Call centers


I received the following Friday morning. I’m posting it tonight for what it is worth. I don’t know if it is true or not—might be worth a try though. I don’t use call centers. I try to do everything I can in person. Have called my “@” provider about three or four times in the five+ years I had the service. All calls, but one, were immediately after moving here to get the system operating correctly. It has always been successful with some effect. Most were hard to understand though and it was hard for them to understand me since I didn’t and don’t know the technical language.

I did some editing and put the e-mail into my format. I don’t know the source. The e-mail:

“Try to remember this EVERY TIME you have to talk to a customer service representative and you cannot understand them. I did not know that we could do this, but I sure am going to try it. Help bring jobs back to the U.S.A. Ask for an American!How to save some American jobs and we can help!Hi EveryoneI want to share with you some great information that I found out purely by accident. I believe it can also save and create jobs in America while giving people better customer service.So how many times have you called a companies service phone line and found that the representative can barely speak English? Once with a major mortgage company it was so bad I demanded to speak with someone who spoke English. Right at that moment I broke the code—the secret password for customer service.Came to find out that every American company using overseas operators must transfer you to an American representative by saying—‘I want to speak to a representative in America.’ (Don’t take no for an answer on this.)

This was confirmed by the American representative that they must transfer you after that request. I’ve tried it on a half a dozen major companies including cable, bank, phone and mortgage companies. It works every time and I actually get my issues taken care of.Last thing to help save even more jobs:

Don’t use the automated check out lanes they are pushing at the big box stores. Once again I found out that if we use those check outs rather than cashiers—people loose their jobs. I’ve refused to use the automated check outs and have had two cashiers already thank me for help saving their job.”

I’m a throw-back to an earlier age. I don’t use automated check outs, drive through windows, ATM machines, pay bills by electronic transfer or over the internet, or much of anything else that doesn’t have a person involved.

I called Verizon recently because I didn’t receive the phone bill. Of course, I got the automated system. I finally got most of the information I needed but, of course, it was frustrating. I would much rather deal with a real person. Somewhere, in all the material I’ve accumulated, I have an e-mail on how to get a real person. Maybe, I’ll try to hunt it up and post it sometime. Give me someone to talk with! Even someone from another country is better than the recordings we now deal with.

Ah, progress. Oh well! Soon we’ll all be working for the government or on the government dole.

Next week, the Illinois General Assembly has been called back into session. I plan on several posts in that regard starting Monday.