Samuel Beckett wrote ‘Waiting for Godot’ and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the unlikely event that I should ever write the story of ‘Waiting for the Technical Staff to Respond to My Support Request’, it’s unlikely that I’ll be asked to travel to Stockholm to pick up an award. Until now, everything had run so smoothly. I had given myself completely to the ‘Orange’ corporation and I had enjoyed the ability to download music, movies and so forth without having to leave my couch. Suddenly and for the first time, I realised the Internet might actually serve some kind of purpose. That is, of course, until it all went so horribly wrong.
Samuel Beckett wrote ‘Waiting for Godot’ and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. In the unlikely event that I should ever write the story of ‘Waiting for the Technical Staff to Respond to My Support Request’, it’s unlikely that I’ll be asked to travel to Stockholm to pick up an award. Until now, everything had run so smoothly. I had given myself completely to the ‘Orange’ corporation and I had enjoyed the ability to download music, movies and so forth without having to leave my couch. Suddenly and for the first time, I realised the Internet might actually serve some kind of purpose. That is, of course, until it all went so horribly wrong.
Having eventually succeeded in finding a phone number for Orange, I waited on hold for what seemed to be an eternity only to be told that something was wrong. This, of course, was the very reason for my phone call and might neatly be described as ‘an overwhelming statement of the obvious.’ As is so often now the way with global commerce, my phone call was relayed to another country solely for the purpose of something that I had figured out whilst sitting on the couch. Having flunked the call centre test, it seems my problem was of such gravity that it was forwarded to the awesome and not a little inspiring ‘Technical Support Team’.
I didn’t know how the call centre would alert the ‘TST’ to my problem. I’d like to think they have a special spotlight which they shine into the night sky, at which point they drop whatever it is they’re doing and go directly to the Bat-cave, but this seems unlikely. Let’s be honest, technical support staff don’t conceal their true identities and you don’t need a Bat-signal to get their attention. Most likely the sound of a Slurpee machine being switched on would do the trick. Whatever the technique for summoning them up, within 48 hours I received an email from a member of the elite Technical Support Team.
For the sake of anonymity, I have chosen to refer to my technical support adviser as ‘Dr Peter Venkman.’ To be honest, I could have gone for any member of the original Ghostbusters crew and, at a push, maybe even the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, but there was an air of detached wryness about the emails I received from my support advisor that makes ‘Dr Pete’ a suitable non-de plume. He began his email with a statement of such profound irony that it can only be applauded – ‘Welcome to Customer Support’ it began. That this message was by email and delivered to my inbox at three o’clock in the morning means that traditional notions of customer support have been wholly abandoned. The days of someone turning up to your house are over. Emails in the dead of night are the new normal when it comes to servicing your customers.
Dr Venkman then got right to the heart of the problem. ‘I understand that you purchased video “Confessions” and after delivery you received a message saying that there is a payment problem, even though you have sufficient funds in that debit card.’ Let me say right now that “Confessions” is, in fact, an episode from the last series of “Breaking Bad” and not something that should be preceded by the words, ‘Danielle Steele presents.’ The email then continued with the grammatically mystifying statement, ‘I sense how eager concerned you are…’. You’re darn tootin’ right. I am ‘eager concerned’ beside myself.
The email went on to say, ‘Please contact the fraud or security department of your financial institution to find out why your card is being rejected.’ This was something I’d already done several days earlier; a fact I made clear when I filled out the support request form on which Dr Venkman had based the rest of the email. The bank had told me that there was no problem at their end and that the issue most likely rested between Orange and their bank. Under those circumstances, Dr Pete’s response was of no use at all and was more in the nature of an instruction as to one of the countless techniques that exist for sucking eggs. But rather than keep these thoughts to myself, I decided to write back.
‘Dear Dr Venkman. Thanks for your email. From this point on, though, perhaps we can refer to the purchase as “Breaking Bad” rather than “Confessions” which, frankly, sounds misleadingly pornographic. I have spoken to the bank and they think the problem is at your end. The best thing to do would be to run the transaction again.’
I’m the first to admit that the email was a desperate attempt to appeal to logic. It failed utterly. The response I received from Dr Venkman was to the effect that I should consider changing banks. As responses go, it was completely useless. When I pointed out that this was oddly back to front, all communication ceased. At first I was mystified, maybe even a little hurt. But that’s just the way it goes with customer service.
It has sometimes been said that particular companies are ‘too big to fail’. It seems that some may also be too big to respond. Orange is such a hugely, obesely successful company that they seem unable to comprehend any problem that might be of their own making. I later received an email containing the preposterous claim that they would ‘value’ my feedback and asking me to fill in a questionnaire. Having since provided it, there has been nothing but eerie silence since. After a time, my account mysteriously started to work again and I managed to see the final episodes of Breaking Bad. They were graphic, harrowing and emotionally exhausting. A lot like customer service.