Thursday Rant: Customer Service Representatives

First of all, when I call your customer service number it’s because I need customer service. Not because I want to listen to your list of prompts. Obviously I need assistance or I wouldn’t have called so, yes, I would like to speak to a representative. Can’t that just be prompt 1 instead of listening to 8,736 other options and then pressing zero?

I recently purchased an item online and was waiting by the door for the UPS man (who is terrified of my dog and always says “I’ll just leave it right here,” leaves it on the front porch and runs back to his truck). I opened the package full of giddy anticipation and was quickly shot through the heart when I saw that they had shipped the wrong item.

To the store I went to return the item. Apologies were made, a refund for the total including shipping was given, and since the online price was less than the in-store price I even got a raincheck. Great. Skipping some details because it’s not part of my rant I could not get the item in-store. As it turns out the item number doesn’t match the item pictured online. So how do I get the one pictured? Call customer service.

I called and was assured that they had been notified (who is ‘they’?) and the error was corrected. “Go ahead and order the item again, Ma’am.” Are you sure? Because I’m looking at it online right now and the item pictured (that I want) still has the same item number that it did before (wrong). Again, I was told that it was fine. I had my doubts about this representative and was convinced he didn’t understand my problem. I tried asking my questions several different ways and he kept telling me that if I placed a new order I would get the item pictured.

Order placed.

A week of anxiety goes by.

UPS Man!! “I’ll leave it right here for ya.”

I could not open that package fast enough. What do ya know, it’s the same stinking WRONG ITEM that they sent the FIRST time.

I’m completely convinced that the customer service representative that I talked to really had no interest in helping me. He didn’t care about my problem or it’s resolution and probably just made up the whole thing about the issue being resolved. Clearly it wasn’t. All he did was look at the same web page that I was looking at and said “yep, you’re good.” Please tell me how much you get paid because that sounds like a pretty easy job that I should consider.