Customer Service Etiquette

Customer Service is not what it use to be. 

Once the number you called is answered, it's no longer a person but an automated voice welcoming you to their customer service department and then you hear (for another 2 or 3 minutes) in another language someone talking.  First of all, this is America and the number I call, I expect to only hear someone speaking English and for that matter, be fluent in our language.  Now on to why I am blogging about this...

My Valentine's day gift was a TomTom GPS device.  I had been wanting one for a while and Terry got me one for Vday.  I was so excited and as I wrote about yesterday, we played with it Saturday and Sunday.  Yesterday, I went to the website to see all the different features the device has and found out the map I was currently using (which came on the device brand new) was out of date and I needed to download the latest version.  (This is where the gray hairs multiplied in my hair.)

I followed the directions of linking the GPS device with the computer and had no problems.  The download started and I couldn't wait to see what this new, updated map looked like.  After the download (which took about an hour), it said it was copying over to internal memory.  No problem, do what you have to do... only it froze up about half way through.  No biggie, I'll try it again.  Only it had the same problem.  So I call the customer support number.  After hitting 1 for this and 4 for this and another 1 for this, I talk to an actual human being.  Great, I think, problem will be solved.  Only I had the same problem another 7 times.  7 TIMES!!!  I called the customer support number so many times I knew the number to push before the menu items could be called out!  (Note - I called 5 times.)

Finally, at 8:30 p.m. (I missed the bachelor last night) I called for the last time.  This guy was not only rude to me, he was eating while talking to me!  And then told me it was my computer and I should go buy a new computer because mine was obviously not worth anything.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME????  By this time I was irate and I asked to speak with his supervisor.  She apologized and said, we will ship you out a new one tomorrow... I told her not to bother because we would be returning the device and getting another brand!

So I give you my Customer Service Etiquette...

1 - Please learn the English language so when I call, I can understand you.
2 - Do not make me feel like an idiot to the point I only want to cry or cuss you to kingdom come!
3 - Do NOT eat or smack gum while you are talking to me.
4 - Understand that not everyone can read your mind.
5 - Apologize for me even having to deal with this situation.
6 - And please, please understand that this is the job YOU chose, not me!