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Tuesday, April 27, 2004

A representative will be with you shortly - NOT Ok, I clicked on the Linksys online support chat link at least an hour ago and continued on doing various other work. It says "A representative will be with you shortly" and has said that since I clicked it. I guess shortly could mean anything but if it doesn't mean within a reasonable amount of time then they shouldn't be displaying this at all. It is misleading and only pisses off the customer. It reminds me of the sign I keep reading at the local Deny's: "In order to serve you better we do not accept Interac/Debit card payments". WHAT? How exactly does this serve me better? I have one less method of payment so it certainly doesn't help me any. Why don't they just tell the truth and say "the banks wouldn't authorize us to collect debit payments" OR "we're not smart enough to setup a debit payment system so its not available to our customers" or "we aren't interested in paying fees to the bank to allow our customers the convinience of using their debit cards" (pick any one). I'll accept any of those vs the BS they have up there now. Every now and then I confuse the heck out of the staff because I make some crack like "Hey, I guess service is going to be really fast and great today since you aren't accepting debit payments." I think I'll add "maybe you'd serve me the better than ever if you also did not accept credit cards or cash" next time. Come on people wake up and get a freakin clue. And any company offering any sort of customer service tools like online chat support should be able to give a more precise estimate of time when a representative will be with you. It isn't easy but we did it as part of our online tutor offering a few years back. And if you can't figure out an important feature like this then you shouldn't be in that business. Perhaps KANA should wakeup since they just bought HIPBONE which provices the service. Update: I figured I'd leave the customer service chat app spinning its wheels while I was out for a meeting. Four hours later and the customer service chat app is still spinning saying a representative will be with me shortly.   12:41:32 PM     Anti-Spam Protection Pays Its Way From Information Week / Security Pipeline: Companies that put anti-spam defenses in place can cut their spam-associated costs by about 19 percent, according to a study released Monday by research firm IDC.   11:45:40 AM

© Copyright 2004 Tim Aiello. Last update: 5/22/2004; 3:00:39 PM.