The Customer Service around here is horrible…

/ bensbitterblog

Just wait until I take my break, then start telling me all about it.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time in my career in customer service, which as you know is a really bad thing, because I’m horrible at it. People can sense it with me when I’m on the phone with them. They can feel the gritted teeth, the sarcastic tone, and they can see the eye rolling through the phone. You have probably noticed how horrible the customer service has been around this blog for a while too.

Just imagine that I’m like the guys and girls from The Office. I’m pretty much in auto phone answering mode like Pam, when she answers the phone. “Ben’s Bitter Blog, this is Ben.” You can hear the voice, but there is just no enthusiasm in it. You can probably imagine I’m Stanley on the other side of the internet. You are talking, but I’m just filling out my crossword puzzle.

I’m like Jim, telling you about my job. I give people quotes about paper, the size of it, the weight, telling them if it is in stock. I’m boring myself, just talking about it. But mostly I’m like Creed. I have no idea what I’m doing here. If someone actually backed me into a corner, to explain it, I wouldn’t really know what to tell them.

I used to actually be pretty good at customer service around here. I would post almost every other day. I would answer comments right away. I would follow other people’s blogs and make comments. Nowadays, the customer service is really bad. I sometimes get a post or two in a week. (Can never miss a Friday Giftures post, but other than that, pretty sporadic.) I blame others. If it wasn’t for all those people that rejected my job applications, I would be sitting in an office, slaving away for 20 or 30 minutes a day, while the rest of the time, writing posts, answering comments, visiting other people’s posts, writing comments on their blogs, and coming up with ideas for things that make me bitter while in meetings.

Don’t they know that a productive blog starts with having a job that makes you bitter? Instead, I’m sitting here watching my stats fall in real time. My blog is suffering like a sick guy having the flu in winter, watching the seconds tick by with gray clouds and cold weather outside his window. And the eyes are rolling on the other side of the screen, wondering when is the true bitterness going to come out.

Followers of this blog are asking, “When am I going to be able to rant again and get an actual answer within a week so there is some sort of bitter momentum to this conversation?” The bitter sarcasm doesn’t seem to be near as lethal. The gritted teeth you’ve come to expect just aren’t grinding to a pulp like they used to.

Don’t worry, though. Someday, that sarcasm, that eye rolling, that teeth gritting will return. You will feel it through the internet again. You will feel your keyboards heat up, you will feel that deep, painful, darkness in your soul again. Just be patient. It will bring you to new lows someday when you least expect it, and it will come more powerful than ever.

So go ahead and comment about this. I’ll get back to you in a day or three.

ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH

Bitter Customer Diservice Ben

61 thoughts on “The Customer Service around here is horrible…”

  1. I had to take a read of this blog after seeing the tags “customer service, humor, rant”! That’s quite an interesting selection that is guaranteed to draw most people in!

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    • You better believe it. This whole thing started when I was sick of my old job of answering the phones all day and had so much bitterness from not only being customer service but also getting poor customer service. I think that word is so poor in describing it.

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  2. Most companies claim to have great customer service and constantly talk about how their customers are number 1 etc. This is frequently fairly true, that is until something goes wrong. When the rubber meets the road, this is where the true customer service experts rise to the top. Take a look at this blog that I wrote about what to do when the going gets tough. Enjoy! https://expecttheexceptional.wordpress.com/2016/09/08/customer-service-in-difficult-situations/

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    • I was in customer service for 20 years and you think I was any good at it? I only liked when people called for quick orders or had no problems. I was the absolute worst when someone had a problem. Customer service is such a joke, because either the customer is a jerk and didn’t deserve so they are essentially a grown up whiny baby, or the customer service rep is a jerk and then the person calling doesn’t ever want to call again. It is such a fallacy.

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    • Customer service is terrible around my blog, because I spent a good part of my career trying to do customer service and I’m not a people person, so I was terrible at it. Even worse on my blog. I can’t wait to hear about your terrible customer service experience.

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  10. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about your blog is that you do respond to comments. Many don’t. Try this, shorter posts. Limit it to 50 or 100 words. That way you will be able to maybe produce many more shorter rants, than 1 long bitter one. But you probably already know that.

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  11. Creed has always been my favourite character on The Office. He is amazing.

    I like how you and I wrote somewhat similar posts. Good job, us.

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  12. So that’s why! Great explanation. I hope you get a job soon so you can resume your awesome customer service here. When I was a teacher, so busy that I thought teaching took over everything, I actually was a better blogger — because I knew that my time was my own and I could always grade those essays later. Now I work a normal 8-5 job and find I am much like you, unable to attend to a blog as I’d like. The problem is, I love my job. Maybe if I were bitter about it, I would be a better blogger.

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  14. “Don’t they know that a productive blog starts with having a job that makes you bitter? Instead, I’m sitting here watching my stats fall in real time.”

    It’s so true!!! No one seems to want to read about positive, happy stuff. Ever since I started dating Seth, my stats have plummeted. I have less than half the daily readers that I used to, which makes me blog less, which further drops my stats.

    For a while, I tried to post about the happy stuff going on in my life, but all my readers (through their absence) were like: “Nobody wants that! Bring back the bitterness and sarcasm!”

    Fortunately, I still hate my job. So now I’m mostly writing about my job instead of my relationship status… until I’m unemployed this time next month… and then I guess I can blog bitter posts about my unemployment. AAAARRRRGGGGHHH Acerbic Aurora

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  16. That’s ok, Ben. Keeping your readers bitter because you don’t comment is actually genius. That way they will be expecting your return. They will be saying, “This guy annoys me but let me see what happened to him so I can be even more bitter!” Stats problem solved!

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