I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number?
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
I work at an outfit that has live, in-house front desk service, & I get that response on a moderately regular basis. "Eeek! A human! Well, uh, hi, uh...."

-
@dave Oh, I have friends who work at a company that does absolutely everything they can to hide their phone number and even email addresses, with the belief that every customer needs to go to their online forum for all support and customer relations matters.
If they were honest, they'd just turn it off & post a notice: "Need help? You're on your own! Enjoy!"
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
@dave I got an email from a company about my order had an issue with the cc. Signed by “Anthony”. I called and guess who answered? Anthony! I was like “uhh I just got an email from you?”
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
@dave I can beat that.
I had a call from the tax office yesterday. The lady was friendly, helpful, asked all questions in easy-to-understand words, was clear about next steps.
Maybe it was a phishing call? It’s quite unusual for a
German public authority to act like this. -
@dave It's a nice feeling on the odd occasion that it happens.
My ISP and my domain name registrar both do this, but I can't think of many other organisations I have a relationship where this is the case.
My GP is desperately trying to get away from having phones at all. (But their receptionists were already grumpy, verging on surly).
I mean, in fairness, online interactions work fine (if they're responded to in a timely & complete manner), & have the additonal virtue of being asynchronous.
But that's no excuse for not having a human interface, as well. I mean, the whole point of pretty much any endeavor is...providing service to humans...?
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
@dave must be something in the air, globally... I've gone two-for-two on getting awesome answers from humans back from pointed customer service queries...
I just hope this trend continues. I hope it gets to the politicians next?
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
Now I have this crazy impulse to ask you what the product was so I can buy some thing but screw up the order just to talk to human in customer support
-
@dave @siracusa Sounds like a hallucination. The problem is, you’re trained on popular literature and movies, which do sometimes portray an experience like this, and you’re having trouble distinguishing between that fantasy and reality. This is a common problem with the current generation of humans - but hopefully it will be fixed in the next version.
-
@dave I can imagine that they get alot of hangups, due to flustered people being thoroughly unprepared to talk to an actual person. Starting in phone menu mode that allows you to warm up to human mode, and prepare your perspective based on how the vendor POV is expressed in the phone menu.
-
@dave Is this what the ancestors used to call "Customer Service"?
@anaerin @dave thinking back is kinda crazy. It used to be the office you applied for a credit account or did special orders in, then it was the store counter in the back where layaways and returns were done, then it was the phone number mostly for complaints and questions, then it was a call center for ordering without the store at all.
-
@dave I can imagine that they get alot of hangups, due to flustered people being thoroughly unprepared to talk to an actual person. Starting in phone menu mode that allows you to warm up to human mode, and prepare your perspective based on how the vendor POV is expressed in the phone menu.
@dtj Could be! It's a UK-based company and the woman had an English accent so I'd guess the call was routed overseas. I wonder if phone menus aren't as common over there?
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
@dave How many drinks did you have last night?
-
@dave Oh, I have friends who work at a company that does absolutely everything they can to hide their phone number and even email addresses, with the belief that every customer needs to go to their online forum for all support and customer relations matters.
@rasterweb Amazing how you can cut your support load by making it nearly impossible to get support
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
@dave I received a notice saying a package had been delivered. It had not. I called the company and they said yeah it has been delivered to our loading dock which was on the other side of the country from me. He told me he gets calls about this more than any other thing. I hung up.
-
@dave How many drinks did you have last night?
@dshan It was probably all the coffee tbh.. I'm a lot better about not drinking and ordering now

-
Now I have this crazy impulse to ask you what the product was so I can buy some thing but screw up the order just to talk to human in customer support
@GhostOnTheHalfShell it was an aerial rope from firetoys.com, pretty niche product.. so maybe not _too_ weird they'd answer the phone. Also they're based out of the UK--I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
-
@dave I received a notice saying a package had been delivered. It had not. I called the company and they said yeah it has been delivered to our loading dock which was on the other side of the country from me. He told me he gets calls about this more than any other thing. I hung up.
@Ulrich_the_elder "works as intended" I guess? truly awful.

-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
@dave And that phone number… is it in the room with us now?
-
I just had the weirdest customer support experience: I realized I goofed in an online order last night so I went back to the site and filled out the contact form then noticed there was a.. phone number? and I called it and.. a human answered?? and they were actually at the business and not in a call center and got it sorted out immediately? 🤯 I'm still reeling
@dave we need to know the business so we can promote them
-
@GhostOnTheHalfShell it was an aerial rope from firetoys.com, pretty niche product.. so maybe not _too_ weird they'd answer the phone. Also they're based out of the UK--I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
@dave @GhostOnTheHalfShell I think this is required in the EU since some time.
Also goes for app store devs etc.
Always have a person that can be reached.But I'd have to do some more research on this to be sure.