Customer Interaction Isn’t Meant To Be With Each Other

(I’m at the office and our Internet is not working. I’m calling our ISP. After waiting for almost half-an-hour, I finally reach their service desk. After I explain the problem, the following conversation takes place.)

Support: “Okay, again, sorry about the long wait. Let me transfer you to the technical department; a tech will take it from there.”

Me: “All right, thanks.”

(I’m back on hold, but only for a moment.)

Other Person: “Hello?”

Me: “Hello, my name is [My Name]. We have no Internet at the office. The modem shows it has no DSL connection. The customer ID…”

Other Person: “Yes, it’s [other customer ID].”

Me: “Uhm… no… it’s [my customer ID].”

Other Person: “Huh? No, it’s not. I have it here on the invoice.”

Me: “What invoice?”

Other Person: “The invoice you sent me? Like the ones you send me every month?”

Me: “Wha… Wait… You’re a customer?”

Other Person: “Well, obviously? I called you about my Internet connection. You just repeated the issue back to me; now I’m expecting you to fix it.”

Me: “Hardly. I called because I’m having the same problem. And now they put me through to you. I guess he was really out of it.”

Other Person: “Oh, great. At least I have someone to talk to instead of that stupid recording that keeps telling me how important my call is to them. So, what do we do now?”

Me: “I guess we’ll have to call again.”

(And so we did. This time I didn’t wait as long, and they actually got it fixed within an hour or so. Hope they could also help the other guy.)