The Technolon – Tech News and Opinion

I have spent the last week or so dealing with, or attempting to deal with a companies customer service. As you all know this can be well: an inconvenience, annoying, frustrating, and angering. So why is customer service today so bad? While in this piece I am going to try and answer that question for you.

1. Outsourcing- Ever wonder why half the time you can’t understand the person on the other side of the line? While its probably because they are in India or China. Companies have been outsourcing customer service jobs there for years and the more they do it the harder it is for the consumer.

2. Lack of courtesy- Have you noticed that sometimes a customer service rep seems just like they don’t want to give you what your asking for? They always question you and sometimes can be quite rude.

3. The Script- When ever you call up a company about a customer service related issue, you will hardly ever get someone who is even knowledgeable about the product. All many of these customer service people are doing is answering the phone and reading a script with very little variation. This makes it hard to solve the problem you need solved.

4. Let the robots do the work- Whenever you call most large corporations, as I am sure you all well know, there is a machine that answers. This long automated series of menus can take ages to navigate before you can even talk to a real person.

Obviously not all companies have bad customer service, but this is what I have experienced in my time interacting with them. This just shows how much room customer service has to improve. I think it is important that companies work on reforming much of their poor customer service because it really is the face of the company.