Jim Drass, CCHP
Habitat Corporate Suites Network

Just before I pick up the phone, I pause a moment, I lift up my mouse-pad and take a look at a picture. It’s about 4”x4” and the yellow sun has faded, but I took the time to laminate this piece of Crayola art a couple of years ago, and I can clearly make out my brown locks and my pet hotdog. I used to look at this picture more regularly back in my younger days in the hospitality industry. I kept the picture taped to my computer monitor back then. I needed it as a constant reminder of what was at stake. It reminded me that I couldn’t bring knives or guns to work. As now, back then, it was a career-limiting move to maim one’s employees or guests. It would have also deprived my daughter of her father. So I reviewed the picture regularly to remind me.

Now, in my more mellower years, I need to remind myself to bite my tongue and have a little patience with the poor underpaid men and women at the other end of the 800 number I am about to dial. I also have to maintain the business relationships I am charged with, or again, I could make a career-limiting mistake. I am definitely beyond the violence, but I need to accumulate all the college money I can for my now grown college-bound artist. So I once again review the picture to remind me of what is at stake.

When I call and 800 number, my mouth dries out and I start to feel a little anxious . After 10 years in the industry I have a bad tendency to feel that I often know more about the job of the person answering the phone than they do….so I am just waiting for the customer service agent to make some comment I know to be false. If it’s before 10am, I am usually eager for a fight. I don’t drink caffeine in the morning, and this is a great artificial boost.

Typically I am calling a utility or communications service to stop, start, change or fix something. I’ve done it a thousand times and I know what to expect, I know what SHOULD happen and I know what will likely happen.
First I have to get to the right department, I’ve memorized the prompts for a couple of my routine calls, but often I am multi-tasking and need to repeat a menu or two. The next hurdle is to convince the agent that I am in the right department, as in: “Yes I know it’s under a company name, but I am a residential account.”  Hopefully I can get this out before I get transferred, but I am not always successful.

Don’t get me started on the voice mail tree. Ok, too late. Well, I don’t need to harp on that, you’ve all experienced it the ones with button pushing only, or the voice/button options, or the voice-only ones. My beef is with the ones that ask you for your account number, and then 12 minutes later when you finally get a live person, they act like you haven’t already given the information to them. I think there should be a law that forbids the 800 number to require or ask for this information unless the agent who answers is actually going to use it to access your account.

Now the people at the 800 number are often very nice, and I usually have no problem understanding them (unless they are from Arkansas), but they seem to be limited by this odd thing called a “computer“ they often try to use it when I call. They want to help, they try to help, but in the end, something is not normal and they can’t quite pull it off, or they seem to think they pulled it off, convincing me they pulled it off. But alas, I often find an employee waiting in vain well past the 4-hour installation window in an empty apartment far, far from the office.

One national company we all love to hate was recently awarded the title of “worst company in America” by some obscure web site that has an annual voting of its viewers. This year they beat out Ticketmaster for the first time in 2 years. Since January however, I can tell there has been a real change of heart in their corporate culture. Kind of like the Domino’s thing, they finally admitted their pizza sucked. Now on almost all calls, I get asked if they have completed my request to my satisfaction, and then genuinely thank me for my business. It’s kind of nice, but still, I often end up the sucker, kind of like going through the drive through. Joe Pesci is right about the drive-thorough, and I am right about the 800 number.

After the fourth month of not receiving my bill, I called another one of our national favorites only to find out that someone forgot to press “enter” button to “complete the order.”  “Three somebody’s in the past 3 months?” I ask desperately after explaining I have been calling every month since January. I have this vision that the agent at the other end is reading a comic book or doing their nails and just responding “yes,” “un-huh,” “certainly,” and “you’re all set” just to get me off the phone, all the while never entering my information in. After all, how am I ever going to call back and find Amanda, let alone her supervisor to let them know how she let me down? I know I’m not going to get my bill next month either, I just know it.

The professional 1-800 supervisor is all-elusive; they must have some magic school they attend that teaches them how to avoid actually talking to a customer. After being unable to resolve an issue with a customer service agent, the next logical step is a supervisor, but invariably the agent comes back with “my supervisor said….” and we go on to plan B. After a couple awkward back-and-forth conversations, this agent is clearly dying inside, and I’m sure saying to him/herself “what are you getting paid for if all you are going to do is tell me what to tell this impossible guy – would you please get off your chair and talk to him??” Oh wait, that’s what I’m thinking.

So is it just me, or is there a stigma now associated with calling an 800 number? I am programmed to dread the call, knowing that the call will often bear no fruit. I’ve been transferred from the cancellation department, to the unbundling department to the cancellation for unbundled services department. I’m not bitter, I’m confused.

One of my favorite vendors asks me a very peculiar question when I call; They ask me if I am a “commercial” or “corporate” account. In the past 10 years, I have undoubtedly asked “what does that mean?” dozens of times, and I get some odd, yet completely unsatisfying answer, which usually means I am even more confused or I stopped listening. After reviewing my account number, the agent mysteriously shuffles me off to the correct department. Nowadays when they ask that question, I fight the urge to answer “YES!”, but usually say something equally stupid, yet less insulting like “I am a company” and this somehow means something to them and I am once again quickly transferred to the right department. I am usually quite annoyed at this question and forget to ask the agent I was transferred to “Am I a corporate or commercial account?” Maybe someday I’ll have the patience to ask, and then finally remember to add it to my faded Post-it note under my keyboard. You know, the one that reminds me that the debits go on the left.