Thread: Sarcasm On

The below is an altered version of a blogpost that appeared 12/20/11.

Sarcasm On



Overnight, I had a strange series of exchanges with members of the customer service department of my isp/phone/cable company. It seems that they have inactive sarcasm meters and a general lack of reading comprehension skills, which led me to getting increasingly verbal/savage.
The genesis of the thing is that I ordered an upgrade to my services, which didn’t take because the apparatus to do so onsite doesn’t work for those who are already customers. But you’ll be able to figure that out from the context (or at least I’d hope so).
Just for the sheer fun of it, I hereby present the entire exchange, with some judicious editing of names and figures:

I’m writing about this upgrade/install appointment that was apparently never processed: Dear _____, Thank you for being a ___ Customer, and for giving us the opportunity to help you get more out of what you’re into! We’re happy to help you tailor your service to fit your needs. This email is to let you know we have received your order. Order Number: xxxxxxxxxxx Order Date: December 10, 2011 Service Address _____

Two separate telephone calls to confirm the appointment (scheduled between 10 and 1 pm) resulted in two customer service reps telling me to call back and speak to either the billing department or the sales department-they’re only tech support for television and cannot answer my questions or set an appointment. They “don’t know anything”.
That’s a hell of a way to run a customer service department. Worse than Comcast, who I used to work for. Worse than Time/Warner, who I’ve had service from in the past. It’d be great if someone could tell me why the hell I should pay you people for this level of service. It doesn’t seem equitable. Other internet services/television services/telephone services are available. Perhaps I should choose one or more?

Nice. Here’s the first reply:

Dear ___:


Thank you for your recent e-mail to ___ regarding your online order.

We regret any inconvenience this issue with your ___ online order may have caused. We show the reason your online order was not completed as requested was because you were already an existing ___ Cable, Internet, and Telephone customer. Keep in mind, our online order process is intended for new service installations only, not upgrades to existing service.

Please know, we would be happy to assist you with completing any upgrades to your existing bundle. However, these changes can not be made until the past due balance of $110.74 is paid. Once this past due balance is paid, we will be able to complete any requested upgrades to your account by e-mail, Live Chat, or telephone.

Your Recent Experience With Our Customer Service Department

Please know your satisfaction is most important to us. We intend to use the information you have provided to improve on the way we communicate with our customers. Please know that your feedback has been forwarded to the appropriate leadership and will be used in further review and corrective action.
Please allow us to apologize again, for the unresponsiveness of the customer service representatives that you spoke with and for any inconvenience this has caused you. We value our customers and are always working to improve our practices and procedures here at _________. If there is any way in which we can further assist you, please don’t hesitate to reach us via the Internet at ____ or call us at ____.

Thank you again for contacting us via e-mail. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

George S.

___ E-Care Specialist

Nice again. I followed this with a slightly more strongly-worded reply:

Dear George S.

Interesting. Nowhere on the website, unless it is buried in the fine fine print, does it say that upgrades have to be done via telephone, live chat, or email. And I have to ask why none of your telephone reps were able to answer my question as simply as you have done? Isn’t that the very sort of thing they’re supposedly trained to do?
Apologies are all well and good. But you’re making it seem like the onus of improvement is on me, the customer, who has to deal with your incompetent personnel once again in order to accomplish what I wanted to do. That is precisely what I was trying to avoid.
The past-due balance is beside the point. Or maybe it is the point. You want your money. I want decent customer service and properly-trained personnel for my money. Service upgrades should be easy. You should WANT people to do that. Instead you make it difficult to accomplish. And one can NEVER catch up with the bill. It goes past-due the moment it’s issued. Shall we talk about that part, too? About how the bill somehow became due during this process, so I have to give you more money in order to do what I want?
Y’know, I was trying to provide a Christmas present for the people that live here. Instead, I’m angry and frustrated.
Your company’s service and accounting practices leave a lot to be desired. I do not believe that my satisfaction as an individual consumer is important to you.
Happy holidays.

Which caused another CSR to remark:

Dear _______:


Thank you for your reply.

