isn't reflected in Amazon's help site[0] and their customer service spent three weeks investigating this only to tell me they're "Constantly trying to improve the site"(???). My point is, that Amazon's CS is slipping. It used to be fantastic, now it is fine, but definitely getting less friendly in terms of policy even if the agents themselves are still pleasant. They're more or less ruined their own Wish Lists. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=3058771 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
  - bitxbit 8y ago
    Those are all fair points. Their Prime program used to be ridiculously generous in earlier days. However, I have a very very hard time thinking of someone, big or small, who does it better.
- cryptonerd2212 8y ago
  This spills over into Whole Foods as well, from my experience. I personally don't know quite how to feel about the idea that Amazon bought them out, but the in-store customer service is leagues above Walmart and on par with Publix.
- astura 8y ago
  Amazon actually has awful customer service if your inquiry can't be solved by either refunding or reshipping your order. Had them repeatedly ship something glass in inappropriate packaging, it showed up shattered every time. Pleas to "please package appropriately" were repeatedly ignored. Finally I gave up and decided I didn't really need the item anyways.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nickjj 8y ago
The US govt has some of the worst support I've ever witnessed in my entire life. 1. I was audit by the IRS this year and so far I've logged about 6 hours of waiting on hold over ~15 individual call attempts of which I was never able to speak to someone beyond their initial call center. Then I sent in the requested receipts as per their instructions. They told me the receipts -they- requested weren't proof enough, so I had to provide additional paperwork. This has been an ongoing process for around 8 months and it's still not revolved. They haven't contacted me in about a month since the date they told me my case would be reviewed, so who knows what happened. Given they haven't asked me anything else or sent me a notice or bill warning, I'm guessing they finally figured out I wasn't lying all along. 2. I also once got denied a new social security card because I had an expired driver's license and no credit card. I brought a ton of documentation as per their website and had enough proof of ID. The lady at the desk told me "I'm sorry, I can't issue your request" so I showed her their own website with the proper forms of ID and she just repeated the same phrase. I left the place and mailed everything in along with a letter and my card was renewed but it took over 3 weeks. 3. After waiting 2.5 hours on hold for health insurance I finally got a person who told me they can't handle my request (even though this was the number listed on their website), so they forwarded me to a new number, and then I waited on hold for another hour, and then as soon as I got connected, they asked for a million pieces of information from me and hung up before processing anything. It was like 4 hours of a total waste of time and then I got penalized thousands of dollars in the end for not having insurance. The worst part about this monopoly is we pay a ton of money towards taxes but get treated so poorly. I once witnessed some little girl twist her ankle on a severely broken side walk. It took the town 3 years before they finally decided to fix it. It also took them 3 months to complete the job which was to redo about 20 feet of side walk.
- maym86 8y ago
  Some politicians have the goal of making these things run as ineffectively as possible. Underfunding initiatives and then claiming they don't work well is a tried and tested method for attacking government services.
- AzMoo_ 8y ago
  Centrelink, Australia's welfare and social services provider, has this beat. You can't get service in offices anymore without an appointment. If you try to do something transactional they direct you to a bank of Internet-connected computers where you have to go through their website. For elderly or less technologically literate people this is an absolute nightmare. If you can't do it online you have to call them. Again, if you try in their offices they will send you to a phone which you can use. Official average wait times are 16 minutes but that's bullshit. Everybody has had the experience of waiting for 2.5 hours, and then getting cut off when the robot answering the call inevitably transfers you to the wrong department. People have literally attempted suicide when faced with the prospect of having to deal with Centrelink again. Our government of sociopaths applauds this system, seeing it as a deterrent for people to be on welfare and encouraging them to "get a job".
nickpsecurity 8y ago
