The Hellacious Peril of Being a Customer

Last week my assistant had a problem with our phone system. Nothing serious, just a little glitch with a voicemail function. She had a quick technical question and, as she told me, once she received a quick answer from someone at the phone company, she could take care of the problem herself. So she called the phone company and of course was immediately thrown into the dark labyrinth of telephone hell. After several frustrating attempts to connect with a human being, and even more frustrating interminable waits while the damnable “please stay on the line, we value your call” sentence came up over and over, she hung up and confessed to me that she didn’t know what to do.

Being the wise sage that I am, I knew the answer. “When you descended into phone hell,” I said, “you obviously were presented with a menu of options.” She nodded.

“So which option did you pick?” I asked.

“First I tried ‘service’, then I tried ‘technical support.’” She said.

Now, that would be a very logical and rational step, and an honest one, but of course it would be futile. Here’s what I said: “You’re choosing the wrong option. Choose anything that sounds remotely like ‘new subscriptions’ or ‘to speak to a salesperson’.”

“But why?” she inquired. “I don’t want to speak to a salesperson.”

“Yes you do. Because if you choose ‘service’ or ‘technical support’, they know you’re already a customer, and they don’t care about existing customers; you’re already on the hook. And they don’t want to invest in after sale service, either, because that costs money and they need to maniacally build new sales to subsidize the mega-mergers that are bleeding them. So trust me. Call ‘sales’. You’ll get a response there pronto.”

And so she did. Within seconds a real human being answered, and quickly patched her to the right person, who quickly addressed her question, and that was the end of that. And the best thing was that my assistant looked upon me with awe rather than her usual disdain.

Small wonder that I have no loyalty to my current phone provider, and am seriously considering alternatives. My assistant's experience reminds me of this old joke:

A guy dies and goes up to the pearly gates. St. Peter tells him: “We’ve got a backlog of cases to process. So I’m going to give you a key to heaven and a key to hell. You visit both places, then come back and tell me where you want to go.”

So the guy first checks out heaven. Lovely. Serene. Soft music. Quiet conversations. Good books.

Then he checks out hell. Wow—beer, babes, hunks, beach volleyball, rock and roll, sexy dancing, party party party.

So the next day he goes back to St. Peter and says. “You know, heaven is nice, but kind of dull. I think I’ll go to hell.” Fine, says St. Peter, and fills out the necessary paperwork.

But when the guy reaches hell, he’s grabbed by two demons who drag him into a fiery abyss. No beer, no babes. Just a lot of moaning and screaming all around. As he’s dragged off, he yells out “What happened? Where’s all the parties? What’s going on?”

“Ah”, replies one of the demons, “you see, yesterday you were a prospect. Today you’re a customer.”