Customer Service?

Descending deeper into digital hell

It is too late. It’s not, but it is. We are already in the digital gulag and have been for some time. While in theory we could still break out of it before it becomes all but inescapable, we will not because too few know and fewer care.

Yesterday, I had to get an idiot phone. After several emails letting me know that my gara kei (Galapagos type flip phone), and a rare actual phone call from an even rarer real life human, I received a coupon in the mail for a sizable amount off if I made the switch, before they flip the switch off, on my old phone.

It seems that every new encounter with “customer service” uncovers another massive change in the meaning of that phrase. The last big one was visiting the service counter of my credit card company and instead of the 10 or so humans who helped customers at that one location, there were 3 large screen monitors for mask wearing employees to help those seeking answers from at least two locations. Yesterday yet another unbelievable barrier to actual human interaction was reveled to me.

One of the reasons I prefer to go in and actually talk with a person is that it allows for off script communication that can cover problems not found in any pull down or voice menu eliminating the need to listen to a long list of menu choices that do not fit your issue to only be put on hold for a human to talk to you anyway. I can read while I await for my number to be called instead of being basically frozen in place with the phone to my ear so that I do not miss the elevator music coming to an end and a voice to come on. Well, no more!

Let me introduce to you the latest innovation in customer service, brought to you by the telecom industry, the mini tablet based video presentation! Yeah yeah! Much rejoicing. Exactly what I was hoping for, yeah! Before signing the contract, the salesman sat a small, iPad Mini sized tablet in front of me, pressed the play arrow on the touch screen and left. After the 20 minute audio-video presentation, it sounded a chime which summoned the salesman from the back room. He asked if I had had any questions. I did not, as this was not my first phone but I have since wondered what’s would happen if I did. Should he explain it, play another, more detailed video on the topic of my question or just call up the segment of the original video that covered it. If the information was given my a human, you can stop them at the points you are unclear of. But after 20 minutes, is it not likely that some unclear points are forgotten by the time the machine finishes? It also kills what little I have left of my less than fluent but still highly functional Japanese language skills.

Another nightmare from years past has revisited me, two actually. I had an unexpectedly large charge found on my credit card bill, which caused a lot of trouble. It was for just less than ¥40,000. Turned out to be the yearly subscription fee for a cloud storage service. I subscribed to this in a bit of a panic years ago when I first learned that the city office can and will just walk into your abode and take anything and everything of value it finds to cover the cost of unpaid national medical health scheme payments. Having tons of digitized photos and a lot of digital docs from and for work that I simply cannot lose access to, I panicked and signed up for a cloud storage service. At the time it cost me $50./¥4,000 and some odd yen a month. I recall the email some time ago informing that the fee was going up to $60., a month but do not recall being told it could be close to 5 times that! Last week, just after paying the greatly increased bill, I learned that this service is coming to an end and I have until September 15th to download all my stuff, which was basically everything I had on all my devices, from it.

I have been through this before with Adobe Carousel or whatever it was called when they killed that service; it had gone through at least two name changes during the time I was a subscriber. This was a HUGE problem for me but much more so for professional photographers. It grates upon my sense of what is right that I must subscribe to any of Adobe’s services for I swore I never would again. Without Adobe Acrobat, I would not be able to do what little I can with the great variety of e-docs I must deal with for work. I hate that unreliable company. It seems that all such companies are unreliable. Thankfully, they are not my main cloud service. Wonder what will happen if my main one shuts down?

The soon to be ended service however has discovered a way to make this even worse. To download my data, I must download their APP. I once had this app and was surprised to see that it was no longer on any of my devises. Well, not really. This has been a long standing problem, unlike with paper files in a manila folder in a filing cabinet that will remain safely where you put it until years later when you need it, excepting fire flood or theft, digital filing cabinets remove themselves unless accessed frequently. Okay, so I’ll just have to down load it again. The app is no longer available in my country or region, according to the message I received when trying to do so. So, I have to schedule time to contact their customer service soon so that I have enough time left to download my data. If experience is any guide, I will lose much of the data I have stored if I get any of it at all. What kind of service will I get from them? Automated AI gibberish or a 20 minute video that will not cover my issue?

Then we have this today from Alex Berenson.

An update on my brush with debanking

This is not a new issue but it is getting worse. Hollymathnerd did a piece on tech trouble shooting a while back that shows just how baked into the system it already is that unless it is a common problem that takes a prescribed short period of time to fix, you are out of luck getting it solved. The customer service agents who spend the time necessary to solve your issue, and your reward them with 5 stars because they deserve it are penalized for spending too much time with you. The fact that they did and others did not solve your issues is not even part of the equation. How much time spent with you is all that matters. It has now moved into banking, but again, this is not new. And there is no recourse and it is getting worse and will be a living nightmare in hell once cash is no longer accepted. The more automated it is, the less recourse one has because there simply does not exist a single human that has a clue what their systems are doing. They can’t help even if they are inclined to do so. Now we have AI running them, what could possibly go wrong?

On another note is the new update to Apple’s iOS. It now takes extra actions to have most apps display full screen. The apps you have open now display along the side of the screen making it easy for others to see what else you are working on. This is far worse than the open tabs along the top of your screen as the docs your are working on are visible. They are making it easier and easier for any and all who wishes can see what you are doing on your device. I call it Apples spy welfare upgrade.

They also killed spilt screen on my iPad Pro. It has a large screen and I used the is function a lot. Would have the source for the information I am writing about on the left side of the screen and Notes open on the right. Not anymore. I did not want these changes. Was not given the choice, really, to opt out. I am sick and tired of having to reinvent the wheel when these idiots “upgrade” their products.

Seriously, what was wrong with pen and paper?