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02:49 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
April 30, 2014
I am getting heartily sick of automation. I want to hear real voices when I call up a bank or a public service institution and I want to discuss my problem and not be given options on numbers that take me in a giddy circle and then disconnect. I am calling not to ask you about the weather, I am calling because I have a problem.
I don’t want to hear music, I don’t want to be told how flipping important I am to you, I want to hear a voice. A human being who responds. If I want to hear an electronic voice I’ll switch on my GPS and go round in circles.
If I am more than heartily sick about something else it is my tolerance and your tolerance for these cowardly inventions which allow all these fatcat executives to duck their responsibilities and hide behind their technological barriers.
It has become so bad you cannot go through to anyone. You call any of these places and they say press the extension if you know it or leave a message. I don’t know who you are, how would I know your extension and if you do get a human voice it takes half a day and you might as well shave and have a bath while waiting.
Where did the human touch go? And why are you all so afraid of talking to us? You fly business class because we are your customers. You live in fancy apartments and drive fancy cars and have fancy stock options because we are your customers.
So why don’t you talk to us?
What is the runaround you are giving us every time we dial you…hit 1 for this and 2 for that and 3 for…oh, go away, you are not giving service, you are giving us a headache.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
If my call is so important to them, why don’t they answer it for 22 minutes?
How come when I want to, but something specific online is the only item out of stock.
When I get into a queue or lane going fast, the moment I get in, it becomes the slowest and refuses to budge.
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