Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for December 22, 2013

Little things mean a lot.:I’m going to get an air horn now.

Those speak-it-or-type-it voicemail systems have to be one of the worst technological inventions ever.

The rep on the other end must’ve gotten a ringing in the their ears after what Rat did in the second to the last panel. Ouch.

“Please hold while we transfer your call to Mexico, okay?”

hey, its not the person’s fault, theyre just doing their job. its not like its a telemarketer. THAT i could see doing this. but in this case, he callled THEM…

@Dukedoug: When I get a techie from the Philipines I say “Salama, (”thank you" in Tagalog")> It really surprises them.

I had an Irish call center help me with a Paypal issue recently. Sadly I couldn’t thank them in Irish :P

Rat rages against big bad customer disservice! I like it! Go, Rat!

I try to avoid automated phone systems and the companies that employ them for “customer service.” If I can’t get through to a human by pressing “O” multiple times, I just hang up. Technology is a scourge against human contact.

Why do companies spend thousands and thousands of dollars on tech-gimmicks instead of hiring a near-minimum-wage worker to be the public’s interface, and represent the company with warmth? And don’t give us that impersonal “your call is very important to us” BS (and we can tell by how long it takes to get connected that our call isn’t important to you at all).

If you DO get through to speak to a person, they all tell you “your call may be monitored for customer assurance purposes…” and I sincerely doubt that anyone ever reviews those calls.

i used to work at one of these phone banks. Almost all of your responses take you to the same person; the rest take you to incompetent Filipinos.

Even for Rat this is a new low! T’aint funny, McPastis!

A company I used to call to get help had one of these systems. It wasn’t great, but it worked. I guess they got tired of complaints like these. So they outsourced their customer service to a place that hires people for minimum wage and treats them like dirt. Not kidding. One of their call centers isn’t far from here. They have around a 90% turn over rate in 6 months. I’ve spoke with several people that used to work there. It’s bad, and they make sure you know you can be fired for any reason with no notice. So thanks, people, for helping to create the environment in which they come up with even worse ideas!

In US, many calls go there also. Most of the time, I seem to get a center on Cebu, which is now a ‘global center for business processing services’

Precisely.

I sometimes prefer the automated systems. When I was working at an airport there were times the on field navigational equipment would go down. So I would have to call the FAA at a larger regional airport and report it, if I go a person it would take over 5 minutes to explain who, where I was and what the problem was a couple of times before they caught on. If I got the automated system I was out in under 30 seconds with just a few key strokes.

The one that annoys me the most is when, after the automated maze, I’m on hold to my cable company, and there are multiple overlapping messages that interrupt one another to assure me that my call is important to them. This is interspersed with bad jazz and or (I think it’s) Kenny G., at varying decibel levels, all while advertising the very services you have an issue with, ie: internet out? “did you know that you can check on a service outage by going to our web site?”BTW: Decline the “take a survey” option. If for whatever reason you need to be transferred within their system, the automation will interpret the first operator hanging up for the transfer as a signal to go to the survey, and you lose your place.

I do hate the recorded messages. Hate ’em. But sadly, Rat is only amusing himself. You can’t hurt the stupid recording, and it’s not actually confused. Not in the way a living being would be.-————————————————-But I do hate those recorded messages. Did I mention that?

Rat “ROCKS!!!”

“Your call is important to us, just not THAT important…”

For Rat, it’s the season that keeps on giving….

Not that funny if you have ever worked in customer service in a call center. I worked for QVC for years and one of our reps suffered a partial hearing loss after a crank caller pulled that with an air horn. Luckily their number was recorded and the person was criminally prosecuted.

The bank calls the NSA and finds out who you are. Then they deduct an appropriate sum from your account. If you have no account or an insufficient balance, they give the NSA $1000 and transfer you to Gitmo.

When it’s voice-recognition, I usually wind up screaming.

True story: I once said the F-word to fedex’s automated system and it hung up on me.

I don’t blame Rat this time.

Anybody who is annoyed by these things would do the same I’m sure.

xxx

You whisper into the phone first, then when they ask you to repeat, you give them the blast. I hate those voice operated systems. For the hard of hearing, it is just a nightmare.

I can remember when I could call my local bank’s number and get a real person right away. Now it’s inconveniently easier to get in a car and drive the two miles to the bank and talk to a real person than go through the gyrations of their phone system.I don’t often cheer Rat but today I will.

@Aaron Myhre: Try looking for the phrase you want in Gaelic. Works the same if you get a call center in Scotland, just a slight diffrent accent!

Love the Donkey dung reply! intend to use it,but not the air Horn. saving this strip and posting it by my phone for inspiration. try to use it with cable,bank&,Obamacare, also other life and insurance companies. Thanks Greaat strip!

Oh, good grief, @TheTrustedMechanic, way to spoil everybody’s enjoyment of the strip. Of course it would be bad to blow an air horn in a live person’s ear. Of course it would’ve been better if the cartoonist had drawn it so that Rat blew the air horn at the automated system instead. But why must we take the strip so literally? Can’t we see this as a symbolic representation of protest against poor customer service?

Classy, Rat. Made me smile, though.

Wanna hear a life script? Go to the post office and try to mail a package. I told them it was a book and asked for the lowest rate. First line, "Is it anything radioactive. explosive,….(whatever the things were?). Answer: No, it is still just a book. Next line: “For only $28./00 (or whatever) we can get it there tomorrow. This includes $50 free insurance and we will track your package for you.”. No, I asked for the lowest rate. “We,, for $19 we can get it there two days from now….” On and on until you get down to the cheapest rate. They do this for every person in line, and the line is out the door. One can only hope they eventually realize barely dying semi-monopoly and have to learn to compete in the real world where people’s time is actually of value to them! Just don’t use an air horn; I imagine the penalty would be rather harsh and severe.

Not surprising, Customer service is the biggest complain that Americans have these days. Now we see why!And I need an Air Horn too!

my call center for Dell was in India, i just love the way they say “mum” every 4 words! yes mum, thank you mum…

I couldn’t remember when I first started reading PBS, so I started a couple of weeks ago with the very first PBS from 2002. This day’s strip was the biggest laugh I’ve enjoyed so far that didn’t involve puns (sorry folks, but I happen to enjoy MOST of Stephan’s puns)!

This one made me laugh pretty hard.