spiral
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Post by spiral on Aug 1, 2024 17:41:42 GMT
I'm getting fed up with the number of times that I have to ask a question more than once because the companies answer a question that they think I asked rather than the one I actually asked.
I recently contacted Yorkshire building society to request a certificate of interest for a regular saver account that matured last year. I clearly explained that this account was not visible in my closed accounts section. Their response was to paste the instructions for how to download it and advise they can post one if I need it.
I therefore had to send another message explaining that I'd already mentioned that the account was not there and need them to post one. What a waste of time.
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bernythedolt
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 1, 2024 18:48:28 GMT
The answer is 42.
It would help me very much if you could please mark me with 5 stars in the survey we are about to send you.
Your contact was very important to us as we strive to improve our customer service in everything we do.
Thank you for being a valued part of our journey together.
We are an equal opportunities employer, fully subscribed to Action Against Modern Day Slavery and Bullying in the Workplace.
Blah blah...
Blah blah blah blah...
We do not tolerate hurty words towards our staff who work incredibly hard for your benefit.
Wishing you a very nice day!
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Aug 1, 2024 19:01:05 GMT
The answer is 42. It would help me very much if you could please mark me with 5 stars in the survey we are about to send you. Your contact was very important to us as we strive to improve our customer service in everything we do. Thank you for being a valued part of our journey together. We are an equal opportunities employer, fully subscribed to Action Against Modern Day Slavery and Bullying in the Workplace. Blah blah... Blah blah blah blah... We do not tolerate hurty words towards our staff who work incredibly hard for your benefit. Wishing you a very nice day! We are an inclusive, equal opportunities employer, fully subscribed to Action Against Modern Day Slavery and Bullying in the Workplace.
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bernythedolt
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 1, 2024 19:10:16 GMT
I've always wondered why "Kindest Regards". Are simple "Regards", or the next rung, "Kind Regards", no longer considered sufficiently polite?
The next logical upgrade in the cringemaking superlatives race must surely be "Warmest and Kindest Regards", before eventually stepping up to "We want to have your Babies".
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Post by moonraker on Aug 1, 2024 20:01:01 GMT
AI responses can be very frustrating. Some years ago, two societies refused my applications to open a deposit account, and when I inquired suggested that my credit rating wasn't good enough; in fact it was reasonably high and the bots had thought that I was seeking to borrow money. IIRC I was trying to open accounts for my father, whose Power of Attorney I held; this sometimes led to problems with bots and humans not understanding PoAs.
The same with IT queries, when my message explains what the problem is and what I've done so far to try to solve it, and I get an automated reply telling me to do what I've already done.
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james100
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Post by james100 on Aug 1, 2024 20:06:15 GMT
I've always wondered why "Kindest Regards". Are simple "Regards", or the next rung, "Kind Regards", no longer considered sufficiently polite? The next logical upgrade in the cringemaking superlatives race must surely be "Warmest and Kindest Regards", before eventually stepping up to "We want to have your Babies". My least favourite has got to be 'Best'. Grammatically illiterate with a weird implication that you have to finish their lazy sign-off for yourself. Wishes? Regards? Efforts? Intentions? We shall never know. But loads of people do it and they all need to stop.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 1, 2024 20:24:42 GMT
I'm getting fed up with the number of times that I have to ask a question more than once because the companies answer a question that they think I asked rather than the one I actually asked.
I recently contacted Yorkshire building society to request a certificate of interest for a regular saver account that matured last year. I clearly explained that this account was not visible in my closed accounts section. Their response was to paste the instructions for how to download it and advise they can post one if I need it.
I therefore had to send another message explaining that I'd already mentioned that the account was not there and need them to post one. What a waste of time.
stupid bloo*dy responses from customer support is now a very common thing across all industries. Unfortunately I have very little tolerance for it, which is not a good thing because it gets relationships off on the wrong foot - or rather doubles down on them starting it off on the wrong foot One might have thought that spending the last 20 years of my working life working for US dominant companies - where speed reading the first two sentences of an email, getting it wrong, and ignoring the main body - would have better conditioned me to such idiocy. But it hasn't. Use of chatbots has made things even worse. If they are the embodiment of our AI future, then we could all sleep soundly at night knowing what Skynet really looks like.
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agent69
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Post by agent69 on Aug 1, 2024 20:26:28 GMT
I'm getting fed up with the number of times that I have to ask a question more than once because the companies answer a question that they think I asked rather than the one I actually asked.
I recently contacted Yorkshire building society to request a certificate of interest for a regular saver account that matured last year. I clearly explained that this account was not visible in my closed accounts section. Their response was to paste the instructions for how to download it and advise they can post one if I need it.
I therefore had to send another message explaining that I'd already mentioned that the account was not there and need them to post one. What a waste of time.
If that's the worst thing that happened to you this week, you've probably had a pretty good week.
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michaelc
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Post by michaelc on Aug 1, 2024 20:32:51 GMT
I'm getting fed up with the number of times that I have to ask a question more than once because the companies answer a question that they think I asked rather than the one I actually asked.
I recently contacted Yorkshire building society to request a certificate of interest for a regular saver account that matured last year. I clearly explained that this account was not visible in my closed accounts section. Their response was to paste the instructions for how to download it and advise they can post one if I need it.
I therefore had to send another message explaining that I'd already mentioned that the account was not there and need them to post one. What a waste of time.
Perhaps you haven't noticed but as we age we like to moan as you just have.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 1, 2024 20:50:02 GMT
....
The same with IT queries, when my message explains what the problem is and what I've done so far to try to solve it, and I get an automated reply telling me to do what I've already done.
Quite. I think you need to keep in mind your objectives: 1) get your problem resolved with the minimum of effort expenditure on your part 2) avoid heart attack inducing levels of prolonged elevated blood pressure. Avoid the innate emotional response that you know they are going to trigger in you. Remember they are very likely following a script and 1st line support is quite likely not UK based, doesn't have English as their 1st language, and may not even be a human but a software model with the equivalent intellectual development of a 3 year old. I am of a certain star sign - not that I believe in such things - that supposedly is wont to make me a pedantic details person. No idea where they got that idea from. A number of years ago I cut out and kept a "horoscope" from somewhere that says the following: "Often you must explain to others facts they should already know. As a result, you are increasingly irritated by almost everybody and everything you encounter. The real choice is to accept that most of the world will never care as much as you about detail and dong things properly. Acknowledging that alone will considerably lower your blood pressure and make your day sunnier"These are wise words indeed.
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spiral
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Post by spiral on Aug 2, 2024 8:52:18 GMT
If that's the worst thing that happened to you this week, you've probably had a pretty good week. The annoying thing is you send the message off and wait up to a week to hear back only to find that they've not answered the question so another week has to pass before it's actioned.
The absolute worst one I had was about 3 years ago with Al Rayan. They took about 3 weeks to respond and didn't understand the point I was making until the 4th message. Total time was about 3 months to get a workable answer.
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