Customer Service: Daft, but consistent

There are times when the customer service you get offered is so bad that you can either cry or laugh out loud. This week I suffered that crisis of the modern age: I couldn't find my mobile phone in the morning. Or should I say, I couldn't find my mobile phone the morning after the night before, the night before being a Netsuite gig in a rather nice bar in London... but I digress.

Having turned the house upside down I finally admitted to myself that I had clearly left it on one the planes, trains or automobiles that it had taken to get from London to Brighton on a Tuesday evening in November. But, I knew I had insurance on the phone, so while it was irritating it was not the end of the world. Oh, if only I'd known!

So I call my mobile provider, '3'. I go through to Bangalore or Delhi or some such point eastwards and after trawling the various menu options finally get to talk to a human being. I'd have been better sticking with the menu. Quite apart from the fact that I could hardly hear him and that when I could his accent was so thick that I could hardly understand what he was saying, it was when I could hear him that I realised that what he was saying was just... well, stupid!

He kept saying "Let me tell you now that... " before everything he said. "Let me tell you now that I request your name." "Let me tell you now that I request your date of birth." "Let me tell you now etc etc etc". Then after I managed to make him understand that I was reporting a lost phone, he told me that my phone had been used to call a number several times since I had lost it.

He read out the number. It was strikingly familiar. It was my own number. He was telling me that my own handset had been used to call... my own handset. I said to him that he was reading something wrong. "Let me tell you now that this is what is in the computer" he insisted. At this point I considered tears, but decided to burst out laughing - somewhat hysterically - instead.

Finally, I managed to convince him that he was reading out my own number. He put me on hold for 5 minutes. He came back. "Let me tell you now that this is your number." So I can't be calling myself on it, I ventured. "Let me tell you now that this is correct," he conceded. Then the line went dead. Clearly, an admission of error results in immediate, automated termination of the call, presumably a cunning precaution against the operator getting carried away and offering some assistance or advice.

I called back again. I called back 4 times. I spoke to five people in total. The final one was a particular joy. He asked for the serial number on the handset. I read it out. "That is not your handset," he said. "Where did you get that handset?" This was now totally bizaare. I was reporting a lost handset and was now seemingly on the verge of being accused of stealing my own handset. I read it out again. "That is not your handset," he repeated, proving that while 3's call centre people might be daft, by God they're consistent!

I suggested to him that possibly the wrong number was in their system. He read out his number. I read out mine. There was one digit difference. Could it be a computer error, I suggested? At this blasphemous suggestion, the automated cut off kicked in again and I was cast out into limbo. I gave up.

I'd like to take this opportunity to apologise to someone. There's someone out there whose handset has the serial number on it that 3 has in my records. That phone is now blacklisted and cut off as that's what they needed the number to do. So if your 3 phone suddenly went dead yesterday, sorry, it might be down to me... and of course the inherent incompotence of 3's inadequate, but presumably awfully cheap, call centre operatives.

Oh, and in the end, I found my handset. The cat was sleeping on it. It really was one of those days...

Click the 'Add your own comment' below to share your thoughts and opinions.

Stuart Lauchlan
News & Analysis Editor
stuart.lauchlan@mycustomer.com

Related articles