Perhaps one of the things that frustrates me most in terms of "things that just waste time" is the pervasive need to follow up on everything that is allegedly just supposed to happen by itself... because that's the root of the very service or product being offered.
Like... you correctly file the form required to be reimbursed for something; you get a confirmation that the form has been appropriately filed along with the note that it'll take "three to four weeks" for it to be processed, and then when nothing has happened after six weeks.
So you call up to follow up (time wasting point #1) and even though you have the previous confirmation nobody can figure out what's going on so you have to resubmit the paperwork and send emails all over creation and talk to 47 people (time wasting point #2) leading to (time wasting point #3) having to follow up on the follow-up because you now have no confidence that anything is going to be done the way it was supposed to be done.
Of course, some people might just say "Why don't you just let it go? It's not THAT big a deal?" I see. Well, let's cover that point later on, shall we?
For example, I have a particular issue in my life at the moment following our truck breaking down a few weeks ago; the roadside assistance service not being able to find a tow contractor locally to us, so we ended up calling our own service who did the job in less than 20 minutes.
But we subsequently needed to file a claim for reimbursement with them because they couldn't provide the service we're paying them to provide, and even though they have confirmed that they have received all the appropriate paperwork and documentation they now have no record of the paperwork and documentation.
Now the cynic in me is pretty convinced that perhaps a lot of this failure to provide what is promised is actually a calculated and measured corporate strategy, enacted by companies as company policy, as a means to avoid having to carry through on their promises.
After all if you are a large organization — and maybe you process thousands of claims are transactions a week — if you can get people to give up on 10% or even 20% of claims in frustration over the difficulty of the process, you end up saving a huge amount of money.
Which, I'm pretty sure, is also how most of those very inexpensive "nuisance subscriptions" to various apps are designed. You get this alleged service on your phone for $0.99 a week and even though the person who purchased the app never actually uses it the fact that it's only $0.99 a week allows this completely unused thing to continue to be charged to somebody's bank account at $0.99 a week ad infinitum.
Maybe I'm naive about the world we live in but it just seems like there is a staggering lack of integrity in most cases. And very few people are willing to put up enough of a fuss to effectuate material change.
I'm pretty sure it's nothing new.
After all, when I worked in the IT industry — and did a lot of work on documentation back in the day when software actually came with lengthy printed manuals — one of the things we were always told was to pretty much bury the actual contact information to customer service in such a place that nobody would have any hope of finding it.
Quite deliberately. The attitude was that if anybody has any problems with this they're pretty much on their own. We don't wanna deal with it... sell them the product, get them out the door, forget about it!
I guess the whole notion of calling it a "service" industry is pretty much a farce! I'm not saying that there aren't some organizations out there who have good customer service, but the sad reality seems to be that they represent a minority, not a majority.
Meanwhile, I'm still trying to get warranty service for our rather fancy battery lawn mower that we bought last year and which stoped working after about nine months.
It's under warranty, but the problem with that is that not only does the manufacturer website not work very well, when you call the warranty customer service line they're only open for limited hours on US East Coast time and evidently they only have one or two people answering the phones because you end up being on hold for hours and eventually you "time out" because it's closing time over there.
I guess the whole idea of standing behind what you sell is become a thing of the past.
But at least I feel a little better after having written all this!
Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the remainder of your week!
Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation! I do my best to answer comments, even if it sometimes takes a few days!
Greetings bloggers and social content creators! This article was created via PeakD, a blogging application that's part of the Hive Social Content Experience. If you're a blogger, writer, poet, artist, vlogger, musician or other creative content wizard, come join us! Hive is a little "different" because it's not run by a "company;" it operates via the consensus of its users and your content can't be banned, censored, taken down or demonetized. And that COUNTS for something, in these uncertain times! So if you're ready for the next generation of social content where YOU retain ownership and control, come by and learn about Hive and make an account!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT posted anywhere else!)
Created at 2024-06-18 23:48 PDT
1171/2428
