Over the last few days, I spent hours – not minutes, mind you, but hours – on the phone with Sprint trying to update rate plans and upgrade my phone equipment. After too many years eschewing the “latest and greatest” gadgets, I’ve decided I need a smart phone.
Sprint has joined countless other firms in exercising their right to postamble a phone call. One particularly needy customer service agent actually engaged me as follows:
Me: “Okay, that’s great. I’ll proceed accordingly.” (Here is where I expected a thank you and a goodbye, but nooooo…)
Sprint: “Have I resolved your situation to your satisfaction?”
Me: “Yes, thank you. Good bye.”
Sprint: “Just to let you know, Mr. Kurt, Sprint values you as a customer. We understand you have a choice when selecting your cellular carrier, and we thank you for choosing Sprint.”
Me: “No problem. Thanks.”
Sprint: “For future refernce, Mr. Kurt, always remember you can hit *2 to check your account balance, *3 to make a payment, and *4 to check your minutes used.”
Me: “Yes, I know. Your company has told me that at least a dozen times in the last two days. Thank you.”
Sprint: “Very good. Thank you Mr. Kurt. And don’t forget, you can always go to sprint-dot-com to handle your account.”
Me: (Audible sigh.) “I’m aware of that. But in this case, I needed to talk to a live operator.”
Sprint: “No problem. Would you like to take a moment to complete a short customer survey? This will only take three to five mintues.”
Me: (Silence, because I hit the mute button, and let loose with a torrent of expletives that would send a drunken sailor to the nearest church for confession and flogging. Then, I unmuted the phone and…) “No. Thank you. Goodbye.”
Sprint: “Very good. Have I resolved your problem to your satisfaction?”
And thenI simply hung up the phone. I don’t like hanging up on people, but I had no choice.
Who at Sprint would dream up such annoyances? My guess it’s a former Saturday Night Live staff writer, one of their many people who are habitually unable to find a decent ending to their skits.
However, for all their bother, the postamble is nothing compared to the following preamble:
“Before we begin, Mr. Kurt, I need to advise you that this is an attempt to collect a debt. Any information obtained will be used for that purpose.” Funny how I was able to recall that verbatim. Audible sigh….
Tags: annoyance, confession, drunken, expletive, postamble, preamble, sailor, sigh, snl, sprint
