Moving on

CUSTOMER SERVICE, PLEASE

Don’t you love calling customer service? “Press one if you’re a new customer, press two if you’re an irritated one, press three if you’ve spent more than three hours trying to get ahold of us. Press four to repeat this menu.” I press ZERO. Sometimes it gets me a person.

If you haven’t been through this rigamarole, you’re fortunate. Whether it’s phone, television, computer, or any other service, what’s more irritating than pressing endless buttons in an effort to find a real person? My neighbor Jim suggests repeating “Customer Service” until you get results.

When my husband spent two hours on the phone trying to sort out a Direct TV account, he got so frustrated he cancelled it. And when my friend Thelma’s house burned down, the folks at Direct TV insisted that in order to cancel her account, she had to send them her old equipment. No excuses.

I spent a full eight hours on the phone (in tears, finally) trying to sort out a messed-up airline reservation to Norway. My lesson there? NEVER book through a second party (like Travelocity)—it’s nearly impossible to make changes.

Why bring this up now? Well, I’ve just completed my 28th hour on the phone with Apple. Admittedly, they’ve never made me play the “press this button” game. In fact, they have an enviable customer service record. According to the American Customer Service Index, Apple ranks number three after Chick-fil-A and Honda. The Mayo Clinic and Trader Joe’s also rank near the top, FYI.

Back to Apple.

I’m an Apple devotee. I have an iMac, a MacBook Pro, an iPad, an iPod, and an iPhone. I’ve LOVED Apple products until this iMac, which has been slow from the get-go. Every time I get frustrated enough to call Apple Service, I get a helpful someone who works with me an hour or two to resolve the issue. Every one of my 20+ consultants have lived in the U.S., which means I could actually understand them. That’s a plus. They’re always kind and never leave me hanging. That’s a plus, too, but it’s been a long haul. I’m usually optimistic that we’ve found the answer, but within a few days I’m back to waiting, waiting, waiting—for my emails to appear, for applications to open, and for links to load.

Waiting eight minutes to log into a Zoom meeting last month was the last straw. I typed a terse email to Apple CEO Tim Cook, intending to send it every day until someone responded. The next day I got a call from Victoria, an empathetic executive assistant who apologized profusely and promised to resolve my issue. She’s been terrific, setting up appointments with a technical specialist (a step above the consultants, technicians, and supervisors I’ve been working with). Victoria checks back with me every few days to see how things are going, which I appreciate. We’re on our way, I hope, to either a solution OR a new computer. The saga continues, and…

I must admit, I am SO done with the phone.