Finneran: “Your Call Is Important To Us……….”

Finneran: “Your Call Is Important To Us……….”

How many times have you heard that pathetic bs recording?  “All of our operators are tied up at the moment. Your call is important to us. Our next available representative will be with you shortly."  There’s more horsepoop in those three little sentences than there is at all of Suffolk Downs.

Might corporate America consider the fact their customers are human beings, that they have lives of their own, with responsibilities, with kids, and schools and careers? Do the robotic recordings have to take over all aspects of our lives swallowing hours and hours and hours of our time until, finally, in tears, we talk to some overwhelmed “manager” who just started on the job yesterday?

I’m tempted to start a class-action lawsuit against the next set of idiots who so rigorously expect prompt monthly payments but are nowhere to be found when their crappy service craps out. You know whom I’m talking about…………..

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Shortly, very shortly, we’ll be subjected to Super Bowl ads which will tell us how great and sleek and sexy we are whenever we use our phone company, our internet provider, our cable company, our super-cool tablets, etc.

Well in advance of the onslaught of ads, here’s the one I would like to see---“Hi. We’re so-and-so. For years we’ve faked our way past your common sense and decency, taking advantage of your patience and kindness. We owe you an apology and a better way of doing business. From now on we’re going to hire well-spoken and well-educated Mid-Westerners. They will be courteous. They will be knowledgeable. They will be well-paid. And they will be authorized to give you rebates for those months when our service did not meet your expectations. We know that we created those expectations and that the failure is ours. Starting tomorrow you’ll have the service and experience you deserve.”

Wow!! Hands down, that would win the best Super Bowl ad competition. It would also likely surpass the game itself, as most of them become crashing bores. And half-time shows are always a parade of gross vulgarity requiring strong parental discretion, as the mighty dollar machine of the NFL chases every grubby buck available. That ad wins the national conversation, hands down.

Now I’m no Bernie Sanders fan. It’ not just me but probably half of Vermont’s taxpayers think that the Bern is crazy. He should not be allowed within 100 miles of any economic machinery or policy. Nor should most of Congress and the Senate. I trust in capitalism and the free market. That said, the private sector experience and “wisdom” of certain dolts in certain industries is downright dubious. There is negligible gain and zero loyalty to companies who abuse their customers and their employees. If your company’s continued success is based upon customer inertia rather than customer pleasure you’d better brace yourself. 

As the political world is bracing for a voter revolution next week, the business world should brace for a similar consumer backlash. Note the number of people who are “cutting cable”, ending their relationship where the “loyalty” has always been a verbal awning, covering a one-way screw-you street. There will be more of that walk-away behavior, as well there should be.

“Your call is important to us”. Yeah, right……………………………why I am I still on hold?

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.