klugness

Imagining Things

Customer Service: Appeasing the Wet Hen

January 15, 2023 by Klugmeister

If you look up "grouchy old man" in the dictionary, there's a picture of me. As a result, I sometimes wonder whether I might be an ideal research candidate for organizations testing their telephone customer service systems to help ensure they aren't angering their customers unnecessarily.

In my imagination, I picture a researcher hooking me up to some type of aggravation measurement device (an aggrometer?) as the researchers test my reactions to various situations. At first, I am calm as the customer service representative asks me for information to verify my identity. Later, when I get passed to another department that can better handle my issue, the aggrometer suddenly goes on tilt when they ask me to verify my identity again.

Excuse me—didn't I just give you my social security number and my dog's maiden name?

I'm sure there are logical security reasons for why this must be so—presumably the company's IT department has the power to override whatever concerns the customer service arm of the company may have—but in my opinion the company really needs to figure out a way to pass the "verified customer" information securely from one representative to another, or risk poking the bear.

This image of a "grouchy old man" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image does not depict a real person. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

The customer service folks know it's not smart to poke the bear, even if the IT security department is insisting that the bear must be poked. Now, I'm not saying to just blow off security considerations—I just think the snack-eating folks in the IT department may not be trying hard enough to solve the problem. Alternatively, they may see it as another department's problem, which—to them—means it's not a problem at all. (The nerds in IT do tend to think the world revolves around them.) Matter of fact, right now the IT folks are probably just sitting around asking DALL-E to give them AI photos of a "grouchy old man." Outrageous! Alas, I digress.

At any rate, I feel like my only job here is to get aggravated (for measurement purposes, of course), while it's the organization's job to address the aggravation issue. I've done my job—the one I made up just now, lol—but has the organization done its job?

Yep—the organization I just invented. Funny, huh? Hey hey, my my, imagining things will never die...

While I haven't done a survey, I believe most people agree that they'd prefer not to be asked more than once for information to verify their identity. I believe further that most people would rather not be transferred from one department to another. As for me, I don't find transfers themselves to be particularly annoying, as long as the department they pass me to is better able to help me with my issue. Given that irritation is a subjective thing, however, an organization's broad range of customers may have competing opinions regarding what irritates them. Hence, this blog entry.

For example, I've noticed that it's become common practice for phone systems to provide reassurances to customers waiting in a queue that "your call is important to us" and calls will be answered in the order received. I can only assume that, once upon a time, customers who didn't receive these messages would repeatedly hang up and call again, and then would get madder than a wet hen at how unbelievably long it took to get through.

Pity the poor customer? No! Pity the poor customer service representative who drew the short straw and had to take the call when the Wet Hen finally got through. This irate customer then threw a tantrum that ranked 11 on the aggrometer, so organizations started running the reassuring messages every 10 seconds in the hope of avoiding the wrath of Khan.

This image of "an angry chicken" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

While I understand the importance of catering to the needs of this volatile customer, I definitely don't fit the "wet hen" profile. My preference is to hear the reassuring message only once, so that the next voice I hear after the first reassuring message is the voice of an actual customer service representative asking me how he or she can help—thank you very much.

I must admit that I've come a long way though. When the repeating reassuring message first became the new normal, I often got faked out because I mistook the voice that said "Thank you for your call..." for a real person, and I would respond, "Yes, I'm calling about..." only to get instantly aggravated when I realized the voice was just Siri or Alexa reminding me again that calls would be answered in the order received. Doh!

I fancy myself as having a sweet disposition most of the time, but I suppose that's based on the simplistic (and unrealistic) assumption that no one has done anything to aggravate me. When someone does do something irritating, it's a whole nother story. Yes, I can go from 3 to 11 on the aggrometer in a split second, so I'm volatile in my own way too. My main point is: the strategy that best soothes the Wet Hen aggravates me.

Admittedly, I've gotten so accustomed to the standard approach that I'm no longer fooled by the "Thank you for your call..." headfake. Even so, I do find the reassurances to be annoyingly frequent—isn't every 10 or 15 seconds excessive?—so that I often begin to mentally "tune out" the never-ending updates, which begin to sound the way the adults sound in Charlie Brown episodes. Unfortunately, this tuning out phenomenon can leave me in a bit of a daze when a real person eventually picks up. Thankfully, the customer service representatives usually don't hang up right away if I'm slightly delayed in waking up from suspended animation and responding to the representative's greeting.

Hmm, I know it bothers me to be asked multiple times to confirm my identity—I wonder whether it bothers the Wet Hen? Maybe the Wet Hen wants frequent reassurances that calls will be answered in the order received, and doesn't mind being asked frequently to verify his or her identity? Perhaps it enhances the Wet Hen's sense of importance?

For reasons I don't entirely understand, I fancy myself as capable of creating a profile of the Wet Hen persona. What follows is a table of characteristics of the Wet Hen vs. the Grouchy Old Man.

I should note that the Wet Hen isn't necessarily female, and the Grouchy Old Man isn't necessarily male. Also, I made all of this up.