The 'customer care' copout

While some companies, corporations and service providers dedicate entire departments to “customer care”, these half-hearted attempts at providing assistance are, more often than not, a cause of frustration for clients. If you’ve ever been waiting for someone to answer the telephone, after pressing a number given by an automated answering service for a business inquiry, you know exactly what this is about. While waiting, you will be subjected to loud, distorted music or a silky-smooth advertising campaign, informing you about wonderful products and promotions, regardless of whether you feel that the service sucks, you detest call centres, and the last thing you want is another product linked to the same bad service from the same service provider. After holding the line forever, listening to endless gibberish or music interspersed with the odd automated interjection telling you, “Please hold! The next available operator will be with you shortly…” you may or may not get an “operator” who does or doesn’t assist you. If you cannot be assisted, the operator will inevitably “get back to you”, which rarely happens, or transfer you to another “operator”, who will transfer you…and so on… ad infinitum. With the state of the world economy and high inflation, it is becoming more and more common for those who need a product to look at the after-sales service provided, and here the most fundamental rule is solution-driven, friendly, helpful communication. A successful business in this day and age is set to become dependent on satisfied customers, big and small, who want more bang for their buck. Dysfunctional “customer care” lines and call centres that show by their very unresponsiveness and inefficiency that they couldn’t care less will inevitably damage business. Passing the buck also doesn’t work, because the jungle telegraph is vigilant and it has subtle, but long-lasting repercussions.