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Hippo, birdie, two ewes...
2008-03-25 06:44 am ... to my very own Younger Daughter, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
super_star_girl!!!!!?!
My little girl!!? Sweet Sixteen??! OMGWTFBBQ? Have a great one,
Sweetie!
2008-03-25
... your best bet is to provide a company web site that gives me the information I need, lets me bookmark it, gives me a form I can fill out to perform my transaction, and lets me bookmark that so I can come back to it if I get called away from my desk.
If you make me look for your phone number and call you, I'm going to start out irritated. If I get an answering machine, I'm not going to hang up, compose a coherent message, call back, and leave it. I'm going to get even more irritated, and call the next person up the food chain.
If that person calls me back (after a four day weekend that the company I work for does not celebrate) while I'm in a meeting asking if I really meant to do what I'd left clear instructions about doing, it would help if they call from a phone I can simply call back instead of having to parse their private number out of a message that gets delayed somewhere on my provider's voice mail system. And if I get another answering machine when I call them back...
I'm just saying.
Phone rage
2008-03-25 10:50 pmThere are excellent reasons why I prefer not to transact business by phone when I can possibly avoid it. Clearly, I am one of those people who should not even be permitted near a telephone, let alone call someone he doesn't know and attempt to get anything done.
Phones frustrate and infuriate me; voice-response menus frustrate and infuriate me even more. And if I reach voice mail rather than a human I'm better off hanging up, writing out a message in complete sentences, and going through the entire sorry process again to read it to the blasted machine rather than venting my rage on the spot.
Let's not even mention the fact that missed calls show up on my cell phone minutes or even hours before the corresponding message shows up in my voice mail. Let's not think about the fact that a phone has the worst user interface ever devised by a half-witted excuse for an engineer.
Note to companies: You want my business? Have a human standing by to answer your damned phone if your web page doesn't give me the information I need. And, I can assure you, it probably doesn't.
Note to self: insurance companies don't want to talk to customers. Only your own personal agent is equipped to talk to you. If he's out of town, you're hosed, so plan ahead.