Helpful Improvements (aka bitch session)

#1 (oh yeah, there's more than one!  This is what happens when Delta and Alaska Airlines completely screw up my flight home.  I'm still in Sun Valley...More on that later.)

Try paying a bill or asking your cable or energy company a question (looking at you Excel, AT&T, Sprint), or better yet try contacting someone who works for United, American Airlines, Cheap Tickets or Expedia.  Yes, I'm directing this at all of you.  Please tell me that this isn't way too familiar; you call looking to pay your bill and you end up listening to the following, "we are sorry, there is an unexpected large volume of calls right now.  Please stay on the line and the next representative will be with you shortly.  Your patience is appreciated." What does it tell you that I was able to recite that from memory!

If there is ALWAYS an unexpectedly large volume of callers, doesn't the large volume eventually become EXPECTED and shouldn't they DEAL WITH IT?  Call me crazy over here...  You claimed that you farmed out customer service to call centers to "better serve" the customers.  But i'm not naive, the real reason was to cut costs.  This leads me to my next, and yes somewhat obvious but equally brilliant comment/request.  Why doesn't the automated voice service that asks for ALL of your personal information, D.O.B., social security number, address, mothers maiden name, if you have any birth marks in interesting places... record this information somewhere for the representative you are eventually going to talk to?  Furthermore, why can't they pass on the information to the next customer service representative once the first person you are talking to realizes that they can not help you?  I don't think the first person I have ever talked to has been able to fully help me.  EVER.  You?

Here's one of the HELP ME, HELP YOU moments i'm so fond of.

Imagine how much time can be saved if the customer service representative didn't need to repeat all of those questions?  On an individual basis it's pretty small, but if you added up all of the calls they take in a day, week, or month and it quickly becomes the mathematical equivalent of A SHIT LOAD!  With all of the added time they have they can answer more calls.

How does this help them?

Think about how much nicer people will be if they don't have to wait on hold and answer the exact same questions they just struggled through while talking to an automated machine?


#2

If I didn't know better I would assume that it was part of Obama's job creation program, but it's not.  I'm talking about the 2 or 3 TSA people at every airport terminal exit making sure people are only exiting. This truly skilled (see Newark airport fiasco from last week where someone slipped back into the airport AFTER making a scene and was actively being watched by TSA security) job can probably be replaced with a one-way turn-style found in many NY subway stations.  This alone could save the airports close to 100K a year.