This article makes good argument. I want to note, though, that Comcast support has done a 180 for several calls I made. I receive their call back in seconds. I usually talk to someone in India whose both highly enthusiastic about hearing from me and apologetic about the circumstances. If anything, they're too nice since it comes off as unbelievable. They've credited my bill without me asking maybe twice. When I need a tech, they're usually backed up a bit but bump me into next day somehow. Ive always suspected that was a gimmick. That's the gist of it. They know what they're doing, really polite, better connection quality than past maybe, and super helpful. I think Comcast is both trying to improve its image for leverage in public debates and/or using better support to improve retention. Im loving it either way. Plus, the remote reboot feature on the mobile app. Saves time and trips.
- neogodless 8y ago
  I suspect there are enough markets where Comcast is not a monopoly as to affect their business. I've been switching between them and Verizon FiOS to get promotional rates. I used to prefer FiOS customer service, but in the past few years, that has reversed. Additionally, when I switch away from Comcast, they credit me a pro-rated billing period. But Verizon just kept the change.
- masonic 8y ago
  I usually talk to someone in India whose both highly enthusiastic about hearing from me and apologetic about the circumstances. Same here, but they are utterly ineffective at actually resolving anything beyond prewritten scripts. Their converter boxes are cheap, energy hogging crap, and they hang frequently. The cure is to have them reset, but they usually fail to issue a reset despite claiming that they did (you can easily see the process when properly triggered). Power cycling doesn't always work. I finally gave up and keep an extra, then rotate the cold one in when there's a problem. And even when you do call, they generally omit the day credit they owe you. Comcast can survive only as a de facto monopoly. Few users choose them of their own volition.
siegecraft 8y ago
i guess this explains why Google doesn't even have customer service
EdwardDiego 8y ago
Any New Zealander who is with one of our two dominant internet/phone providers (Spark and Vodafone NZ) has experienced this well - long waits to get someone in the Phillipines who can't actually help you, and doesn't quite understand what they're doing. They only really compete for new customers, so if you ever ring them to sign up, well, boy howdy that's a whole other experience. Calls answered immediately by knowledgeable people. Duopolies - for when you like pretending you have a competitive market.
- barrow-rider 8y ago
  Also true for Canada, and when I lived in Australia. Hell, when I was in the Oz I was a PM for Telstra working on getting better call center infrastructure setup for offshore calls...
jzdziarski 8y ago
If the aliens typed “call amazon” into google, they’d get a human almost instantly. It’s not rocket science, although aliens would be good at that too i guess.
arcticbull 8y ago
The best customer support I've received is from DigiKey - they have millions of components you can order in quantity 1, and if they make a mistake they'll overnight you a replacement at their expense, basically no questions asked.
- da02 8y ago
  Do you use them as replacements or do you build something with the stuff they sell?
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    I took up EE projects as a hobby! I should write some of them up, but I do some PCB layout / design and embedded systems work on my own time. Most recent was our house door opener which is spliced into the buzzer wires. I source all my components from Digikey.
lostmyoldone 8y ago
A rather odd one is the Swedish tax authority, they generally have good to excellent support within the legal framework they have to work with. They are better than almost any company I've had to deal with, and usually whomever you get to talk to either know what they are talking about, or can refer you to someone who can. There are probably people with negative experiences too, but I've yet to hear a single horror story about their service! As with any tax authority, you shouldn't try to keep them from their coin, but it seems like somewhere along the way they figured out that they didn't get more money if they had shitty service, but rather the other way around. It's probably also easier, and cheaper to retain people if not everyone hate your guts simply because you work there.
jdavis703 8y ago
I got audited by the IRS... I had accidentally forgotten to file one of the many 1099 forms I had received that year. The agent handling the audit easily had some of the best customer service I’ve ever experienced and I was able to get the problem resolved.
ekianjo 8y ago
Again an abuse of the word monopoly. I wish authors could grasp the difference between having a single actor in a market and one that is dominant among many others. This is absolutely not the same thing.
anovikov 8y ago
Last winter i faced a non-standard situation with Microsoft Office subscription. I moved to another country and had no active CC from the original country working anymore - realized only when my Office stopped working - and had no way to switch country or payment method before paying my arrears - which i counldn't do because of not having the damn payment method... Surprisingly, MS support was quick and absolutely helpful in resolving this for me - took no more than 15 minutes - and they ended up simply waving my arrears so i never paid that $10 - and let me enter new payment method.
