More from the Annals of Customer Service

[dragonlady7]

I ask you this, in (as usual) genuine confusion:
If you owned a machine that had a component that was designed to be periodically replaced, and this component needed replacing, would it occur to you, before calling the manufacturer to order a new one, to look at your machine and determine whether it had any identifying characteristics, or a model number, or a serial number, or a date of manufacture?
Just in case the manufacturer maybe made more than one machine, or had a couple different models of them, or had changed the product line over the years since yours was bought?
I'm just wondering. When I need a new printer cartridge I'm always really careful to find out what kind of printer I have and what model number, so I don't get the wrong one. If I need a new battery for my camera, I'm going to find out what kind of camera I have and I'll probably look at the old battery to see what kind it is. Even my coffee maker-- I figured out what kind of filters it takes so when I go to the store I know I'll get the right kind.

Fourteen out of fifteen people who call me for a replacement filter for their air cleaner have no idea what kind it is. Usually they don't know when they bought it, and can't even place it to within a few years. (Five years? Ten? Fifteen? Two?) Much of the time they don't even know what it says on the front of the machine. I always wonder how they got our phone number, if they haven't so much as looked at the thing in years. (Some of them don't even know what color machine they have. Black? White? Beige? Don't remember? Can't help you.)

The fifteenth one has a machine made by one of our competitors and has no idea what it is either. (They read off random numbers from the label in confusion, until I catch the name "Honeywell" or something and clue them in.)

I don't laugh at them, at any of them, but I wonder. Maybe other people don't dislike making an ass of themselves on the phone with strangers as much as I do.

Comments

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

I shall report, to my embarrassment, that it would never occur to me to check if my large, very-rarely-replaced machines had codes of some kind on them. My printer, yes. But nothing else.
Maybe now I will...

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

But if you called and said, "I need a new thingy for my thingy," and they said, "What kind of thingy is it?" would you either be able to tell them, or realize quickly that you probably ought to be able to tell them?

Or would you be like... "The one you make..." and not understand me when I pointed out that this isn't quite enough information?

[kkatowll.livejournal.com]

ah, I would have been quite quickly embarrassed and would have gone and fetched your numbers for you and called you back. so perhaps I'm not quite as stupid as your people?

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

Um, guilty.

*hides*