Irritating Customer Service Practices

[Somethingthecatdraggedin7]

Does anybody else find the various modern customer service scripts hugely annoying?
Why on earth are waiters and waitresses told to go and interrupt customers enjoying a good chat over their meal to ask if everything is OK? If it wasn’t OK we would be telling you so this seems entirely unnecessary and borderline rude butting into a conversation.
Then there is the perennial How are you today at the start of a phone call to a utility company or whatever.
You don’t give a toss how I am and we aren’t in a social situation so cut to the chase with How can I help you instead.
Also the use of first names as if we are friends is extremely presumptive. They then go on to repeat my name as some sort of bizarre punctuation throughout the conversation in a misguided attempt to make me feel this is all a personalised interaction and they really care.
Which idiots train staff to behave in this way??
I have reached the stereotypical grumpy old woman age and this twattery really gets on my tits.

I dislike "thank you so much' used constantly and after every question, and recently had someone say 'at your service' constantly throughout a short and relatively simple phone call.

Agree re names being used in place of punctuation too. I don't mind my name being used at all but every sentence ended with 'thank you so much Miss BelindaLouisa' gets old very quickly.

Perhaps I too am old and grumpy...

If the waitstaff don’t stop by and there is a problem, then the customer is stuck there trying to catch the staff without making a scene. Meanwhile the food is getting cold. Waitstaff either need to come ask or watch their tables carefully. The later isn’t really possible at most restaurants as staff have more tables than they can give that level of attention.

And, there are actually Susans or Sues in Bangalore!

I’ve just thought of another thing - when you call up a customer services number and they reply with words like “AWESOME” or “AMAZING” to very simple questions “What’s your full name please?”, me “Loloj”, them “AWESOME - thanks for that, can I now take your date of birth?”, me “says dob”, them “that’s AMAZING thank you”.

I mean these things are not Awesome or amazing are they? They are just facts! I get that they are trying to be cheery and positive and it’s better than being a grumpy dick head on the phone but this sort of language is way OTT.

I hate being called Mrs/Ms Livpool- much rather people used my first name

I don't get that at all. If they're busy, but they've time to go around every table asking if everything is OK, then they've got time to "hover" around at various points within the restaurant making themselves available for when someone wants them. It's not as if a customer will expect immediate response - most will be happy to wait a few minutes until they can catch the eye of staff, and that timescale will be reduced if the staff aren't forced to rotate around the tables asking happy people if everything is ok? It's just wasting their time!

They’re practices that head office people come up with to make it look as though they’re actually doing something.

I'm with you on all counts, and I want to add the maddening process of trying to buy a simple item at any store now - 'Do you have a loyalty card?' 'Would you like your receipt emailed to you?' 'What is your phone number?'??? I usually keep my cool and just say I don't give out my phone number or email and they give up, but some salespeople and cashiers have actually seemed quite annoyed by me politely asserting this right/boundary?

No wonder people are shopping online more often.

PS: The 'How are you' thing is annoying but I'm South African and it's actually considered very rude not to include that in your greetings in many South African cultures, so I've let it go and play along.

I was asked how I found my ‘experience’ in Aldi yesterday. I’d bought a bag of salad leave and a tin of chickpeas not been on a round the world cruise. I really didn’t have much to say.

I still have to listen to my parents GP phone message that says 'during this difficult time (i.e. still recorded from Covid) we ask that you have patience whilst waiting to be connected...' Makes me suck my teeth every time.

I don't agree if there is something wrong with the meal it's best to be asked early on so it can be rectified otherwise you are going to get a significant amount of people who suddenly have a problem at the end and refuse to pay after they've eaten it all. I hate being called ms/miss it's to formal and weird. Asking when you enter a shop if there is anything you want help with is great because if I'm in a rush and want one specific thing they can tell me where it is. Asking how someone's day is, is just a polite hello just like saying hi you alright. You need to remember this might be the only human interaction a person has all day. I think if you cut all this stuff out you would get lots of people complaing they went for a meal or to a shop and how rude the staff was and how they was completely ignored

Sorry @itsleviosai didn't mean to reply to you on that i was meant to just post it on thread. I completely agree with what you said

The “How are you today?” and similar small talk in call centres is to avoid "dead air" in calls that make customers think they'e been disconnected. Staff are often waiting for slow or timed-out systems to load, or clicking lots of boxes and buttons or filling in forms trying to accomplish what you've asked them to do. A little small talk is far better than awkward silence or the dreaded “Sorry, my computer system is being a little slow today,” which doesn’t inspire much confidence in the brand.

“Is that all OK for you today?” helps confirm your issue is resolved without inviting an endless list of extra queries or people asking for "next week's lottery numbers". Call centre staff work under strict metrics, so the goal is to handle one issue thoroughly and to the customer's satisfaction rather than get bogged down in unrelated problems.

The use of first names is the quickest way of building rapport in a call centre situation and the number of times it is used is often required in quality assessments. In one of my roles, I had to say the customer’s name at the start, somewhere in the middle, and again at the end of the call.

