I got a call from Richmond, Virginia, yesterday, and I wouldn’t have answered it because I don’t know anybody in Richmond, Virginia, but my smarty-pants phone used its galaxy-sized brain to identify the caller as JP Morgan Chase, the credit card company, and even though I didn’t want to hear a robocall for a pre-approved credit card, I knew the chances were about fifty-fifty that it could have been a call from the fraud unit telling me that somebody applied for a credit card in my name because that’s something that has happened to me recently, so I took the call.
It was the fraud unit. The investigator told me they received an application for a credit card in my name and she wanted to know if I had applied. I told her I had not and that I had recently been victimized in just this way. She said she figured that was the case when she saw the fraud alert from the credit bureau, then she said she was so sorry I was going through this, which was very nice of her to say and I told her I appreciated it, and then she not only let me know she had just declined the application, she even hit her keyboard extra hard so I could hear her declining it. Finally, she asked me to confirm my address and said she would mail a notice to me with something called a “fraud kit,” which is probably a pamphlet from the bureau of consumer protection. I do the same thing when I call people to tell them they’ve been victimized. She ended the call by saying, “take care, and stay safe out there,” and I said same to you, and I hope I’m as reassuring to all my customers as that woman was to me. Calling people to tell them they’ve been victimized is no fun at all but she handled it like a champ.
On the other end of the phone call spectrum, I got a call from Lifescape Community in Rockford, Illinois, and I didn’t answer it because I was busy at the moment it came it, but within minutes I checked the voicemail they left, which went something like this: “Hi, this is Hailey from Lifescape Meals on Wheels, I’m calling about Doris, I’m looking for Andy — we weren’t able to deliver today, there’s no answer at the door or on the phone. Could you please check on her? We just want to know if she’s okay.”
Well I wanted to make sure Doris was okay, too, so I called straightaway and told the operator who answered the phone, “Hi, I just got a call from your number, they said they couldn’t deliver Meals on Wheels because Doris wouldn’t answer the door or her phone, but I can’t check on her because you got the wrong number — I don’t know Doris.” And the operator said, “Meals on Wheels? Hold on, I’ll transfer you.” And I said okay, but it was already hold music.
Then another phone agent answered and I had to give her the whole spiel again, after which she said, “Oh, they transferred you to the wrong number, hold on –” and I was transferred before I could even say okay.
The next time the connection got picked up, it was a phone robot telling me to listen very closely because their menu had changed, and then it began to reel off a dozen options, none of which were related at all to Meals on Wheels or checking to see if a customer was bleeding out on the floor of her kitchen, and by the time I got to the end I was cross-eyed from frustration so I just ended the call. It took me less than three minutes to go from from, “Oh shit, Doris is in trouble!” to “You know what, I don’t even care about Doris any more.” This is why good customer service is so important.
This Is Drivel 