AndyMcConachie 8y ago
I recently had to call the Dutch tax service help line Belastingtelephone and the experience was rather pleasant. You have to wait 15-30 minutes sometimes, but you do get connected to someone who really can help you. I had to fill in a number of rather obscure forms recently and I called them 3 times in total. Each time I had my questions resolved with about 30 minutes.
- Thiez 8y ago
  Their slogan is "we can't make it more enjoyable, but we can make it easier" ("Leuker kunnen we het niet maken, wel makkelijk"). I haven't yet have to file taxes in any other country but when I compare my experiences to those of others on HN I suppose they're doing okay.
jamesholden 8y ago
I have this issue with my student loans. They let it sit for weeks 'in processing' while I accrue interest on it. What am I applying for? IBR. Income based repayment because I'm effectively poor. It just sucks seeing the balance grow and grow and have my credit wrecked, just because they let my paperwork sit in processing. I turn around and re-submit stuff when they ask within a day. For them it's 2-4 weeks between replies. JFC.
helpfulTroll 8y ago
I wished they'd discuss other scenarios, most importantly Internet Service Providers. No matter the amount of actual competition. They act like they own you. Some are worse than others. Some have improved over time. I still simply cannot do business with Verizon. Their customer service is out for blood. While we're naming names, Time Warner Cable, Spectrum, Sprint, Comcast. There are more, and feel free to add to this list. I'm sure they aren't alone. They are not there to help you. Not face to face. Not at service centers. Not at retail locations. Not on the phone. Not on their website. Under no circumstances will any exchange come out in your favor. You will always pay 10%, maybe 20% more than expected. Or maybe worse! Across the board, everything is awful. Starting with password character diversity and periodic rotation rules, but then on in to paying your bill, asking for changes, quality of service, getting what you paid for, getting what's advertised, being advertised to, having your data sold, junk mail and solicitations, and of course the idea of contracts in general. They get zero dollars from me, and I spend more money eradicating them from my life, but what I get back in terms of flexibility, sanity and delivery according to expectations is more than worth the little bit extra I pay above sticker price for anything that originates from monopoly wannabes.
peteretep 8y ago
Complete inverse of my experience. HMRC (the British IRS) are exceptionally good over the phone. As indeed were the divorce courts. Maybe the British government see the British jurisdiction as optional for their highest ticket clients :-P The worst offenders in the UK have been cell-service providers, where the competition is fierce, and companies like Sports Direct, where the margins are tiny because the competition is so fierce. Good luck with low-cost airlines too, where the Heathrow-monopoly-abusing (according to VS) British Airways are also great on the phone.
shoo 8y ago
For those of you who work in a huge bureaucracy: does your bureaucracy decree that you must rely on some other internal team for a particular service? what level of "customer" support does this service provide?
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  I worked at a phone company years ago. It was around the time when GTE became Verizon (it has been a while). The entire system was segmented. I was in the "disconnect department" - folks late on their bill and about to be disconnected or newly disconnected (this was for landlines). We literally could not do much more than that. We did not have any access to billing tools and could not fix those. We could not put in a repair ticket at all. We could not see cellular service. Basically, if it wasn't a disconnection reconnection or payment plan we couldn't help you. Some of this was a knowlege thing: National call centers needing to learn the ins and out of different state laws (some states public utility commissions were stricter and more powerful than others). Some of this was built in: We literally didn't have access to these things. I'm sure some of it was because training on all of the things wasn't cost effective. There were also things we simply weren't allowed to do without being a supervisor (Which was often an experienced rep working a hotline for a few hours). It does provide horrible customer service in many cases, especially if there is a wait time to another department. It would make it slightly easier if you could jump to the start of the other department's queue, but that wasn't the case. ON the other hand, many states had laws about how quickly you were supposed to answer the phones and queue jumping probably affected that.

