How many times per week do you hear, "Our call volume is unusually heavy so you may experience unusually long hold times."

Sure, sometimes it happens. Like when I just called Thai Air they have a pretty good excuse because of the airport closure last week.

But it seems like other companies leave that on nearly permanently as if it somehow excuses the fact that they don't have enough customer service people. I'd almost rather hear "we're really cheap and don't want to pay any more people to actually help you because we don't really value your time or maybe even your business."

Just one more pet peeve. At least some have good hold music. And a wireless headset is a must if you have to make more than one of these calls a day!--David

Even more infuriating to me is the fact that many of us only have cell phones these days and often times have plans with X amount of minutes. (this is an antiquated system cell companies need to loose.) Sitting on hold while my minutes tick away makes me want to break things.

Aaron--Yes, that's another pet peeve. And related to that is what happens when I need to call from the middle of nowhere using either a weak cellphone connection or a satellite phone and the call gets dropped while I'm on hold, so I get to repeat the whole process (usually standing on a beach in the rain trying to re-book my connecting flight because some small plane can't get through the fog to pick me up!).

--David

Wow that sounds like SOP on the west bank of Cook Inlet.

I'll just say it's happened more than once:-)

David,

When I read your initial post, I could feel the anger welling up inside me. I could not agree more with your comment. Unfortunately, it is only the tip of the "we don't care about you" attitude that has permeated the corporate world. When I do get connected, many times it is with someone that I cannot even understand either as a result of a language barrier or a connection that sounds like it's passing through the first trans-Atlantic cable ever laid.

Some of what we are experiencing is our fault. We have, without strenuous objection, allowed the customer service bar of excellence to fall so low that a worm could crawl over it.

If we are not satisfied with the service we are getting, ask for a supervisor, or the name of the head of the CS department and give them an earful. I don't know if we can change things, but at least we can make them aware that we are not naive to what they are doing.

John--All good points. One of the "slippery slope" problems with trying to work with good, small companies is they seem to keep getting bought by big "don't care much" companies. So unless you want to keep changing your bank, ISP, airline, phone company or other vendor it seems like gravity takes hold and each gets bigger & sloppier over time.

Locally of course the equivalent is small independent stores (which we try very hard to patronize) either having to grow big, sell out, or close. --David

That message means you have progressed out of the IVR/menus, which can be a real challenge sometimes in itself with big companies like your local baby bell.