Don't ya just hate it when you can't hear people on the phone? I'll admit right away that I have a hearing problem , but it's not that severe. I do have the volume turned up on my phone.
So what are the problems I have. People talk too quickly. I would like people to talk slower and then they have more precise diction. I get upset when somebody answers the phone with rapid fire speech and I'm not too sure if I even have the right number. I have to ask the person to repeat. You can ask some people to slow down and they get it and keep their speech at a slower rate. Some just can't adjust the rate of speech. Some people are probably a little nervous on the phone and become tense and the rate keeps up.
Some people will not talk into the receiver so they are not loud enough to be heard. Their volume goes up and down.
Some people use a speakerphone and you get too much echo for consistent sound. My daughter tends to use the speakerphone when she calls so they can both get in on the conversation.
Many call centers use headsets and they are very poor as the mike gets too far away from their mouth.
Sometimes there's too much background noise to hear the caller very well. I had a friend who lived very close to a railway track. Sometimes the train was going by when I would try to speak to Lloyd. It was impossible.
Some of the little cell phones are extremely cheap so the voice reproduction is poor. Last night I had a call from somebody who sounded as if they were at the bottom of a well.
Sometimes there's too much noise in my house. That's one I can handle myself. SHUT UP! I sometimes say give me a second to turn the radio off.
Sometimes you find a very long recording of options to choose from. By the time I get to the end I forget the number I should have chosen. Large stores are bad for this one. Home Depot or Walmart are bad. In fact, Walmart's phone system is just all bad.
The recording that bugs me the most is to my doctor's office. There's a long recording. Half of it I cannot hear. The voice is weak and I'm sure gum is being chewed as she's making the recording. Why do they always choose the poorest voice to make the tape.
So there's my rant. I hope that some call system might see my rant and have a session with their employees. Fat chance though! Call centers are just happy to find people to answer phones.
How about you? Do you find it difficult to follow things on the phone?
Like many people I have had a security light at my front door for a few years. For the last two years it would come on often ans stay on for for five or ten minutes. So I turned the light off. A few nights ago when it was Halloween, I wanted a light on so the kids could see where they're going. The light wouldn't come on.
So it's time to get a new light.
There was a ten year warranty on this light. My manager keeps all receipts and product information. So the next day she phoned the outlet we bought the light from. For most products, like lights, you take them back to the store and get a new one.
Now starts the runaround. She phoned the store. After a few false starts she finally got to customer service. The Bozo told her the store didn't exchange these lights and she would have to deal with the company. So he gave her a phone number that was wrong. We looked on the product booklet and found a number. Again runaround. You get one person and get put on hold and the line goes dead. Phone back again and somebody acts really dumb. Phone back again and get warranty. They say they don't look after this and you have to go to the technicians. Okay , the technicians say yes they look after warranty. The technician wanted us to put black tape over some eye and try it for a week and if it worked he would send us a gizmo for a permanent fix. If it didn't work, he'd give us a new one.
Then my manager looked at the warranty again and it said , "Take the product back to the store for an exchange." So phone back to the store with the lousy phone system. This time customer service put her through to electrical. The person in electrical said, "Sure, they'd exchange. Just bring it in."
So after a couple of 8 hour days work we finally got our security light exchanged.
The product had a nice fat ten year warranty. I really think the companies work on the theory that the customer will not look at the warranty and when the product quits the customer will go out and buy a new one.
What a runaround!
Have you had similar problems with stores, phone systems or warranties?
