Monday, January 19, 2009

New Year's Resolution (blogging while angry)

From now on, before spending any significant money on anything, I will test their customer service phone number. If I cannot get to a human being who is reasonably helpful, I will not become a customer.

Understand, I'm all for saving money by automating customer service where possible. But many companies (AT&T Wireless, for example) now make ad hoc, human-interaction support literally unavailable. A demonstrated intent to avoid customer contact is a sign of a bad business partner, and I will not support such bad business practices anymore. (steam, steam, steam)

3 comments:

Noons said...

Hear hear!

Nigel said...

This is a great idea. Kind of a change from today's "yes we can" to tomorrow's "but no, Mr AT&T (or BT, whatever), you can't".

Regards Nigel

Anonymous said...

Hey, it is Sterre, the binary/programmer/xkcd girl from Tech Fest. I thought this link might save you a lot of grief:

http://fonolo.com/

It lets you find the direct number for whatever service you need from a human for most companies. Check it out; it has saved me a lot of time.

I have to run, but be on the look out for a long (geeky) email from me soon!