Computer answering is idiotic

Let?s talk about how major companies have destroyed their customer service with idiotic phone answering systems that try to make you talk to a computer and even answer questions to a non-person.

I tried to order check blanks online and found myself getting tested with the robot phone system. The system gives you several options and then asks you to say it. So I say it and then it asks me to say it again as it didn?t hear me, or something like it.

So the next time I yell and it deteriorates from there. After several rounds of this, I am told they cannot enter my order since I have never placed one online before. Not once do I get an option to speak with a real person who might be able to answer the questions or figure out what I am really after.

It then directs me to the Web site, and when I follow all of the steps there, it says there is an error.

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What I just wrote about is really quite mild when compared to an experience I had with another large corporation recently.

I called tech support and got one of the robots again. I did my usual yelling with no result, so decided to call the corporate office number I found online.

When I called it, a real person answered and I was pleased with my decision until the operator transferred me to the same robot again. So I immediately called again and told the person that I really needed to talk with a real person. Finally, I did get to talk to a real person but didn?t learn anything useful there either.

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I don?t have any way of proving it, but I think every time I get a haircut in the winter, the weather gets miserably cold the day of my appointment.

And your head can really feel the cold when a large amount of your hair is missing.

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Let?s say you have tickets to the Minnesota Vikings game and they have to move the game to Detroit because the snow caved in the roof at the Metrodome.

Would you really buy a ticket on short notice and fly to Detroit for a Monday game?

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There must be a video of almost everything that happens in the world. One even exists of the roof tearing and snow cascading onto the football field at the Metrodome.

It must have been a surveillance camera because I don?t think anyone would be hanging around with a video camera before 6 a.m. waiting for the roof to collapse.

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It seems to me the less attention you pay to someone who is trying to get under your skin, the less they like it.

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I can?t wait until spring?or at least warmer weather than this past weekend?because it isn?t any fun to walk on a treadmill. At the same time, I am one third through watching ?Smoky and the Bandit,? one of the all-time great movies if you like Trans Ams and cars going fast and sliding and jumping all over the place.

I am pretty sure that movie caused son Dan to want, and subsequently own, two Firebirds of that vintage.

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A personal fitness trainer told me the average weight gain between Thanksgiving and New Year?s is 13 pounds. That seems a little high to me, but that?s what he said. Exercise before eating increases metabolism and minimizes the added pounds.

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