I’ve had the misfortune to have to deal with companies over the last few weeks by phone. One was to discuss my phone service, the other was to ask about a car loan.
In both cases the service was relatively muddy but eventually clear, and it took way longer to accomplish than I thought, but did finally lead to provision of information.

Sitting on hold for hours and trying to explain my situation to people who were seemingly obtuse wasn’t the end of my punishment at the hands of these companies.

Nope.

Then came the customer service surveys, surely designed by business terrorists to prevent you from ever ever contacting customer service again.

You know the ones – some poor underpaid strident voiced and grimly determined call centre person calls you at an inopportune moment, shouts at you that the call may be recorded, and proceeds to read one-to-ten scales at you about “this last customer service experience”. For my phone, the survey was done by text messages. About 20 individual ones. Because I called customer service before I went to the store.

I’m always torn with these things. On the one hand, I know there are human beings on the end of the phone and in customer service land whose pay and continued employment depend in some way on my responses to the survey. On the other hand, I do not see why I have to give feedback on a survey for every #<#+<## customer service interaction I ever do, which seems to be the case.

Who reads these surveys? Do they have any effect? Or is this a way to keep we underlings from wanting to access humans as vs trying to wend our ways through the Byzantine pathways of the website ("forget your password?).

I dunno, but I'm fed up. If I think someone has given good service, I tell them. If its been unusually good service, I wrote a note to their manager. If the service has been bad, I sigh. If it has been execrable, I send a hotly worded note to their manager.

Surely that should be enough?

I'm picturing lying on my deathbed, phone buzzing every few seconds. "We understand you had a recent customer service experience with our nursing staff. Based on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the overall experience. Can you specify what about "I'm dying" at makes you feel this way?" "Could you say that again, I didn't catch the last bit…I'm almost finished typing…now, thinking about the sum total of your experiences with your nursing staff, on a scale of one to ten, with one being very unlikely and 10 being very likely, would you recommend our services? Ma'am? Ma'am?"