330 points by arbuge 8y ago

Totally different experience with the IRS. My one phone call with them was an excellent experience. I got someone much much more knowledgeable than me who quickly and clearly walked me through what I needed. My colleague has had a similar experience.

tomohawk 8y ago
Had a family member who was audited by the IRS every year for years. Each time IRS received a tax lesson. Only stopped when family member got US Representative and both Senators to lean on the IRS.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  It's funny how supposedly "random" computer systems can somehow target an individual. I had an issue with a sheriff's deputy pulling my wife over on her way home from work twice a week for a month. Same deputy each time, and unfortunately my wife couldn't take another route. The deputy would only say she looked suspicious and then ask her personal questions. I mentioned it to my boss, who was formerly an important person in the region, and he made a phone call. My wife never saw the deputy again. In what I can only assume was retaliation, I suddenly got called for jury duty. Every other week. After the sixth notice, I mentioned it to my boss. He made a phone call, and put me on a list of people who should never be pulled for jury duty (for celebrities, etc...) in that county. We moved to another state a few months later. Computers sometimes seem to make the system easier to corrupt, rather than keep it from being corrupt.
danieltillett 8y ago
As an Australian my experience of the IRS has thankfully been limited (not as limited as it should be), but each time I have had the misfortune of calling them they have just read out in a monotone the text on their websites word for word. Maybe my experience is because I am not a US tax payer, but it certainly wasn't helpful.

estro 8y ago

Could this assessment be extended to "companies can be guessed to be large by calling customer support"? I can think of few examples of large companies, monopolies or not, having good phone customer support; many large companies outsource their call centers, which could contribute. This method of assessing "monopolies" will give many false positives if the answer to my question is yes.

mathattack 8y ago

This is why SaaS companies created Customer Success. They need to win your business year over year. Once they realize you can’t switch, the audits and price hikes begin, and the support ends.

stcredzero 8y ago

Does this explain the DMV? The DA's office has a government monopoly as well. I'm also reminded of what it was like to hire a taxi in the days before Uber and Lyft.

Nasrudith 8y ago
The DMV is also an expense center which is visited infrequently. There is little pressure to make it a campaign issue to run on. While a pain in the ass it isn't a pressing issue unless an area is completely un(der)served.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  Indiana did such a thing, though. These things actually make folks hate goverment a bit less, I think. https://www.sagamoreinstitute.org/case-study-in-culture-change-how-reforming-the-bureau-of-motor-vehicles-can-change-a-state https://www.sagamoreinstitute.org/case-study-in-culture-chan...

CobrastanJorji 8y ago

I saw harvard.edu and was optimistic that this was going to be a real study. Instead it was just "haha, IRS support sucks, monopolies are bad." I've called the IRS support line multiple times for fairly non-trivial problems and had nothing but good experiences.

stephenhuey 8y ago
Without fail it was a minimum of one hour of wait time every time I called which isn’t good for me. How about you?
- ghouse 8y ago
  I've got some sympathy for the IRS (in this limited case) -- their budget is cut by small-government crusaders, thus reducing service, angering taxpayers and thus aligning public sentiment against the IRS. Same political ideology also works to make the tax code more complicated, also achieving the same objective. But then they're prevented from simplifying - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17751383
  - hueving 8y ago
    Large government ideology doesn't help the tax code either. Complex tax codes are a result of special tax breaks for any purpose.
    - rtkwe 8y ago
      Poor service though is more about lack of resources than the complexity of the tax code.
  - United857 8y ago
    It's not so much the fault of those who want small government, but actually the likes of Intuit, etc. lobbying against tax code simplification so they can protect their business models: https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-free-simple-hr-block-intuit-lobbying-against-it https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

gesman 8y ago

Today’s fast way to reach customer support is to make a post on Twitter

muzani 8y ago
Social media support might be a better option. I see a lot of monopolies blatantly ignore masses of complaints on their Facebook page. I can't imagine anything worse for PR. Post a "Happy New Year" picture and have 20 people mob that post complaining about terrible service and how they're unable to reach customer service.

