Oppressive Customer Reps

Published by

Clarissa

July 16, 2014

Please note: this conversation starts about 10 minutes in — by this point my wife and I are both completely flustered by the oppressiveness of the rep.

So! Last week my wife called to disconnect our service with Comcast after we switched to another provider (Astound). We were transferred to cancellations (aka “customer retention”). . .

What I did not know is how oppressive this conversation would be. Within just a few minutes the representative had gotten so condescending and unhelpful I felt compelled to record the speakerphone conversation on my other phone.

And this is the comment from the website where I found the quote:

Trigger warning for anyone who’s ever been through this. You will have a raging PTSD episode.

Some folks have neither shame nor sense of proportion.

The whole thing reminded me of the old joke about a sadist and a masochist. The masochist says, “Torture me, torture me, I beg you.” And the sadist responds, “No, I won’t, no, I won’t.”

P.S. I really hope not to get any comments about oppressed customer reps.

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6 responses to “Oppressive Customer Reps”

Crystallizing Chaos

July 16, 2014

I’m beginning to wonder if the guy knows what oppressive means.

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1. Clarissa
  
  July 16, 2014
  
  My point exactly. 🙂
  
  I used to live in a Comcast area and I had one of these conversations with their reps. To me, it was hilarious, I had an absolute blast. These people chose to have PTSD. Oh well.
  
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  1. Shakti
    
    July 16, 2014
    
    Well it is kind of funny to hear the rep wheedle like a dumped boyfriend. (Although I’m firmly of the “Buy it or don’t school” so I’d be a terrible salesperson.)
    
    The masochist says, “Torture me, torture me, I beg you.” And the sadist responds, “No, I won’t, no, I won’t.”
    That’s the entire plot of the Twilight series. :p
    
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cliff arroyo

July 16, 2014

I would _love_ to follow this guy around a Turkish market and hear him try to reason with the sellers who are making very good price! Very good! Price just for you! Where you from? Oh, Nice country! I make you good price and you buy!

Or failing that, I’d love to be a fly on the wall as he tried to deal with Central European bureaucracy who regrets that your form was lost, but that means that your in violation of the regulations and no, a xerox of the form with their stamp is not proof you submitted it, you’ll have to start again and pay a fine for the office losing your form because that’s in accordance with the regulations… next!

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musteryou

July 16, 2014

I genuinely didn’t realize until so recently that Americans were not being ironic with that sort of writing. I used to think they were just tongue in cheek and having a bit of humor whilst letting off steam.

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Jones

July 16, 2014

Amazing … When I was in the States, I had Comcast Business services. I needed big, fat data pipes with usage rates that were well in excess of residential limits.

Ending services with them by these accounts now seems amazingly simple and straightforward.

I called up a service representative, told them I was closing my company and leaving the country, and they sent along something for me to e-sign to close the account. A few days later, I dropped off their leased gateway hardware and I was done with them.

Is this a case of getting horrible customer service because you aren’t actually paying for the customer service?

Some UK mobile operators (mostly the ones that love the colour red) seem to behave this way as well, but getting rid of them for me is as easy as running out my pay-as-you-go top-ups and buying another SIM …

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