We are committed to providing you and all of our customers with the highest standards of service in the industry. We apologize that your experience has been less than satisfactory.
As stated in our previous message we value your feedback and it has been forwarded for review. Please be assured your satisfaction is important to us.
We understand why your bill may seem like it is always past due. Once the account is past due unless you pay both the past due amount and the current amount due by the due date you will continue to be past due on the following statement.
In order to become current on your account, please pay the past due amount of $110.74 before 01/01/12, to enjoy uninterrupted service and the current balance by 01/12/12.
Since Cox bills for services one month in advance, you have received services that payment has not been received for. With this in mind we are unable to process your request to upgrade your account until the past due balance has been paid.

This is not intended to keep customers from upgrading their services but rather to ensure the customer is able to become current on their account without adding additional costs while they are already past due.



Please reply to this message with the upgrades you would like to make once the past due balance of $110.74 has been paid and we will gladly process your request.



Again, thank you for contacting us through our Web site. We appreciate your feedback and your patience in this matter.
Sincerely,

Tina G.
___ E-Care Specialist

You’ll notice the insistence of the past-due balance idea, and the general fogginess of the reply. Clearly this is not a person who should be on overnight duty. I prescribe coffee and a good grammar manual. But as I had nothing better to do, and was angered besides, I persisted:

Dear ?,

I also thank you for your reply, which was mostly on-topic. Really, the circular nature of the billing cycle isn’t the deal-breaker here. I understand perfectly that the bill comes due at a certain period, and I am in fact billed a month in advance for your promised services. My contention is that this practice gives me as a consumer approximately a two-week window in which to negotiate the increase of services which I desire. But that really isn’t the issue at hand…I do understand that the representatives of ___ (you who are reading this missive) are probably not the web developers who have somehow misapprehended the communal spirit of ___, making it difficult for customers to upgrade services because the likelihood of downgrading said services is MUCH more likely to happen. I’ve just been wandering around the website again.
Don’t you just find it interesting that a user would have to bookmark interior pages in order to get to what they want? Generally if things are buried, they aren’t intended to be found.
Oooo, but there’s a shopping assistant? Does it at any point say that it is for new customers only? Well, no. I see my mistake. I should have assumed from context that I was supposed to call or write or visit, only during business hours in the internet age, and make my wishes known, or just head on over to where I can chat with a ___ representative, which doesn’t appear anywhere on that page either.
Soooo. Let’s try help and support, maybe that’ll work. Seems possible. Clicky click. Here we are. Oooo. Would I like to provide feedback? Let’s table that for a minute. We’ll get back to it. I have a little survey window now.
Ok. Hey, second-level has a sidebar with “live chat”. So it took three windows to get to that. I suppose that isn’t so bad. However, everything else on the page is place an order this and how to order that.
Kind of misleading.
But I guess I should just grok that, right? Instead of using the facilities displayed so fetchingly, as I have with other electronic services providers. It’s like a ceremonial toilet, all chrome and no running water. But I go through the motions anyway, and then, when it’s on the floor, it’s my fault. Because I didn’t know that things were only empty ritual…further exacerbated by the charming little message that arrived, confirming my order. Followed by no contact whatsoever, leading me to believe that everything was just fine.
Since then, the tone of the replies isn’t at all patronizing. But I digress. Excuse me.
I do appreciate the offer to state my wishes in this series of messages, and the intimation that it’ll get taken care of. That someone is actually following up on this exchange. I even believe that offer is sincere. But I don’t think that I’ll take advantage of that at this time.
When I have paid the 110.74 past due balance, IF I have paid the 110.74 past-due balance (and the next past-due balance, due in 12 days, if I am reading the awfully-ungrammatical sentence concerning the matter in the previous rejoinder correctly), I shall certainly require gratification immediately, if not sooner. And that event would seem most unlikely at 4-something am on a Monday morning.
It all makes me wonder what the system would do if I did something weird like pay 110.73. I bet my services would get cut off, for a penny.
Or what if I paid in pennies? Hmm. That could be arranged. Then you could rent a wheelbarrow from me, for a penny ( I would of course have one with me as I just came in with all of those copper coins), and take the things to the bank.
Useless, you say. A waste of your time and resources.
Quite so. I am now off to provide feedback.
Happy holidays