Angostura 8y ago

The odd thing is, call the Inland Revenue helpline in the UK about your tax and I've always found them extraordinarily helpful.

tonyedgecombe 8y ago
Most of my interaction with HMRC is online now, this is far more effective for both sides.

basicplus2 8y ago

Sometimes the best approach is to do everything by registered mail, with a return confirmation. You keep copies of everything included in each mailing, that way if it reaches court you hand everything over and your documentation does the talking. I have found as soon as i take this approach it gets sorted straight away and is never a problem as they realise that they dont have a leg to stand on. In another case a business always had their used cheques returned to them once processed by the bank. When the tax office repeatedly stated a payment had not been made.. their accountant said over the phone to the tax office "thats funny because i am holding their processed check returned to them with the tax offices recieved stamp on it.." it was then magically immediately fixed. I think its because of people not wanting to do their job within their department so they handball it when ever possible, on the smallest excuse.

oldgradstudent 8y ago
I've been once told about how mail was handled by a certain Israeli government office. The mail was sorted into two piles, registered and unregistered. The unregistered was thrown in the trash. Always use registered mail.

Nasrudith 8y ago

Is that a very good heuristic? Some markets aren't supported in the first place either because of assumptions of knowledge (including being too simple to mess up) or commoditized enough that it is negligible.

mproud 8y ago

What counts as a monopoly? What about calling Apple?

bitxbit 8y ago
DoJ has a good review. https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-firm-conduct-under-section-2-sherman-act https://www.justice.gov/atr/competition-and-monopoly-single-...
tomrod 8y ago
Depends on how you define a market.

shmerl 8y ago

Indeed. Monopoly doesn't care about quality and support. Its users have no choice.

paulmendoza 8y ago

I had to call the IRS recently and had a pretty good experience. The lady was super helpful and provided me with some resources I didn’t know about before.

autotune 8y ago
Last time I called a week ago I was on hold for 2 hours before finally giving up.
hueving 8y ago
How long did you wait on hold? Was it before the recent filing deadline?
Naga 8y ago
This doesn't transfer to Canada. Calling the CRA is a chore. The agents are ill trained and often give incorrect information. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cra-blocks-calls-often-gives-taxpayers-wrong-information-auditor-says/article37036667/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cra-blocks-cal...
- dude01 8y ago
  I've had good experience calling the business-side part of CRA, though I think they're small enough that they're a different beast from the department that has to handle all generic questions/complaints from consumers.

bitxbit 8y ago

Amazon’s customer service is still very good to excellent especially considering the volume they handle and the loss they take on return frauds. It’s still no Costco or Nordstrom but Amazon is the gold standard for online retail experience.

