HANGING ON THE PHONE FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE.

 I recently complained about Belkin’s horrible customer service. A rep read my blog and called to tell me they were refunding me post-haste and investigating the people who put me through that alienating experience.

 

 Hanging on the phone for minutes or hours is an affliction of our modern commerce that bugs me. It makes me think twice before I buy anything on-line. But, all of us can make changes and I had read this before, but I forgot it. So, I’m reminding you and myself again,  that we have a law that can help us fight back against this kind of abuse.

I got this note from a friend of mine who lives in Virginia:  “A gas company recently moved their call center back to Phoenix from India last year after numerous customer complaints.  What a difference now when you call them…and it created 300 jobs.  I know this works because they were so bad that when India answered I wouldn’t even deal with them.  I’d simply ask to be transferred to a supervisor in the U.S. and they would comply.

  

Now that I know it is the LAW – I will do it for sure

 Any time you call an 800 number (for a credit card, banking, Verizon, health and other insurance, computer help desk, etc) and you find that you’re talking to a foreign customer service
representative (perhaps in India , Philippines , etc), please consider doing the following:

 After you connect and you realize that the customer
service representative is not from the USA (you can always ask if you are not sure about the accent), please, very politely (this is not about trashing other cultures) say, “I’d like to speak to a customer service representative in the United States of America ..”The rep might suggest talking to his/her manager, but, again, politely say, “Thank you, but I’d like to speak to a customer service representative in the USA.

 YOU WILL BE IMMEDIATELY CONNECTED TO A REP IN THE USA .
That’s the rule and the LAW.

 It takes less than one minute to have your call re-directed to the USA. Tonight when I got redirected to a USA rep, I asked again to make sure – and yes, she was from Fort Lauderdale .

Imagine what would happen if every US citizen insisted on talking to only US phone reps from this day on.

 Imagine how that would ultimately impact the number of
US jobs that would need to be created ASAP.

 If I tell 10 people to consider this and you tell 10
people to consider doing this – see what I mean…it becomes an exercise in viral marketing 101.

 Remember

The goal here is to restore jobs back here at home –
not to be abrupt or rude to a foreign phone rep.

You may even get correct answers, good advice, and solutions to your problem – in real English.”

Thank you Guerry for reminding me of a law that makes sense for America. In fact my daughter, after the economy took a tumble, got a job for a brief time in a call center. The rules were draconian, you had to stand all day rather than sit because your presentation is better when standing. Within 3 months, I think it was, the call center was transferred to the Philippines. She, and the other employees were out of work. She found a better job, but it took three moves to get to something tolerable. The way people are treated, on the job without unions, is nearly as bad as the “Snake Pit” of the 1920’s meat-packing industry and the horror of the garment industry in New York City after modest reforms.