I get verbal when I am really angry, past the YELLING stage, just before the hissing between my teeth stage. That last comes before the everything looks crimson stage that I’ve only been to a couple of times in this life. That sort of response wouldn’t be at all proportional, though, and I reserve that for things that really matter.
Let’s just say that the CSRs at the ISP are now just short of being killed, repeatedly and dramatically, in print. No doubt they mean well, but they are not in full control of their faculties. here’s the next missive:

Dear ___:

Thank you for your reply.
We regret any inconvenience this matter may be causing you. It is unfortunate that you feel that you have to bookmark our pages in order to reliable find everything. Please know that at the bottom of each page is a direct link to our “Contact Us” page.
Our shopping assistant is not only for new customers and the Live Chat option offered is available to any customer, we are always happy to assist. Please be aware that we do have leniency with our bills. Your services would not be disconnected for not paying $0.01.
We apologize that our Web site is not as accommodating as you would like it to be. We are always happy to receive feedback. We have sent this additional information to our webmaster for review. Have a great day.
Thank you again for contacting us via e-mail. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
Sincerely,
Mike G.
___ E-Care Specialist

I haven’t yet replied to this. Nor did I copy the stuff I posted in the reply to survey box. It was much the same as the other stuff anyway. She was waking up and I was getting tired and was no longer enjoying the game as much.
The upshot is that I’ll pay the balance and upgrade via telephone, on the 30th. I like best how the replies directly contradict not only each other, but reality.
The automated system called the next day, wanting money. It offered to connect me to a real person. I took it up on the offer.
"Hello, my name is _________. What are you calling about?"
"Well, hello, ___________. My name is D_____. I'm not calling-you called me. Now that we have that established. I understand that you people want a hundred and ten dollars and seventy-four cents. Short of paying you this instant, because I don't want to do that, how do we make the whining stop?"
Insert doubtful pause here.
"I'm sorry, Mr. P_________. I don't understand..." There may be some tapping of a foot in the background. A quick drumroll with the nails. "The whining?"
"Oh, the sensahumor transplant didn't take? My condolences. Yes. I want the phone calls to stop, and I'm not going to pay you right now. So how do we proceed?"
"When do you plan to pay?"
"That all depends."
"Do you plan to pay?" The thing in the background is more pronounced now. It is definitely nails drumming. I'm waiting for the fifers.
"If I must. You see, I have a problem."
Rather than dwell on the more obvious problems, I launch into an account of the above series of email exchanges, perhaps enhancing a detail or two and no doubt focusing on my side of the issue.
"So what exactly is it that you want?"
I describe, in full technicolor, my planned television/internet/phone package. My, you should excuse the expression, bundle.
"And when do you want that?" The drumming has commenced yet again. I am clearly her last call before lunch.
"I was hoping for right now. Immediately."
"And are you then planning to pay your bill right now?"
"I wasn't planning to."
"Let me put you on hold for a minute and see what the computer says."
Miss ________ has gotten with the program. She is clearly on the same page with me now.
She says. " We can't do it. I need you to pay some of the bill."
I sigh. I play my hole card. "I'm planning to pay you on the 30th."
"Let me type that in here." She hits the enter key.
"No."
"Why not?"
Not soon enough ptp," she says, forgetting that you're not supposed to use company jargon with the customer. It's ok, though. That's a pretty easy acronym.
"Okay. Make it the 26th. That's a week."
"Six days. Five after it gets in the system."
Now we're getting somewhere. We have communication. I can feel the gears turning, the well-oiled hinges beginning to groan under the pressure of the massive vault doors swinging back.
"Sorry."
I chew my lower lip reflectively. I can pay the bill. I can pay the bill and still have Chinese food later, and get the dry cleaning tomorrow.
Who am I kidding? I don't have any dry cleaning.
"How about if I paid tomorrow? If I came in personally and handed you coin of the realm?"
Clickety-clickety.
"No."
It has a certain inevitability to it, that No.
I sigh. It is over. I have lost.
"Okay. Here's the number." I give her the number of my card.
We make the appointment for the tech to come out, as my enhancements include new equipment. The appointment is necessarily after the first of the year, to allow all parties ample time to screw this up too.

