Customer service is dead

I hate all customer service helpline. Period.

First, they make you call those expensive premium numbers to get in touch with them when you are already paying for whatever that you signed up for.

Then, their lines are always busy.

When you finally get through, they present you with 1001 options to choose from, but no human being to answer your call.

After pressing multiple numbers on your touch phone, they put you on hold for eternity and play the most irritating tunes over and over again, coupled with the pre-recorded message of "Your call is important to us, thank you for waiting. You will be next in queue." If my call is so important, why am I put on hold for a million years??

And if you have the patience and time to wait while the phone receiver heats up, and finally have someone at the end of the line, you sigh of relief... only to be told that this is not the right number to call although that number is printed on the stuff that they sent you. So, they put you on hold again and you're back in the queue again.

After numerous transfers and being put on hold, you finally get through to the right department. All this while, you're probably on the phone for more than 30 mins without even getting to the point of why you called in the first place. Heck, you might even be so frustrated that you don't remember why you're calling as you start to boil with anger.

But if you still managed to keep your cool and proceed to tell the operator your problem, they'll put you on hold AGAIN to check it up. And when they finally come back to you, they'll give you utterly useless responses e.g. call someone else up as it's not their problem and/or fault or tell you that they can't do anything right now and ask you to call back in 5 working days time when they'll let you know what's wrong.

Then, they will still have the guts to say "So, is there anything else I can help you with today?". What else can they possibly help you with if they've just told you that they can't do anything with the problem that you've just called them up for??? Grrrrrrr.

Fine, you hang up and after 5 working days, you call up again, only to go through the whole process and they'll tell you to call back again in 5 working days.

And when you finally decided that it's enough, and that you're not going to go through any of these nonsense anymore, you call them to cancel your account and their service.

At this point, they finally get you through to someone in the UK and not some call centre in India where these people don't even know what's going on (let alone what's wrong) with your service on this side of the globe. Then they plead and say that they'll put things right and have your service in priority order.

But you know that it's a lie, because every time you call the call centre in India, they say the same thing before you hang up each time.

So, you persevere and with determination, you tell them it's fine, you're still cancelling your account. And at this point, they'll tell you: Oh, by the way... you can't just cancel your account. You've got to do this.. that... and a million other things before you can cancel it. When you've done that, please call us back and we'll cancel your account then.

WTF???

Since you've gone this far, you tell yourself that at least you can eventually get rid of them. Once you've done those million things, you call them back letting them know that YOU WANT TO CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT IMMEDIATELY, then they'll reply saying that it's fine for you to cancel your account but there'll be a charge for the set-up cost when they provided the service to you.

WHAT??? WHAT SERVICE ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?? THE ONLY REASON WHY I'M CANCELLING THE ACCOUNT IS THAT YOU'VE NOT PROVIDED THE SERVICE YOU PROMISED WHEN I SIGNED UP FOR YOUR PACKAGE, YOU IDIOT!!!!!

Well, according to them, there'll be a charge whether or not the service is running. And at this point, you're just too tired to argue with them and you've already spent so much time waiting for nothing and you know that they'll never get it sorted out even if you stay with them.

So, you pay for the cost and just console yourself that it's a bad dream and paying is the only way to wake up from it. The financial loss is nothing compared to the stress and frustration that they put you through. You might even end up with high blood pressure because of it.

ARRRGGGGGHHHHHH.

Lesson to be learnt: There's no such thing as free lunch in this world. Everything costs. From the start to the end. And there's no such thing as customer service.