There tends to be benefit—better interoperability and so forth—in mostly or completely casting your lot with one soulless megacorp. For the questions you can answer Apple, Google, or Microsoft, my answer is mostly Microsoft. I keep a lowball Android tablet around, but otherwise I’m pretty bought into the Microsoft ecosystem.
Part of said ecosystem is SkyDrive, on which you get 7GB free. I purchased an additional 50GB almost a year ago, and upon critical examination, decided I wasn’t doing enough with it to renew. (I mostly had music out there, and I might have streamed it from there a dozen times.)
The automated email I received let me know it would soon automatically renew, and to go to http://commerce.microsoft.com/ to cancel. I did, following the prompts, and at the end of it there were two choices: a link to a forum that appeared to be a mistake when I followed it, and instructions for talking to Microsoft customer service.
On the telephone.
It is becoming difficult to accurately convey how much I loathe talking on the telephone. I first began developing genuine antipathy to it perhaps five years ago, and since then my distaste has only swelled. I get that it’s the best option for some things. About 90% of my voice calls are with Lea, and about 90% of those concern quotidian logistics for which email or texting would be poorly suited.
But I should have been able to handle this business matter with one of the biggest technology companies in the world online, and I told them so very bluntly in the satisfaction survey I received shortly thereafter. (Good grades for the CSR; he was fine. I just shouldn’t have had to talk to him in the first place.)
I’m aware that my feelings on this matter are unusually strong (though I do know of at least one soul sister on the matter). In trying to find some insight on it, I think I’ve determined that:
- I enjoy the precision of the electronic/written word. Think about having pizza delivered. Online is so much better. Do you realize what a spectacularly complex order I can submit, with an excellent chance of it arriving just like I want? Do you appreciate how that chance would plummet with an identical order on a voice call?
- I appreciate the implicit deference in it. If you call me, then I have to talk to you right then. If you email or text me, then there’s a bit of a “when you get a chance” built in, isn’t there? I weigh that considerably when I communicate with others, particularly when I know they have busy schedules.
- I’m a jerk. Not most of the time, but some of the time. I’ll own that. Sometimes I just don’t feel like being nice, and you’re making me conjure up manners on a schedule not of my choosing. I’m sorry for just saying it right out like that. I’m being honest.
Now if you’re reading this and we talk on the telephone once in a while, don’t get all wigged. A bunch of this is my idiosyncrasy, and I realize that. If you really need to call me, then call me.
But you know what you might think about? Maybe you text or email and we coordinate seeing each other face to face.
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No, I hate telephones as well. And while I appreciate that there may be good reasons for having to cancel “in person,” I can’t think of any right now.
So happy to learn that I’m not the only one who loathes talking on the phone. I much prefer text and email.
If I have to call a business to do something it will take at least 4X as long, usually more like 40X. And most of the time it gets outsourced to the hubby. I loathe it.
My reasons:
1. I like to handle customer service issues at odd hours. Like 11pm on a Saturday. Many businesses are not open. I do not want to make a calendar appointment to remind myself to talk to you on my lunch break.
2. I hate sitting through phone waiting lists.
3. I hate explaining the same information over and over and over again. If I just emailed, you could forward it and accomplish the same thing.
4. I don’t want to be called back and have to instantly switch to whatever nonsense matter this is. I’ll email you when I’m free, you email me back when you’re free, cool?
5. The above things annoy me. When I am annoyed I have trouble being patient and kind with the poor reps stuck with me.
6. I don’t really like talking to strangers and making small talk and pretending like we like each other. Nor do I like your elevator music, repeated commercials, or random beeping. I do like getting other stuff done.
7. I don’t like being chained to the phone while waiting for someone to pick up/come back on the line.
One of my more recent annoyances with phone support is that the first thing a lot of the automated answering services say, by default, is “we’re experiencing an unprecedented call volume at this time. Please be patient and the next available CSR will be with you” only to have someone pick up immediately once i make it through 3+ layers of touch-tone menus. No, you don’t have a ridiculous call volume right now… quit blanket apologizing for something that probably rarely happens.
My biggest beef though is out sourcing. I think there should be a law that if I dial a US area code or toll free US number, it should be illegal to re-route the call outside of the United States. When I am doing business with a US company, I want the people providing service to me paying taxes in the US.
And almost equally as important, I want the CSR to be able to understand what I’m saying and I want to understand what the CSR is saying. And the CSR’s manager better sure as hell be able to understand.
I can deal with accents just fine, I’ve worked in companies that have as much as 50% foreign nationals/immigrants (legal ones). Heavy accents on top of mostly correct English is just fine. Hell, I’ve had a harder time understanding some Alabama and Mississippi natives with really back woods accents at times. But when the a CSR only knows the English on the script infront of him/her, that’s unacceptable.
I had a support call a month or two ago where both the CSR and the CSR’s manager couldn’t understand my request and I think the mananger ended up muting himself and couldn’t figure out how to unmute. That or the connection to south Asia (where these guys were likely located) got messed up.
Ditto to all of the above. I often just let it ring and go to voice mail.
Then I will respond with email (I even hate checking VM).
If I can’t see a person’s face my concentration wanders very quickly.
Greetings from Santiago, Chile, where I was able to use online ordering to get lunch (including instructions such as “no mayonnaise”) for 5 people delivered to our office. This would have been problematic if not impossible thanks to my toddler-level Spanish and my US cell phone number.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am heartened to see so much solidarity on this issue. Outside a few tightly-defined emotional purposes and the daily housekeeping I mentioned in the post, voice calls suck.
Maybe we’re on our way to ending it and I just didn’t realize it.