Hold on just a god-damn minute there, read this sentence "Since Cox bills for services one month in advance, you have received services that payment has not been received for. With this in mind we are unable to process your request to upgrade your account until the past due balance has been paid." If they bill IN ADVANCE you cannot possibly be in arrears until the month for which you paid IN ADVANCE has come to an end - Or are we in a "It depends what the meaning of is is..." cycle?

$110.75 PER MONTH! For that I would expect my emails hand delivered by nubile young ladies wearing very little else but a smile. I pay about $15 (£11.50) a month and consider that on the expensive side - OK, I only have a 60Gb limit and "Up to" 20Mbs, but it is more than enough for my needs. Upgrading to fly-by-light unlimited download service with television & telephone would only cost about $65 per month.

It would seem that you have bumped into the mythical American inability to comprehend irony in this case - Don't your suppliers have a "Customer retention" department you could talk to, you are clearly wasting your literary talents writing them emails containing cogent sentences...

Of course they do. I just haven't gotten that far yet. The "Retention" people are a last resort.
110 bucks and change is good for all telephone features, 236 channels of dreck on the screen, and 400Gb data. I'd pay that for the last, and in fact I do. 32 Mbps on the speed. I don't need more than that or I'd buy into the University of Arizona's T3, which runs past here.
Anyway, yes...the whole thing is about the csrs not comprehending the multiple ironies of the situation. Irony has but one shade here in the states, and it's sarcasm. There is no up for the the milder ironical or down to the vitriolic sardonicism. There are no flavors between. There is only the snide. And I find that sheathing the saber for the bludgeon limits one's reach.

I feel your pain. Be glad it isn't the IRS.........

Originally Posted by nerot

I feel your pain. Be glad it isn't the IRS.........

My pain has little to do with the bill. I've had to do with the IRS before. I speak fluent accountant. I'm also well-versed in legalese. But I thank you for reading and taking the time to comment.
Your avatar is groovy.
My version of a Reader's Digest tale.

What a waste of energy.

If I’ve said this once since the beginning of electronic (mis)communication, I’ve said it a brazillian times: The entire problem is caused by individual interpretations of groups of words. You want to be clearly understood by anyone anywhere, talk to them face to face or at worst on the phone. No one ever achieves accord via email. End of.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

What a waste of energy.

If I’ve said this once since the beginning of electronic (mis)communication, I’ve said it a brazillian times: The entire problem is caused by individual interpretations of groups of words. You want to be clearly understood by anyone anywhere, talk to them face to face or at worst on the phone. No one ever achieves accord via email. End of.

I'm sorry. I don't understand you. And you clearly don't understand the purpose of the writing. You never do. And it isn't worth my time to try to explain it to you.

Let me put this another way (which remark is at the heart of it all): If you had gone IN PERSON to these people, and had a face-to-face discussion, eventually (all other things being equal) the matter would have been resolved equably.

The matter has been resolved equably, my dear beefwich. It isn't possible (or at least isn't very desirable) to have a face-to-face meeting. The office is across town. Four bus changes and three hours worth of traveling on public transport is a little much for my respiratory system to handle.
And...I have repeatedly reached accord via email. Just not with simpletons of that stripe, or with people who deliberately misunderstand things in order to have arguments. When the brim of your hat is around your ankles, you're unable to see very clearly. I understand that. Enjoy the shade.

From the time the Internet began to function, and before that with bbs, most of my negotiations with publishers and editors have been via email. There's never been a problem caused by the method of communication. If there is an intelligent person with decent language skills and a technical grasp of the subject under discussion at each end of the conversation, email is an efficient way of doing business.

In your case, Moderan, perhaps customer service has been out-sourced to Backbushastan, and the CSR's have yet to complete a course in English as a Second Language. They've memorised the 850 words in the Basic English vocabulary, plus a few technical terms, but have yet to learn how to assemble the words in a way that allows communication to take place. The opening sentences of their emails are obviously boiler plate. You really can't blame the CSR's. They are lost in a fog not of their making.

Now we're getting somewhere.
I don't really blame them. I just mine the comedy gold they produce.
Overall, this is a pretty good read for a slap-it-together. Doncha think? Good character sketch maybe, if the MC is to be a crank with a penchant for writing letters to his congressman and a talent for defrauding innkeepers.