The other day I found myself in the most unfortunate of predicaments: talking to "customer service." Well, I would have talked had I actually conversed with a live body rather than listening to the customer-service version of "The Girl from Ipanema" for approximately 737 hours without let-up.
Circumstances sometimes spin completely beyond your control such as giant millipedes from Mars commandeering your life and placing you at the mercy of syrupy elevator music as your ear becomes permanently affixed to the telephone's receiver.
Rather than boring you with all the whys and wherefores of my predicament, let's just say I was attempting to obtain a particular loaf of Rosemary-Artisan bread. Said bread being unavailable where I live, I spoke with a capable agent at the bread company who placed my order in a timely and skillful manner.
Now I understand that special orders take time, but still. First I heard from John, the bakery representative whose job was tying up all the loose ends on my order. He needed more information, which I was happy to provide, and he paid careful attention to the details. He confirmed I would have access to my order on the assigned date and just in case I needed it, he gave me my order number for the Rosemary-Artisan bread and a toll-free customer service number.
Since we don't have a local bakery for this particular bread I guessed it was being rushed via overnight delivery, so on the appointed day I dialed customer service to inquire about the delivery time. The perky voice answering my call competently transferred me to customer service. Thinking said representative would answer the call during my lifetime I hung on, doing a little impromptu bossa nova to the strains of "The Girl from Ipanema." (Important scientific fact: The up-tempo beat of "hold music" is designed to reduce the caller's hostility by individually deadening each of said caller's brain cells so when customer-service finally comes on the line the representative will be speaking with a mere shell of the caller's former self who by now has all of the finely-honed mental faculties of a lobotomy patient.)
The bakery representative (who finally arrived to take my call after possibly returning from lunch in another country) ferreted from my anesthetized brain that I wished to know the time of delivery of my Rosemary-Artisan bread. "Did you send in your form?" she asked sweetly. "Huh?" was my whiz-bang answer. Well. Here I thought I could simply expect the bread to arrive - how silly of me not to have anticipated that I was to fill out a form. "The form was e-mailed to you," the representative said, the picture of long-suffering patience. "Um ... well, no, it wasn't," I answered uncooperatively. We stepped over a few more obstacles, the result being that the form would be faxed to me; I would complete the form and fax it back to the representative. Once my fax was received at the bakery a representative of the "wire team" (this procedure now required a "specialist") would call back to verify the information that I had just supplied. Ok, I sensed a little redundancy here, but whatever.
So with only a few hours of my day shot to pieces I was happy to know my Rosemary-Artisan bread delivery would occur the next day. Being a suspicious sort, the next morning I called to confirm that my loaf of bread was indeed on its way. And don't you love it when the mechanical voice at the top of the call reveals that "your call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance" because who, for the love of God, is monitoring that call? Governor Schwarzenegger? The Pope? And can I get a copy of the recording? Does it actually exist? What quality assurance?
Alas, my delivery was not made that day. Nor the next - because my order was misplaced! Mixed in with someone else's order. And they were dreadfully sorry but now I must fill out a new form; they would fax it right over and I could fax it right back and then they would (yep!) call me to verify that the information was correct.
Now the nutty thing is - remember John in Minnesota? By Day No. 3 I'd conversed with Karen in Louisiana, Preston in Ohio and a few other assorted souls whom I do not remember. At the center of all this interaction was poor Matt. Matt was the confused young man in God-knows-what-state manning the phone and trying to sort things out. If academy awards were given for the world's best apologies, Matt would have walked away with armfuls.
"I do apologize for the delay, I am having a specialist look into this," reported Matt half a dozen times. "Is there any other way I can be of service to you today?" he ventured hopefully after speaking with me approximately 50 times. "I'm sorry we're not meeting your expectations," Matt apologized doggedly at the end of three days with no bread delivery.
But my saga came to an end at last with the delivery of a fresh loaf of Rosemary-Artisan bread. But I warn you - if you work in customer service and you have the sad misfortune to find me on the other end of your phone line, please do not ask me, "How can we provide you with outstanding service today?" Because I'm just liable to tell you.
Gale Hammond Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at GaleHammond@aol.com.
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