Thursday, June 14, 2007

Beating A Dead Horse With A Horse You've Already Beaten To Death

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition.

I've come to understand that when anyone is upset or disturbed about an incident, they like to repeat the story at least 3 times. No matter how convoluted and complicated the story is, almost everyone will go over it thrice. And I accept this; once I see that there is some consistency to the way clients behave, I don't hold it against them. Why be upset over the way humans are designed to react?

But some go for the overkill, repeating the story seemingly to no end. For example, I spoke with a woman who was upset with a mutual client and told the story 12 times. I counted. The call lasted half an hour, which is 15x longer than the average 2 minute call. I didn't have to do anything to help her, she didn't have any questions, and the call ended where it began. Nothing accomplished because nothing needed to be.

Now, I'll lend a sympathetic ear, but going over a story 12 times is completely unwarranted, unnecessary, and unproductive. Customers don't even realize how unproductive they are and how they restrict the progress of resolving their own conflicts.

I couldn't understand what it was this woman wanted me to do, so after enough empathy was expressed, I asked her. And I asked her again. And then, again. Every time I asked her what she wanted, what she needed to feel better (over something beyond both our control to begin with), she would only respond with a scattered response, mixing vague and common phrases with her story until she could segue back into the sequence of events again. And I've been through worse! I once spoke with a woman for 2 1/2 hours about NOTHING. I thought I was never going to get out of that one, but by some miracle she grew tired of hearing herself drill a trivial issue into my head.

It's not the crazies, though there are plenty of those: the guy whose dad is always just having died, the guy who calls and talks about nothing but wrestling for 20 minutes, the guy who calls and asks random questions like, "Who invented the credit card?", but asks nothing about his business with us. But it's not the crazies who repeat stories over and over again, these are just regular people. And they're retarded. And you're probably one of them.

So if you call any customer service, and you have an issue:
1) There is no need to repeat your story a million times; if I got it the first time, it wouldn't make sense that after repeating it 10 more times, I just won't get it anymore.
2) There is also no need to repeat your story a million times; if I got it the first time, it wouldn't make sense that after repeating it 10 more times, I just won't get it anymore.
3) There isn't any need to repeat your story a million times; if I got it the first time, it wouldn't make sense that after repeating it 10 more times, I just won't get it anymore.
4) There is even no need to repeat your story a million times; if I got it the first time, it wouldn't make sense that after repeating it 10 more times, I just won't get it anymore.
5) Lastly, there is no need to repeat your story a million times; if I got it the first time, it wouldn't make sense that after repeating it 10 more times, I just won't get it anymore.

Do I have to repeat myself?

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