If customer service ditched all these elements, calls would likely feel more robotic and impersonal, not less. It’s not a perfect system, but what seems like scripted nonsense actually serves a practical purpose!

It is not just you OP!

What I also mourn is the death of "I", "me" and "you". They're dead and buried. Customer service people have become terrified of these little words. Oh yes, it's all about "myself", "yourself" and "ourselves" now.

I had a conversation with someone at an insurance company the other day and swear she said "If yourself could pop that onto an email to ourselves..."

Oh yes and I hate the word "pop" too. It's everywhere.

Well I don't work in Bangalore so can't really comment on that bit, though unfortunately when customers 'know' something, they know it and that's that and I have been told I don't care because I'm sat at home watching Trisha because I'm part of a huge company and'clearly' WFH - when the truth is I'm sat at a reception desk in the independent hotel with less than 30 bedrooms, but "You're not an independent though are you really?"
"Oh, yes we are"
"I know you have to probably say that, but I know you're not"
Ok then, whatever.

And you might need a bit of life experience to pick up on these cues, but when they're 'glaringly obvious' then well they're glaringly obvious! Unfortunately as other pp have already said, doesn't really matter if it's glaringly obvious to the person delivering, or the customer likes it or not because someone in head office (I've worked for a big 'name' shop so have that experience) that's probably never served a customer in their life, has decided that is how it's done. I thought it was stupid and unnecessary too, that wasn't going to get me out of a disciplinary or pip if I deviated.
Much prefer being treated like an adult and allowed to use my own judgement because funnily enough I don't want to get snapped at by people who also don't like it.

I work in a call centre and hate a lot of the stuff I have to say but if I don't I will be marked down on the constant quality reviews I have, we are tracked down if we are in the toilet too long, it's not a pleasant job (but is local/fits around kids so my only choice right now!) We get so much abuse from customers about things we can do nothing about (Client policies)

It's not as if a customer will expect immediate response -

Oh but they do. I've literally been carrying plates and been 'hailed' with someone issuing a drink or food order at me with my hands full of plates or a tray of drinks, and very rarely do they take kindly to waiting until you've delivered that food and you have to stand there until they've finished, with someone else's food getting cold, to say you'll be back or send someone else over, to get eye rolls and huffing back.
Some people hail you on the way back which of course is pretty normal, but I may have to make 2 trips to the kitchen for that table I'm serving, and again the waiting or sending someone else isn't acceptable.

I've even been tapped on the shoulder while taking an order because they 'Just wanted some water'.

For every person that would prefer to not be disturbed and catch attention, there'll be more customers that complain they're not being asked if everything is ok, and saying no one came back to ask if they want more drinks.

That's why it's done that way in so many places, it's not going to suit everyone, of course it's not, but doing that is impossible. I've been asked not to disturb people once they've had food delivered, politely, and I've respected that (because I'm allowed to use my common sense) and they've called out 'When you've a minute', come over when I'm at the till or gone to the bar. All good as far as I'm concerned, if they're happy then I am. You can't expect something that works for the majority of customers to be changed because you don't like it unfortunately.

Old pain in the ass here. I hate the practice of using customers first name. It immediately tries to put you in the acquaintance slot but in the time we are talking you are working for me and therefore as part of this process you show respect and acknowledge that relationship. Customer service is appalling and I find that with nearly every company I speak to. So many processes are pointless, useless and just not tested enough before being introduced. Where do they get these ideas about what makes good service because it sure ain't working. Also as an aside why do they not accept that some matters are not covered in the script, training and understand that no one is at fault if a call might need someone with more experience.

The false apologies on phone calls eg the recorded messages over the long waits: “we are sorry to keep you waiting “. Blue chip companies- we know you are not sorry at all.

Yes, this is a particular bugbear of mine as someone who often eats out alone. If you really want to know whether my food is ok please don't ask me when my mouth is clearly full of food.

We can’t win whatever we do. One customer will love something, another will hate it and complain

call someone Mrs Smith and “that’s my old name! Don’t use that”
call someone Sarah and “use my full name!”
ask what someone wants to be called “don’t call me anything, I don’t give a shit about your script can we just get on with it”

We barely have a script, just a few things I have to confirm and a couple of sentences to read out
I usually just ask people to confirm their full name and then don’t need to use it after that

I don't mind being asked if I'm OK.

As it gives me a chance to order another drink

I'd never complain if someone called me Title Surname but it does grate, makes me feel old, when everyone else in the world uses my firstname. The working for me analogy doesn't ring true, I've never been called Title Surname in a work context either, or called anyone else that (I have never worked in a public facing role apart from retail/bar work where you don't use names).

I spoke to a large well known bank last week as I had a query about alerts.

The call taker was excellent and I am sure she following training to the letter and politeness but I was called Mr so many times!

Does anyone else find it annoying?

I saw a post online about a shop which had 2 types of baskets by the door. One was a “leave me alone to browse“ basket and one was a “I’d like some help please” basket. I thought that was a brilliant idea.

With the restaurant I always understood they ask you if all is ok at a point where they can fix it if something is wrong. Otherwise people finish the whole meal, say it was crap and refuse to pay.