Someone1234 8y ago
In the last year Amazon stopped price matching themselves (used to be within the last 30 days). Now even if the item is still in the mail they require you to ship it back at your cost and re-order at the lower price. They've also modified their Wish List/Gift List to remove the "Buying this elsewhere" button. Now you have to purchase from Amazon.com or ruin the surprise if using a friend's Wish List. This isn't reflected in Amazon's help site[0] and their customer service spent three weeks investigating this only to tell me they're "Constantly trying to improve the site"(???). My point is, that Amazon's CS is slipping. It used to be fantastic, now it is fine, but definitely getting less friendly in terms of policy even if the agents themselves are still pleasant. They're more or less ruined their own Wish Lists. [0] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=3058771 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...
- bitxbit 8y ago
  Those are all fair points. Their Prime program used to be ridiculously generous in earlier days. However, I have a very very hard time thinking of someone, big or small, who does it better.
cryptonerd2212 8y ago
This spills over into Whole Foods as well, from my experience. I personally don't know quite how to feel about the idea that Amazon bought them out, but the in-store customer service is leagues above Walmart and on par with Publix.
astura 8y ago
Amazon actually has awful customer service if your inquiry can't be solved by either refunding or reshipping your order. Had them repeatedly ship something glass in inappropriate packaging, it showed up shattered every time. Pleas to "please package appropriately" were repeatedly ignored. Finally I gave up and decided I didn't really need the item anyways.

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nickjj 8y ago

The US govt has some of the worst support I've ever witnessed in my entire life. 1. I was audit by the IRS this year and so far I've logged about 6 hours of waiting on hold over ~15 individual call attempts of which I was never able to speak to someone beyond their initial call center. Then I sent in the requested receipts as per their instructions. They told me the receipts -they- requested weren't proof enough, so I had to provide additional paperwork. This has been an ongoing process for around 8 months and it's still not revolved. They haven't contacted me in about a month since the date they told me my case would be reviewed, so who knows what happened. Given they haven't asked me anything else or sent me a notice or bill warning, I'm guessing they finally figured out I wasn't lying all along. 2. I also once got denied a new social security card because I had an expired driver's license and no credit card. I brought a ton of documentation as per their website and had enough proof of ID. The lady at the desk told me "I'm sorry, I can't issue your request" so I showed her their own website with the proper forms of ID and she just repeated the same phrase. I left the place and mailed everything in along with a letter and my card was renewed but it took over 3 weeks. 3. After waiting 2.5 hours on hold for health insurance I finally got a person who told me they can't handle my request (even though this was the number listed on their website), so they forwarded me to a new number, and then I waited on hold for another hour, and then as soon as I got connected, they asked for a million pieces of information from me and hung up before processing anything. It was like 4 hours of a total waste of time and then I got penalized thousands of dollars in the end for not having insurance. The worst part about this monopoly is we pay a ton of money towards taxes but get treated so poorly. I once witnessed some little girl twist her ankle on a severely broken side walk. It took the town 3 years before they finally decided to fix it. It also took them 3 months to complete the job which was to redo about 20 feet of side walk.

maym86 8y ago
Some politicians have the goal of making these things run as ineffectively as possible. Underfunding initiatives and then claiming they don't work well is a tried and tested method for attacking government services.
AzMoo_ 8y ago
Centrelink, Australia's welfare and social services provider, has this beat. You can't get service in offices anymore without an appointment. If you try to do something transactional they direct you to a bank of Internet-connected computers where you have to go through their website. For elderly or less technologically literate people this is an absolute nightmare. If you can't do it online you have to call them. Again, if you try in their offices they will send you to a phone which you can use. Official average wait times are 16 minutes but that's bullshit. Everybody has had the experience of waiting for 2.5 hours, and then getting cut off when the robot answering the call inevitably transfers you to the wrong department. People have literally attempted suicide when faced with the prospect of having to deal with Centrelink again. Our government of sociopaths applauds this system, seeing it as a deterrent for people to be on welfare and encouraging them to "get a job".

nickpsecurity 8y ago

This article makes good argument. I want to note, though, that Comcast support has done a 180 for several calls I made. I receive their call back in seconds. I usually talk to someone in India whose both highly enthusiastic about hearing from me and apologetic about the circumstances. If anything, they're too nice since it comes off as unbelievable. They've credited my bill without me asking maybe twice. When I need a tech, they're usually backed up a bit but bump me into next day somehow. Ive always suspected that was a gimmick. That's the gist of it. They know what they're doing, really polite, better connection quality than past maybe, and super helpful. I think Comcast is both trying to improve its image for leverage in public debates and/or using better support to improve retention. Im loving it either way. Plus, the remote reboot feature on the mobile app. Saves time and trips.

