4 ms·

It all depends on your notion of fair. If one percent of people call up customer service to complain about 50% of their transactions they are clogging up the s

• Scoundreller 8y ago
  You’ll get put on hold forever: “this person’s calls take 30 minutes to resolve” Edit: and makes our call takers feel dumb with low resolution rates
• benologist 8y ago
  These systems only exist to help their customers so if it is "clogged" it is probably indicative of fat execs and a successful round of layoffs after they realized they could "make more" by supporting their customers less.
• athenot 8y ago
  Or they might have a legitimate case. You can't tell just by looking at volumes. It could be that fringe group of customers who use international credit card numbers (but also happen to spend well). It could be elderly consumers who consistently get bitten by a rough edge in the UX. It could be users who don't use English as their primary language and don't understand a colloquialism in the interface.
  • sandworm101 8y ago
    >> It could be elderly consumers who consistently get bitten by a rough edge in the UX. Or the elderly customers who call just because they want someone to talk to. I used to do some PCI compliance work and occasionally had to listen in on customer calls to call centers (to verify procedures were being followed). They don't want service. They want to chat. They may have some small issue with the UI, but then they want to add something to the order. Does it come in red? Will it match the one I ordered last week? Will the delivery people set it up? Can I make sure it doesn't arrive on monday because I'm going to the doctor?
    • skybrian 8y ago
      Those questions don't seem consistent with just wanting to chat. Aren't a lot of people concerned about delivery times?
      • sandworm101 8y ago
        And those legitimate questions can be answered elsewhere. The elderly person wanting to chat is looking for an excuse so to do. They take one issue that justifies calling customer support and then once they have someone on the line throw in every other little detail. Younger people, who don't like talking to customer support, seek to limit their call to as narrow an issue as possible. Elderly callers enjoy expanding things. Whether they will admit so or not, what they really want is to keep the conversation going as long as possible.
        • skybrian 8y ago
          In my experience, there are elderly people who don't particularly like to read documentation (if they can even find it) or use the Internet. It would make sense that they expect to learn things by talking to people, and try to get all their questions answered while they have someone on the line. (But I didn't listen to the phone calls, so what do I know?)
        • gowld 8y ago
          Where can they be answered elsewhere, for someone who is computer illiterate and has poor eyesight?
          • BenjiWiebe 8y ago
            That's where I make a few dollars. I'll do any computer work for my neighbors, no matter how small, for a minimum flat rate if it's one hour or less. Its commonly only a few minutes of work, but the (usually elderly) neighbor also wants to talk, and I'm paid for one hour, so sure, I talk. Win-win.
• joe_the_user 8y ago
  Sure, if "whatever you happen to get" is considered fair, then you're always OK. But the danger of - "I don't complain excessively so it's OK to whoever complains most" is that by gradually pealing off "excess" complainers, you'll get to a point where no can complain to any degree, people fear to complain about even wholly inadequate products for fear of getting on lists, etc.
  • gowld 8y ago
    All this means is that if you can't afford to pay for a product (including customer service), you don't get it.
• CPLX 8y ago
  It’s important to note that we’re often valuable and non valuable in various parts of our life. For example AA might think highly of me but my phone company might not. Maybe I just had a bad run of luck with them, if 300 million people flip coins all day some will get tails 10 times in a row some days. Treating everyone with some base level of respect and fairness is the only way to ensure you, or anyone, isn’t subjected to awful outcomes from time to time.
• brightball 8y ago
  That doesn’t begin to include people who get belligerent with call center workers.