As I prepare for my imminent move from one side of the country to the other, I’m forced to contact a variety of organisations that have my existing address, so they know where to find me when they want their money back.
Although I could just ask Royal Mail to redirect post for me, for the one-time fee of about £20, I’ve chosen not to — I see this as an opportunity to escape from all my junk mail, though as I never got a scrap of junk mail at my current address until I signed up as a member of Quality Paperbacks Direct, I suspect I’m not going to be free of junk for very long.
So, I form a list of companies that have my address; some of them are easy to deal with, such as Game, who allow me to change my details online, and Orange, who let me fill out a chit on the back of my monthly statement and post it back to them. I like these companies, and as they made life easy for me, I’d like to believe that they like me too.
Other organisations do not like me, however, and do not much like to be contacted by mere peons, so they hide behind that bane of modern telecommunications, the touch-tone automated response system. We’re served these systems with a pretence that it’s making things easier for us, when the reality is that it’s making things easier for the company, as they no longer have to deal with all us mucky commoners. I once phoned a (now long-defunct) mail-order music store to see if I could track an order and was greeted by the message “For your convenience, all calls will now be dealt with by our automated response service.” Not very convenient for all the unemployed call staff, I imagine, and certainly not very convenient for me, as they left off — and I’m sure that this was merely an oversight on their part — the option “Press 7 if you’d just like to find out where the Hell your goddamn CD is, motherfuckers.”
Today I’ve attempted to change my address with the Student Loans Company and Barclays Bank, and it’s been a resounding failure so far. After scrounging around through all my old files and paperwork, and discovering that I’ve been carting around the most pointless rubbish for the last 6 years (9 year old payslips, anyone?), I’d managed to find contact numbers and account details for both companies. First up, the Student Loans Company.
Straight off, I’m met by an automated system. I’m given a choice of just two options, press 1 if I’m going to apply for a loan, or press 2 if I’ve already applied for a loan. I pause, waiting for the expected third option, ‘press 3 if you’ve already got a loan’, but it never comes, so I go for the technically-correct second choice, and begin to wonder if I’m just heading down the “Term has already begun so where’s my loan, you basts?” route.
As it turns out, I’m not going down any route at all this time, and I get to listen to a recorded message informing me that if I live in England or Wales, I should phone **** *** ****, and if I’m in Scotland, I should hold for an operator. Hang on! What was that number again? I wasn’t ready! I haven’t written it down because I wasn’t expecting it so had no pen and paper handy, it wasn’t said slowly and deliberately, and it’s not repeated, so I have to hang up and start the whole process again to get the number. On the second attempt, I manage to get the first 6 digits, and get the rest on the third.
I have another go with this new number — 0845 607 7577 if anybody’s interested — but yield even less satisfying results as I don’t even get to the touch-tone system, but instead get a message saying “We’re sorry, but this is a busy time for us. Please call back later.”, and then they hung up. Well, thanks. When isn’t a busy time for you? Couldn’t I have been held in a queue? When do you close your offices? When do you open? I’ve tried several times today to get through to them, but I’m always met with the same response. They say they’re sorry, but are they?
Barclays are briefer, but just as infuriating, as after only the second level of touch-toning, I’m met with the very same recorded message apologising for being busy and then hanging up on me and again, I’m left with no idea when would be a good time to call them back. Why can’t they say these things at the very start of the call?
If you’re going to be annoying, at least make an effort
Special credit has to go to the aforementioned Quality Paperbacks Direct. Not only for their misleading name — Trashy Bestsellers After Maybe Two Months Of Waiting would be more accurate — but also for the sheer Machiavellian brilliance of their automated response system. The first level of their system has a whopping eleven options, including a wonderful “If you would like to end this call, please hang up” entry, which does have me wondering about past customers who’ve starved to death after standing at their phones, waiting for an option to finish their call in the endless loop of categories.
I dived in and immediately found myself lost in a rats maze. Impressively, this system actually had dead ends, where the only option left to the customer was to hang up and start again from the beginning, like an Ian Livingstone Fighting Fantasy novel where you haven’t cheated by pretending you always rolled a six. After a couple of attempts I quietly despaired as I listened to the opening salvo of options again, and discovered how to talk to a human operator.
Cunningly, the option to speak to an operator is actually after the option to repeat the menu, and after the instructions on how to end the call, and also after a noticeably lengthy pause as well. I had, by virtue of my patience/despair, discovered the little secret bit that made the wait worthwhile, in much the same way as those who sat through about 15 minutes of awful nu-metal at the end of The Matrix: Reloaded got to see a trailer for The Matrix: Revolutions afterwards.
The human operator was helpful and friendly and my call was dealt with in a matter of moments. They even gave me a direct line to the call staff so that in the future, I wouldn’t have to navigate my way through the automated system. That number is 0870 165 0299, if anybody’s interested. Just tell them paul sent you.