neogodless 8y ago
I suspect there are enough markets where Comcast is not a monopoly as to affect their business. I've been switching between them and Verizon FiOS to get promotional rates. I used to prefer FiOS customer service, but in the past few years, that has reversed. Additionally, when I switch away from Comcast, they credit me a pro-rated billing period. But Verizon just kept the change.
masonic 8y ago
I usually talk to someone in India whose both highly enthusiastic about hearing from me and apologetic about the circumstances. Same here, but they are utterly ineffective at actually resolving anything beyond prewritten scripts. Their converter boxes are cheap, energy hogging crap, and they hang frequently. The cure is to have them reset, but they usually fail to issue a reset despite claiming that they did (you can easily see the process when properly triggered). Power cycling doesn't always work. I finally gave up and keep an extra, then rotate the cold one in when there's a problem. And even when you do call, they generally omit the day credit they owe you. Comcast can survive only as a de facto monopoly. Few users choose them of their own volition.

siegecraft 8y ago

i guess this explains why Google doesn't even have customer service

EdwardDiego 8y ago

Any New Zealander who is with one of our two dominant internet/phone providers (Spark and Vodafone NZ) has experienced this well - long waits to get someone in the Phillipines who can't actually help you, and doesn't quite understand what they're doing. They only really compete for new customers, so if you ever ring them to sign up, well, boy howdy that's a whole other experience. Calls answered immediately by knowledgeable people. Duopolies - for when you like pretending you have a competitive market.

barrow-rider 8y ago
Also true for Canada, and when I lived in Australia. Hell, when I was in the Oz I was a PM for Telstra working on getting better call center infrastructure setup for offshore calls...

jzdziarski 8y ago

If the aliens typed “call amazon” into google, they’d get a human almost instantly. It’s not rocket science, although aliens would be good at that too i guess.

arcticbull 8y ago

The best customer support I've received is from DigiKey - they have millions of components you can order in quantity 1, and if they make a mistake they'll overnight you a replacement at their expense, basically no questions asked.

da02 8y ago
Do you use them as replacements or do you build something with the stuff they sell?
- arcticbull 8y ago
  I took up EE projects as a hobby! I should write some of them up, but I do some PCB layout / design and embedded systems work on my own time. Most recent was our house door opener which is spliced into the buzzer wires. I source all my components from Digikey.

lostmyoldone 8y ago

A rather odd one is the Swedish tax authority, they generally have good to excellent support within the legal framework they have to work with. They are better than almost any company I've had to deal with, and usually whomever you get to talk to either know what they are talking about, or can refer you to someone who can. There are probably people with negative experiences too, but I've yet to hear a single horror story about their service! As with any tax authority, you shouldn't try to keep them from their coin, but it seems like somewhere along the way they figured out that they didn't get more money if they had shitty service, but rather the other way around. It's probably also easier, and cheaper to retain people if not everyone hate your guts simply because you work there.

jdavis703 8y ago

I got audited by the IRS... I had accidentally forgotten to file one of the many 1099 forms I had received that year. The agent handling the audit easily had some of the best customer service I’ve ever experienced and I was able to get the problem resolved.

ekianjo 8y ago

Again an abuse of the word monopoly. I wish authors could grasp the difference between having a single actor in a market and one that is dominant among many others. This is absolutely not the same thing.

anovikov 8y ago

Last winter i faced a non-standard situation with Microsoft Office subscription. I moved to another country and had no active CC from the original country working anymore - realized only when my Office stopped working - and had no way to switch country or payment method before paying my arrears - which i counldn't do because of not having the damn payment method... Surprisingly, MS support was quick and absolutely helpful in resolving this for me - took no more than 15 minutes - and they ended up simply waving my arrears so i never paid that $10 - and let me enter new payment method.

