8 x the biggest annoyances at almost every customer service
For months I have been trying to get the money for my plane tickets back from the travel agency eDreams. To be precise, I have been working on this for 24 months now; yes, that is indeed two years. My hands are already starting to tremble with anger as I type this. When you type the term ‘eDreams’ into Google, the two most frequently asked questions appear: ‘Is eDreams reliable?’ and: ‘How can I reach eDreams?’ I will answer that right away: eDreams is not trustworthy and impossible to reach.
But still, I keep holding on. Two years ago, I booked tickets to Mexico and paid extra for a ‘cancellation at any reason’ insurance. As the name beautifully suggests: with this insurance, I could cancel at any time, for any reason, and expect a full refund. But unfortunately, eDreams thought differently when I canceled my trip due to the pandemic.
For days I was on hold on the phone with a tune that drove me completely psychotic. Once connected, I spoke to someone who spoke incomprehensible English, and less than ten minutes later, there were vouchers in my mailbox. Fine, I thought, I will use these vouchers someday. But those vouchers turned out to be invalid when I wanted to use them a while later. Well, then you really have the wrong person, because I am not going to give up and now just want my money back. After all, I have a right to that.
Unfortunately, this means that I am once again calling eDreams weekly or, worse, chatting via the website. For months I have been hearing that they are busy with it, and the last time I was told that I should give them ‘just’ three months to resolve this. Well, those three months have passed, so it’s time for a nice phone call again. I am already mentally preparing for an outburst of anger and the next irritations.
1. That dreadful music
Let me start with the worst of all: that annoying music while you are waiting. I honestly don't understand why every company chooses exactly the same melody. Just implement a nice Spotify playlist, it's not that hard, is it? It seems much more pleasant to wait while listening to some songs by Billie Eilish or Elton John. But well, they probably deliberately choose that awful melody so that you hang up quickly.
2. The eternal transferring
It is rare that you immediately reach the right person on the line. Even if you dial the number you found under customer service, you still always call the wrong department and suddenly find yourself speaking to the warehouse. There is nothing else to do but listen to that annoying noise for minutes again, hoping to speak to the savior who can help you further. That last part is often not a given.
3. A gigantic menu of options
There are suddenly endless possibilities when you call customer service. Here too, I suspect companies of using this long menu as a trick to make people drop off early. After taking up about two minutes of your precious time, you often conclude that your problem isn't even mentioned. ‘Or press 9 for other issues’; in all cases, your problem naturally falls into a very rare ‘other issue’.
4. Always getting someone different on the line
I think employees on the phone just use pseudonyms because I have never spoken to someone twice in my life. And if you are smart enough to note the name of the last person you spoke to, you suddenly hear during your next call that he/she does not work there. So you are just being cheated; bizarre, right? The tiring part is that you have to explain your problem over and over again, which repeatedly causes that anger that comes from your toes.
5. Having to say out loud what your problem is
This is another invention that should help humanity, but in practice only leads to frustration because it doesn't work. ‘Describe your problem and end with a hashtag.’ ‘Sorry, we didn't understand you.’ ‘Describe your problem in three words and end with a hashtag.’ In three words? Sorry, but how can people describe their problem in three words? I certainly can't do that; I need at least three hundred words. You can't get me angrier.
6. Being referred to the site
I really don't understand this at all. You call customer service when you can't figure it out on the website, right? So why does the automated menu send you back to the site? Fortunately, you often still have the option to stay on the line if you want to speak to an employee, but sometimes companies dare to just hang up after they have determined for you that your problem can easily be solved online. Nah, I am already getting angry at the thought.
7. Being hung up on out of nowhere
It is unbelievable but true: companies really do this very often. I recently waited in line for one hour and 42 minutes with KLM – meanwhile preparing and eating a meal – only to be hung up on. I couldn't even speak to anyone and thus waited for nothing. It is quite difficult to control your aggression at such a moment, I can tell you. You just start all over again, really terrible. So unfair.
8. The automatic online chat robot
In the case of eDreams, there is ‘faster’ contact available online, although you do have to put in quite a bit of effort, as you are first helped by a chat robot. After filling out about thirty questions, the robot concludes that you would be better off speaking to an employee. Yes, finally. You then have to wait a long time for that too. What a hassle. I really don't like that automatic chat robot. It is just a way to calm us down for five minutes, those minutes when you still don't realize you are talking to a robot. Once that realization point has passed, it only causes more irritation. Long story short: just make sure you are reachable by phone, because robots unfortunately cannot (yet) solve our problems.
