Corporate Hide and Seek

The lengths some businesses go to hide their phone numbers makes a girl feel like they don't want to hear from her.  What's with that?

A couple of months ago I bought some software that I thought I could use on my Blackberry. When I realized the software was incompatible, I tried to look up the customer service number on the software company's website.

The didn't have one. They didn't even use traditional email. Instead, I had to complete a questionnaire that was  then submitted to their customer service department. Instead of sending me an email to let me know how the situation was being resolved, I was required to revisit their site and check on the status of my issue.

It's the new Corporate Hide & Seek. Corporations Hide their phone numbers and consumers spend hours seeking them out.

Over at Slate.com, Timothy Noah is making it part of his  personal mission in life  to Seek out phone numbers that companies are trying to hide.  It was Noah who gleefully published the phone number for customer service at  Amazon.com.In case you think you might need it it's 1-800-201-7575. ( I just checked and it is a working number)

Noah has not been as successful in getting the customer service number for iTunes.While he did find a number, it ended up as a dead end with a recorded message saying:

"If you're calling about a question relating to an iTunes music store purchase or gift certificate, please visit us on the Web at www.apple.com/support/iTunes and select the iTunes music store customer service link.

(Click! Dial tone.)

A classic bait-and-switch. Obviously, Apple Computer didn't know who it was dealing with.

I next tried 1-800-275-2273, a number I located, oddly enough, by logging on to Apple's "How To Contact Us" Web page. But all I could find there was "technical support," not customer service.."

Noah eventually called Apple Corporate Headquarters seeking the customer service phone number. He didn't get it. The Apple Operator said she would connect him with corporate customer relations but she wouldn't give him a direct dial number claiming it was just a button on her switchboard."

If anyone has the number, would you send it to Noah. He'll make sure the rest of us gets it.

Then there is advanced hide and seek. This is when you have the phone number of a business but instead of being placed in queue to talk to a customer service Representative,  you get a recorded message that all customer service representatives are busy and you'll have to call back later.

What good is having a number if no one will answer the phone?

This is a favorite hide and seek strategy of  the airlines and companies that are disciples of Six Sigma  Airline reservations systems do it to drive consumers to their websites to make reservations. Six Sigma companies do it to make sure their numbers sing.

It's actually called blocking calls. Here's what happens. When you are a Six Sigma company you  are constantly evaluated on performance. So let's say one of your performance standards is that you can't keep a customer on hold for longer than 5 minutes. If you do, your bosses will be very very unhappy. There are standards to keep.

This works great most of the year when you have an average number of callers. But in certain professions there are peak times of the year when call volume increases dramatically.

Oops...if you don't want to incur extra costs to handle the extra call volume then customers may have to wait longer to reach a real person. That will result in downward curve on performance time, Ugly Pareto Charts , and  most important,you will be hindering the CEO from reporting to the board of directors that the customer service metrics is in excellent shape and the team is performing at near Six Sigma.

Oh the pressure. What to do?  Go for the loophole. In this particular case, the loophole is that the customer service folks aren't  measured on calls that can't get through.  So as long as you block 20-30% of your customers from actually reaching you, you will still have great numbers to share with the CEO.

Don't you just love the new math?