Shane Hegarty's encyclopaedia of modern Ireland
Brrr. Brrr. "Hello. Welcome to our customer careline." Thank God you answered. I've a terrible problem with my computer. "All our operators are busy. Please hold. Your call will be answered in turn." Oh God, no.
Industry spent years trying to design longer-lasting products. Eventually it abandoned that quest in favour of piecing together a dense, frustrating network of automated helplines designed to ensure that customers get bored, go away and buy new products. The technology behind the helplines is impressive. Even a basic one can deftly lead customers through a maze of options, queues and electronic versions of Greensleeves until they finally get to talk to a human being. At which moment they will be cut off. Then they will have to go through it all again. For 58c a minute.
"Please hold. Your call is important to us . . ." First you go through a bewildering sequence of options. If you require option one, please press three. If you are waiting for customer complaints, please press seven, then hash, then wait for six seconds, then press hash again and stand well clear of the phone. Sometimes it will ask you to speak the name of the department you want, but it won't understand you unless you speak the purest English, clear of even a hint of an accent. Pass this test and there may yet be a devious twist. Only recently, one major bank had a phone line that advised you to ring another phone line. When you called that, you were told to call the number you had dialled in the first place.
"Your call may be recorded." Then you wait. And wait. Until your ear overheats and begins to melt the phone's plastic. Thankfully, some companies, such as MBNA, now offer to call you back when an operator becomes free, which is such a leap forward in customer relations that you are almost grateful to have €9,000 of debt you can't repay. Not all are so good, though. Eircom is particularly bad. That the largest phone provider has such a frustrating helpline is an irony you can enjoy as you miss your children's first steps, waiting to report your broken call-answering service. As a rule of thumb, if the technology you are complaining about is obsolete by the time you get to report the fault with it, you've been on hold too long.
"You are now in a queue. A customer service representative will be with you shortly." And when you finally get through to a human, they are trained to defuse your anger. These people have black belts in empathy. "Oh you poor thing," they'll tell you. "That's terrible. This complaint will go straight to the top." You hang up, mollified by their deep compassion. Meanwhile, they carefully file your complaint in the waste-paper basket and resume their finely poised game of solitaire.