Where is Bob When You Need Him?

A friend who has since moved elsewhere used to keep a group of us in stitches doing exaggerated voice and facial imitations of customer service operators who were often likely to be outside the U.S.

Since he made his living trouble-shooting email problems from his home (making him a pioneer in remote work), “Jack” had credibility to speak to tech matters.

“Helloooooooooo,” Jack would say, “my name is Bawwwb. Maaaay I heeelppp you?”

Before anyone lambastes me as a red-necked racist, remember Discover Card’s 2011 series of TV commercials? They featured a Romanian immigrant answering customer service calls and telling people his name was “Peggy.” A rather inept Peggy.

The reason Jack got so many laughs for his imitations was their modicum of truth. Whether it was telephone, cable or email provider, everyone had talked to a “Bob” who sounded more like a Peggy.

Customer Service – Longing for Contact

After my most recent encounter with Artificial Intelligence, I long for the days of Bob. At least human contact meant people reacting somewhat intelligently to comments and questions, no matter what their accent.

I often wonder if businesses know how inept and insulting their AI agents appear. Terms like “I will kindly help you” or “I’m so glad to help you today” when you know it’s a machine trained to try sounding courteous is beyond irritating.

Then there are the questions AI agents pose in the midst of a “chat,” followed by “I see,” and then never following up on the discussion they started.

In my case, I had ordered a drum unit for my laser printer online. After a compatible one I ordered proved worthless, I got a refund and bit the bullet for an “authentic,” high-priced version.

The package arrived, but then sat on my office floor for six weeks. The drum light that had been blinking regularly stopped doing so. Since the printer kept working, I figured I would keep going until I had to replace the drum.

Tragic Discovery

That day arrived in mid-February. I unpacked the new drum, took the toner cartridge out of the old one, and inserted the toner into the new drum.

When I tried to slide the whole unit into the printer, though, it was too big. That’s when I discovered I had apparently ordered one starting with a “7” instead of a “6.”

Hoping to get the right drum shipped and a pre-paid shipping label to return the wrong one, I started on the process. At one point, I requested a call. The call came, but then I got put on hold. Finally, the phone went dead.

After waiting for a while, I called the number back. That put me at the end of the line, followed by more maddening instructions, button pressing, and a lack of help. In the meantime, I had an email string going, which proved as useless as the phone “service.”

I started this inquiry around noon, thinking it would be a simple fix before I grabbed a bite of lunch. By the time it ended 45 minutes later, my stomach was growling.

As advised, I finally called the company that had shipped the unit, where the operator verified that 30 days was the deadline for returning an item for a refund.

“You may want to try filing a request with the shipper,” he said.

“After what I went through earlier,” I said, “I think it will be easier to eat the loss.”

Education always costs money.