Customer Service in America

A Book review on Emily Yellin's "Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us: Customer Service and What It Reveals About Our World and Our Lives"  (And may I point out - her last name makes her the perfect author of this book!)

When I moved to Portland about five months ago I was pretty nervous about finding a job. Anita and I had used almost all our cash hiking the John Muir Trail and traveling to Japan. It was imperative that we found jobs right away as we relocated north so we could get back on our feet and start seriously planning our wedding. And here we were moving to Portland, Oregon, known as the place young people go to RETIRE, not to WORK. The economy here lags behind the rest of the country, which is not doing well itself. Still, we packed our UHaul truck and headed north, and I found myself applying to jobs indiscriminately. And I landed myself in a customer service call center, taking calls from all over the country and Canada, trying to solve the thousands of unique problems inspiring people to get on the phone and call, many of whom are very, very angry.

As I try to understand my place in the world one call at a time, my parents thought it would be funny to gift me Emily Yellin's book for Christmas. On the front cover is a headset that looks just like the one I wear. After a good laugh, I opened it and started to read, causing me to think a lot deeper about customer service than I ever really wanted to. Here are some reflections, gathered from the book.

First of all, the fact that there's an 800 number for just about any product you purchase reveals that there's been a serious consumer rights movement underway for years and years. Corporations did not benevolently start paying hundreds of employees to help serve your needs. They were forced to do it. The customer service call center was born out of the telephone company, starting in the late 1800s, which required operators to direct you to the place you were calling, starting with young unruly boy who transitioned into their roles as telephone operators from the telegraph industry preceding it.  An account from 1910 said, "By the clumsy methods of those days, from two to six boys were needed to handle each call. And there was usually more or less of a cat-and-dog squabble between the boys and the public, with every one yelling at the top of his voice" (26). This led to women operators, who cost the phone company less per hour, and who had a much more polite demeanor and reliable work ethic. As usually happens in United States business, they were replaced by machines, their role reduced to connecting long distance calls.

 In the mid 1900s, customer service saw its first incarnations as businesses started to answer questions and take orders by phone. The first customer service agents were rude, due to their working in cramped quarters and not having adequate access to information. They would often answer the phone, "It's your nickel, brother, talk fast." This was before the 'toll free' lines. By the early 1960s, businesses had been greedy enough to force the government's hand, leading to Kennedy's Consumer Bill of Rights in 1961, which established the Consumer Protection Agency. It stated that consumers had the right to be heard. We have people like Ralph Nadar to thank for this right, as he spent much of the 1960s and 1970s fighting for consumers, and blatantly criticizing the US Automobile industry, writing "Unsafe at Any Speed", fighting for the passing of 'lemon laws'. "His advocacy... led to stricter regulation of product safety and quality-of-life issues across the board, such as mandatory seat belts in cars and clean water and air legislation" (33). This eventually led to 800 numbers, which made it less expensive for customers to make contact with companies. 800 numbers started with AT&T's introduction of WATS, a service for businesses which allowed businesses to pay a reasonable flat fee for long-distance calls, rather than pay costly collect-call rates. As with so many groundbreaking movements, customer service came about when people mobilized in response to greed and too much centralized power. In this case it was against mighty corporations.

Such mobilization was put on steroids over the last fifteen years with the internet. Even as corporations have long advertised their commitment to customer service, such service was hard to come by and consumers still didn't feel any sort of empowerment. For example, one day in 2007 Mona Shaw waited all day for Comcast to install their 'triple-play service', which included telephone, internet, and cable television. They never came. They finally showed up two days later, and left the job only half done. A few days later, the service she still had was cut off, and she was left without even phone service. She had to drive to her local Comcast office to speak to a manager, where she was left to wait outside for two hours. She was then told the manager had gone home. After the weekend passed, and Mona's rage had festered long enough, she returned, stormed into the office and took a hammer to the customer service rep's keyboard. One misdemeanor and a restraining order later, Shaw became a national hero, appearing on Good Morning America, Nightline, and Dr. Phil.

With the internet, such extreme antics are not usually needed. Consumers are ultimately empowered with the ability to air complaints and spread devastating press for companies that just won't listen.  More and more, consumers frequent these sites before they'll trust corporate advertising.  Such websites include:
PayPalSucks.com
AllstateInsuranceSucks.com
MicrosoftSucks.org
Amexsux.com
Walmart-Blows.com
IHateStarbucks.com
VerizonPathetic.com

and the list goes on. More general sites include:

GetSatisfaction.com
Complaints.com
PlanetFeedback.com
My3Cents.com

Consumers can now get their particular experiences listened to and talked about, not by the company, but with other consumers or would-be consumers. This has forced the hand of corporations, and many take customer service much more seriously as a result. One company that was particularly devastated by the online consumer movements is AOL. Check out this video if you want an example of horrible service, consider that technology made it possible, and bear in mind that this video has over 500,000 views on youtube:







Another thing I found interesting in the book was its commentary on outsourced call centers. Facing daily racism and torment from American callers, international representatives typically include highly educated and motivated university students. Companies seek locations with a large student population in countries that have been historically colonized by a European country or America. That gives a company the best opportunity of employing bilingual, intelligent representatives. Representatives are brought in intimate contact with American ignorance and impatience. Typically, the American caller on the line will have no idea where the country that the rep talks from even falls on a map, even as that rep knows a great deal about America. This is often upsetting to the representative halfway across the world, a blow to their national pride. Additionally, it takes a great amount of cultural sensitivity to adequately help a consumer calling from another continent. Often callers are enraged because a package was delivered several hours behind schedule or they can't get something to work. It takes cultural training to understand such anger, because the efficiency and reliability we take for granted in our products is not typically enjoyed by the rest of the world. Imagine that you are used to things coming days and days behind schedule, and you're suddenly on the phone with someone screaming or crying because their product is three hours late. A big part in the job of an international customer service rep is to understand the mind and culture of American consumers.

All this indicates something very important about the world Americans live in - we take for granted that we be treated with exceptional service, and we're very, very fortunate that this is the case.  It's the exception, not the rule.  Any time you receive great service, be thankful for it. There's a whole history behind an act of good service.  It should not be taken for granted. Thankfully, I work for a company that takes customer service very seriously. They don't force us to follow scripts and they empower us with a variety of ways to help an angered customer. And the most interesting thing about my job is I get to talk to Americans from all walks of life, from highly tech savvy individuals to people who can't access a website without using google's search, from people living in the middle of a bustling city to people without internet because they live in the woods, from people with incredibly gracious personalities to people with anger spilling out from the depths of their being. While their levels of expectations vary, all call because they can - they are empowered with a voice, which is a very special thing.