Customer disservice

Update: A reader writes: I moonlight as security at one of those huge service centers. I can tell you from experience, there are very few accidents. Most likely when they cut you off, they either had a really hot poker hand, needed a smoke break, or their pizza had just arrived. quality help, like a good man, is hard to find. And the turnover rate here is horrendous. ...xo.

Update 2: I just got my weekly rundown of manuscripts that were sold this week. Maybe when this one comes out, it will sheld light on the situation: Emily Yellin's YOUR CALL IS (NOT THAT) IMPORTANT TO US, an investigative narrative about the customer service industry, from outsourced IT helpdesks in India, to Mormon housewives taking reservations for JetBlue, to the corporate boardrooms where the policies that make customer service experiences so frustrating are made, to Liz Stein at Free Press, for publication in fall 2008, by Jennifer Gates at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency (NA).

Making calls to customer service allows one to engage in many rewarding opportunities: being rerouted to difference voice-operated options, having to say long strings of numbers into the phone, and explaining a complex situation to three different people. All of that is fine; I can handle that. What I hate is that they can finally understand your situation, be in the process of resolving it, accidentally hang up on you, and then when you call back -- if you are lucky enough to even remember the person's name -- they won't put you back on with that same person. Nor will that person call you back to finish the process. You are expected to completely start over, even though they accidentally hung up on you.

I think it would be a big improvement in customer service (we're talking phone service, gas, cable, internet, any service business) if the person on the other end can ask you for the number you're at so that if you somehow get cut off (meaning, they don't know how to properly put you on hold), then can call you back and pick up where you left off.

I always ask for their name first thing now, so that I have proof that I actually talked to someone. In case you don't already do that, I encourage you to do the same.

I hope you have a most pleasant day.


O.P.P. (Other People's Projects)

From time to time, hopeful writers e-mail me and ask me if I can read their writing projects and give them feedback. I always tell them that my opinion isn't much more valuable than anyone else's, but I'm happy to help if they look at it in that context. Years ago, I used to always read their creations (well, not the whole thing, but perhaps a few chapters) because I was in the same place not so long ago, just desperately wishing someone would read my writing and publish me. And now I still want to read people's stuff, but this is what happens:

1. I download the file and get too busy to read it.
2. See 1.

So these days, I tell them to send the first five pages. I can tell a lot based on five pages, and that way, I get to it quicker.