What An Unparalleled Customer Service Tailspin Taught Me

Story time, ya'll.  It's time to talk hold music, customer service mumbling, technical support, and how all that turned from a perfect storm of terribleness into an important life lesson. I'm sure you've got some doozy stories about spending ages on hold with customer service.  We've all had our fair share.

But my latest one taught me, or should I say, reminded me of an important life lesson.  Let's go there and unpack that, shall we, gentle reader?

Get our free mobile app

So first of all, let me say I know I'm coming from a place of privilege on this. I have a job that gives me insurance, I'm able to get medications I need, etc. etc.  I know a lot of people out there have it a lot worse than me, I'm not ignoring that and I'm not un-unaware of that.  Is that a word?  I don't think so.  MOVING ON.

I recently had to get a new phone number.  Already this was a big deal to me, because I've had the same cell phone number since, well, forever.  It's the same Warrensburg number I had in college.   So I knew it would be a lot of emailing, calling, and whatnot to get my contact information updated with everyone.  And some of it I would forget. I'm still remembering people I need to call about that.

Mental note - call Dr. Beard's office so you don't miss your next dentist appointment. 

So I needed to log in to my insurance's prescription website thing to update my information. However, the site prompted me to enter in a code, verifying my identity.  A code that was sent to my old phone number.  Great.  So I call the number on the back of the card, and the very nice but very mushy mouthed operator told me Tech Support could help me.  So she transferred me.

Tech support?  Well, they apparently didn't even know they were tech support?  The lady had no idea what I was talking about.  She literally said, "I can't help you."  I even read back the number to her that was posted on my insurance's site, and she confirmed it.  "Yeah, that's our number. I get calls like this all the time."

via GIPHY

So back on hold I go with the insurance again.  This time, the lovely young man got someone from "Tech Support" to give him a suggestion.  He said to do the "retrieve password" thing as a trick, and it would let me in.  He offered to stay on the line while I did it, and I said no.

via GIPHY

Of course, it changes my password just fine, but still wants to send me a code to the wrong number to verify its me.  Here we go again. So, back on the horn again I go.

At this point, I'm getting hot.  And for me, when I get mad, I get weepy.  But I managed to keep it halfway in check.  This time, the young lady was going to solve it for me and going to keep me on the phone.  So, she had to put me on hold, so she could sit on hold with them.  Great.

Attempt one.  Tech support's line hangs up on her.
Attempt two.  Back on hold, but this time.... something happens.

via GIPHY

Apparently they had an emergency in the call center building.  The girl told me she had to hang up, and I could hear the alarms blaring in the background.   But, she told me she'd call me back when she could get back in the building.

So, I thought, well.  There's that.  Tumbleweeds will fly by. This isn't getting solved today.  I guess I'll have to try again tomorrow.  Maybe someday my customer service prince will come.  Well, I was wrong! About half an hour later, the lady calls me back, and says the tech support people will just change it for me, so if I could wait patiently, they'll handle it. She thanked me for my patience, and explicitly said she came back to her desk straight away to help me because I was so polite.

It gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that this lady meant what she said and did what she said she was going to do.  After all, a lot of times the call center people are just dealing with crappy situations, just like we are. A little patience went a long way, and I'm glad she went the extra mile for me on my behalf.  I didn't yell, I didn't curse, none of that, I didn't threaten anyone's job, and all was well.

Today, I tried to log in again, and... you guessed it.

It wants to send a code to the wrong number. 

via GIPHY

So the lesson is, I guess, you can't trust customer service, but... be nice to them. It's not their fault they suck all the time. Sometimes, the building's on fire or something.

Wish me luck as I get this fixed, you guys.

Numerically yours,

Behka