AndyMcConachie 8y ago

I recently had to call the Dutch tax service help line Belastingtelephone and the experience was rather pleasant. You have to wait 15-30 minutes sometimes, but you do get connected to someone who really can help you. I had to fill in a number of rather obscure forms recently and I called them 3 times in total. Each time I had my questions resolved with about 30 minutes.

Thiez 8y ago
Their slogan is "we can't make it more enjoyable, but we can make it easier" ("Leuker kunnen we het niet maken, wel makkelijk"). I haven't yet have to file taxes in any other country but when I compare my experiences to those of others on HN I suppose they're doing okay.

jamesholden 8y ago

I have this issue with my student loans. They let it sit for weeks 'in processing' while I accrue interest on it. What am I applying for? IBR. Income based repayment because I'm effectively poor. It just sucks seeing the balance grow and grow and have my credit wrecked, just because they let my paperwork sit in processing. I turn around and re-submit stuff when they ask within a day. For them it's 2-4 weeks between replies. JFC.

helpfulTroll 8y ago

I wished they'd discuss other scenarios, most importantly Internet Service Providers. No matter the amount of actual competition. They act like they own you. Some are worse than others. Some have improved over time. I still simply cannot do business with Verizon. Their customer service is out for blood. While we're naming names, Time Warner Cable, Spectrum, Sprint, Comcast. There are more, and feel free to add to this list. I'm sure they aren't alone. They are not there to help you. Not face to face. Not at service centers. Not at retail locations. Not on the phone. Not on their website. Under no circumstances will any exchange come out in your favor. You will always pay 10%, maybe 20% more than expected. Or maybe worse! Across the board, everything is awful. Starting with password character diversity and periodic rotation rules, but then on in to paying your bill, asking for changes, quality of service, getting what you paid for, getting what's advertised, being advertised to, having your data sold, junk mail and solicitations, and of course the idea of contracts in general. They get zero dollars from me, and I spend more money eradicating them from my life, but what I get back in terms of flexibility, sanity and delivery according to expectations is more than worth the little bit extra I pay above sticker price for anything that originates from monopoly wannabes.

peteretep 8y ago

Complete inverse of my experience. HMRC (the British IRS) are exceptionally good over the phone. As indeed were the divorce courts. Maybe the British government see the British jurisdiction as optional for their highest ticket clients :-P The worst offenders in the UK have been cell-service providers, where the competition is fierce, and companies like Sports Direct, where the margins are tiny because the competition is so fierce. Good luck with low-cost airlines too, where the Heathrow-monopoly-abusing (according to VS) British Airways are also great on the phone.

shoo 8y ago

For those of you who work in a huge bureaucracy: does your bureaucracy decree that you must rely on some other internal team for a particular service? what level of "customer" support does this service provide?

Broken_Hippo 8y ago
I worked at a phone company years ago. It was around the time when GTE became Verizon (it has been a while). The entire system was segmented. I was in the "disconnect department" - folks late on their bill and about to be disconnected or newly disconnected (this was for landlines). We literally could not do much more than that. We did not have any access to billing tools and could not fix those. We could not put in a repair ticket at all. We could not see cellular service. Basically, if it wasn't a disconnection reconnection or payment plan we couldn't help you. Some of this was a knowlege thing: National call centers needing to learn the ins and out of different state laws (some states public utility commissions were stricter and more powerful than others). Some of this was built in: We literally didn't have access to these things. I'm sure some of it was because training on all of the things wasn't cost effective. There were also things we simply weren't allowed to do without being a supervisor (Which was often an experienced rep working a hotline for a few hours). It does provide horrible customer service in many cases, especially if there is a wait time to another department. It would make it slightly easier if you could jump to the start of the other department's queue, but that wasn't the case. ON the other hand, many states had laws about how quickly you were supposed to answer the phones and queue jumping probably affected that.