A nation of complainers

I’ve been doing quite a few emails at work today (I work in tech support for an ISP) and I find it increasingly sad how many of the emails from customers are written in a disgruntled, accusatory tone, as though whatever has stopped working has been made to stop working deliberately, and specifically to affront the customer.

So many of the emails include phrases like “sort this immediately or I will find another provider” or “this has been going on for months and it just isn’t good enough”.

I know what it’s like to be pissed off about a service not doing what it should, I get it all the time, and I know there is a temptation to lash out at someone, but I just can’t believe so many people actually do exactly that.

The annoying thing is, the company I work for is actually very good at fixing stuff. We fix really hard, complicated stuff on a daily basis. We carry on far beyond the point when other ISPs would just say “we don’t support that” or just give up. But the majority of companies don’t do that, they do give up, they don’t support anything but what they absolutely have to, so people have to fight to get what they want.

Add to that the fact that a lot of companies cave straight away under pressure and give freebies to shut people up. Things they haven’t paid for and aren’t entitled to. Bonuses for staying loyal. We don’t do that We Fix Things Which Are Broken. That’s what you pay us for.

In recent years a lot of companies have replaced face to face contact with call centres, which in a large number of cases get outsourced to offshore companies, staffed by people for whom English is not their first language, who have never lived in England, and who don’t use the products they are supporting. This means to enable them to do their job, everything has to be simple, and scripted. This inevitably leads to people having to fight even harder to get what they want, and to companies caving even more easily and giving away more freebies (which they can now afford because they now spend a tenth of what they used to spend on wages).

So when someone emails us, they expect a fight, they expect scripted indifference, they expect us to bend over backwards to sort the problem out yesterday.

We’ve become a nation of complainers and forgotten how to be civil, and through having to so often fight for what we feel we are owed, we have forgotten that with decent companies who do care about their customers, you’re more likely to get what you want if you ask nicely. So next time you have to call or email customer services/tech support, try being nice, at least at first, and you might find it to be a much less stressful experience if the person helping you wants  to help you.