I find myself dealing lately with more and more companies that have reduced the cost of labor by replacing competent employees with computer bots and/or people who don't seem to know how to do anything except apologize for problems. The latter don't fix the problems. Though they are in "Customer Service," they don't serve customers. They either don't know how to fix the problems or their employer hasn't given them the means to fix the problems. About all they can do is apologize.
This morning, I was trying to get onto a website to place an order. Please note: My goal here was to give this company money.
You'd think they'd want that…but somehow, their site wouldn't let me in to place that order. I called Customer Service and got someone who, first of all, sounded like they were on some other planet, leading me to suspect they do not live or work in the country in which the company operates. And secondly, they were utterly clueless as to how to get me back on their site. I got about as much help as if I'd asked a goldfish to hand me a crescent wrench.
Finally, they — whoever "they" are — suggested I use the "Live Online Chat" feature of their site. It did not seem to actually have a live person on the other end…or if someone was there, they were just selecting canned, pre-written responses. At one point, I asked something for which they did not seem to have a pre-written response and this happened…
I just let that sit on my computer screen to see what response, if any, I would get. After another 22 minutes of receiving no reply, I gave up and ordered from someone else. Somewhere in this world, some minimum-wage employee is still trying to pull up my account and additional resources to assist me in the best way possible. Or maybe they really are being held for ransom.