Musings: Phoning for help not always helpful
When people call customer service with a problem, they usually are already frustrated, a reader writes. Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto/Pheelings Media
The big U.S. corporations have sales departments with people who do their jobs well, trying to provide you help while selling you a service or product. It sounds normal, and it is easy dealing with them.
After your purchase, if you need to call customer service, you often get an agent in a foreign country speaking hard-to-understand English, and if you don’t have an ear for accents, you have a problem.
I remember when you could request someone to speak to, and they’d put you on hold for what seemed like a week. Now, they claim they can’t even do that, and they don’t have another number to call.
When people call customer service with a problem, they usually are already frustrated. Who wants to deal with repeatedly saying to the agent, “Pardon me,” because you can’t quite understand them. They try to be courteous. It’s not the fault of the foreign speaker.
It is the responsibility of the American company peddling its services or goods. Let’s put more Americans to work.
— Robert Casale, Glen Head
WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO JOIN OUR DAILY CONVERSATION. Just go to newsday.com/submitaletter and follow the prompts. Or email your opinion to letters@newsday.com. Submissions should be no more than 200 words. Please provide your full name, hometown, phone number and any relevant expertise or affiliation. Include the headline and date of the article you are responding to. Letters become the property of Newsday and are edited for all media. Due to volume, readers are limited to one letter in print every 45 days. Published letters reflect the ratio received on each topic.
