I'm supposed to have a good clear speaking accent, but I'm sometimes turn into a complete gibbering idiot, by waiting to speak.
I have in mind those occasions where you ring a company and have a complicated concept to try to get across to them, then find yourself in a queue whilst they play music to you. I ring, with what I want to say already rehearsed, then when end up waiting in a queue and they do finally answer - I am taken by surprise and turn into an incoherent, gibbering fool.
Yes - especially bad when you forget who you are ringing.
I often find that I try to get on with something else (on hold for over an hour on occasion). As it will likely be something, everything about the call get flushed.
Happens more as you get older. Now and again I put what I want to say on something like Notepad so I can just read it when on the phone. Sometimes it has proved useful when I've read through it again before phoning, and realised I've left out something important!
polygonum_on_google explained :
I never have forgotten who was ringing. Tuesday I rang a mobile service provider, to enquire about a contract. I got through quite quickly, but then they needed to transfer me to another department to answer my questions. I then waited ages listening to music, until a young female answered, with a thick difficult to understand scouse accent. I had completely lost the plot. Whether accidentally or on purpose, I was cut off.
So I had to go through the whole process a second time.
True, I just put it on speaker at the side of me.
I much prefer to use email, where I can get my thoughts better organised, rather than be turned into a gibbering idiot listening to musak whilst I wait.
Jeff Layman formulated on Thursday :
If I have several unconnected things requiring answers, I do a brief itemised list before dialling.
Yes I also find if its an internet service provider that my level of detail is too much for them. They are first floored by the fact that a blind person usies the internet, but still persist in wanting to know what a bunch of lights are doing on their router. I point out that I am actually logged in to their router and can confirm there is an up or down fault with no locked signal. They at this point usually give up and pass you to somebody else just as clueless. If you can hang on without being disconnected eventually you get a person who is somewhat less reliant on a script. The other issue are those which ask questions and seem to work like Siri, so unless you say one of the things they expect they say, I did not quite get that please select one of the following, none of which of course applies to your problem at all.
To me under investment in properly trained staff is a one of the major issues when trying to get things sorted out on the phone. Of course while music plays you get the web sit plugged all the time, however if you had access to the web site you would not be ringing the internet company up would you, mind you don't get me started on internet help files.... Brian
Have you come across the non tune music on hold that seems to be just a drum machine and an apparently completely tuneless series of notes with some fake backing singers ooing and ahhhh ing in the background? EDF Energy has one of those. It is just mind numbingly bad. I'd rather simply hear a pip every few seconds myself. Brian
Yes it would all be much better if companies used an email address not one of those on screen forms where they get all your details, but have no category for what you want to talk to them about. It happens on automated lines as well. if your query is about billing press 1, service issues press
2, add loads more, then it says or hold for an operator who of course never comes on and after a while it says, sorry we are extremely busy, please try again later or go to www....... click.I've also discovered that councils have a really daft system where you get the actual direct number of the person, but whenever you call it goes to voicemail and nobody ever rings you back. So you ring the switchboard, that'll them about his, and they put you on hold then connect you to the same answering machine you war on before. Some companies need to actually try their systems out as it must be a very common issue and yet most of it is easy to fix with a bit of thought and somebody doing their job properly. Brian
Brian Gaff expressed precisely :
Not heard that one, some of them play classics and are worth listening to.
I agree, it would serve the purpose of confirming you were still connected.
Our doctors surgery has the musak, with two separate systems making voice announcements. One makes general announcements such as you can go to the pharmacists for some help, the other telling you are number 25 in the queue. Musak and the two announcements continually interrupt each other, with the announcements being preceded by a silent pause - as you would get if someone was answering the phone. The net effect is one of me making a grab for the phone on loudspeaker, each time I hear the silent pause. All very confused and nerve wracking.
Brian Gaff brought next idea :
Being on hold, waiting to get answer to speak to someone gives an impression that their time is much more valuable than you their potential customer.
Some systems give the option for you to request that they call you back, some even allow an option to make a timed appointment to ring you back, but I have never tested them. no doubt by the time they do ring back, I will have forgotten what I wanted a call back for.
Brian Gaff formulated the question :
Well lack of training, plus in some cases lack of understanding and ability to speak English. I was once subscribed to Talktalk, who use customer help desks in India. I'm fairly competent at solving any issues at my end, but there isn't much you can do when the problem is at their end and there were lots of problems. I absolutely dreaded having to ring them, the struggles to have them understand me and me understand them. The long sessions of rebooting routers, rebooting computers, trying various settings knowing full well none of it would make any difference to a fault at their end. I became quite clever at just sitting there, doing nothing other than pretending to do all of those things, just to get to the end of their script.
I put up with them for years, until they had a data breach and my personal details were released to the scammers.
I now use an ISP which employs people who actually speak English (well Yorkshire at least :-), though things just work and I never need to ring them.
In article <qf1ppb$6h5$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, Harry Bloomfield <harry.m1byt@N OSPAM.tiscali.co.uk> scribeth thus
Why is it that communications companies are the very worst to
.. communicate with!!..
That's just the Alzheimer's, nothing to worry about.
The people at the company you are ringing have probably never tried calling in to experience what the system is like.
Then when you go there the queue to get to the reception desk is full of older folk trying and failing to use the touch screen log in yourself system, so the receptionist spends most of her time sorting them out instead of talking to us who cannot use it as it has no voice chip in it.
grin. Brian
Yes well maybe so, but I also have issues with enter the first and 4th digit of your pin/password. I have myriads of them I now cannot remember whos is whos. Brian
Yes well, they tend not to ring back. NHS are renowned for this one. Brian
Talk talk are getting better, but its when you get something complex that they all seem to fail. I mean the fact that blind people use computers seems to be almost an insurmountable issue, they say sorry to hear that, but I get the feeling that they think you are having them on, as clearly blind people should be uneducated and kept in a back room listening to talking books all day. Brian
Brian Gaff presented the following explanation :
I agree, I have to keep a little book of pins and passwords. I do like the Iphones way of doing things - storing usernames and paswords, but protecting them with a finger print scanner. You just do it once, then your finger print works there after.
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