If there’s one thing I find totally annoying, it’s picking up the phone to get first silence, then a recording that says “Hold for an important message from…”, then I am put on hold again while the system dials someone on the other end who asks me my name, account number and other information and makes it clear that my call is bothering them. Wait a minute–didn’t your automated system just call me?

I’ve been getting calls from one of these systems for about a week now, regarding a supposed unpaid balance on an account I closed over a month ago. First I’d just hang up when I got the recording, but they started coming more and more frequently, like contractions, and they were getting more and more annoying too.

Today I actually called the customer service dept. of this company and got a rep who very rudely told me that I had a balance to pay, and wasn’t I aware that I had to give 30 days notice to cancel my contract so that I was responsible for another month’s bill. Her mission was obviously to be curt, cold and get me off the phone as quickly as possible. I asked to speak to her supervisor, who started to give me the same spiel until I told her that not only was I not told about any additional fees to terminate my service, but that I had never signed a contract with this company, therefore I could not be held responsible for the terms of such non-existent contract.

She put me on hold and when she came back it was with a whole different attitude. She had taken time to read the notes on the account, saw that the CSR a month ago had noted that the account should be credited and no further payments were due, and she would take care of it. Did I have anything else she could help me with?

Well, yes, as a matter of fact. I’d like to know who made the decision to implement that horrid autodialing system they’re using. Did they really think harassing people with ongoing automated phone calls was going to lead to customer satisfaction and retention? Actually, some people may pay their bills just to make the phone calls stop–it’s a possibility.) Oh, and by the way, wasn’t it possible that they would make more progress with their customers by starting from the premise that the customer on the other end of the phone isn’t always wrong and maybe is someone who should be valued and treated that way?

That’s what I would have liked to say, but I don’t believe it would have done any good. So I thanked her for her help and hung up.

But I’m thinking of setting up an automated dialing system to call the executives of companies like this and leave a message:

Please hold for an important message from one of your valuable customers. If you don’t treat us more appropriately, we are going to not only cancel our service and go somewhere else, but we will tell everyone else we know. In fact, some of us may even blog about it on the internet. Oh, and have a nice day.