[t_luke]

The conclusion of Davies' second extract — about e.g. being bumped off a flight — is recognisable but the conclusions are actually wrong. The situation in these cases is actually more subtle. The person you're speaking to does normally have some capacity to escalate in exceptional cases. But they can't do it as a matter of course, and have to maintain publicly that it's actually impossible.

The people who get what they want in these situations are the ones who are prepared to behave sufficiently unreasonably. This is a second order consequence of 'unaccountability' that Davies misses. For the customer, or object of the system, it incentivises people to behave as unpleasantly as possible — because it's often the only way to trigger the exception / escalation / special case, and get what you want.

[macNchz]

Having been on both sides of this—working behind a counter and answering phones at various jobs long ago, and being someone who often surprises family and friends with my ability to extract good outcomes from customer service—I think it’s somewhat of a misconception that being as unpleasant as possible is actually effective at getting results.

I fully understand that the godawful CS mazes many companies set up wind up pushing people in that direction, and that it feels like the only option, but I believe quite strongly that being patient and polite but persistent winds up being much more effective than being unpleasant.

As a small case in point: I worked summers in a tiny ice cream shop, most of the time solo. The shop had a small bathroom for employees only—it was through a food prep area where customers were not allowed by health code. I had some leeway to let people back there as it was pretty low-risk, and I would in the evenings when no other businesses were open, or if a little kid was having an emergency. People who were unpleasant from the get-go when placing their order, however, were simply told we had no bathroom at all. People who started shouting when I told them I wasn’t supposed to let people back there (not uncommon!) and suggested a nearby business were never granted exceptions.

[amluto]

As an exception to the exception, a lot of automated telephone systems have a tree of options, and they try really hard to avoid giving you a real person, and none of the options are helpful. But some of them are programmed to detect swearing and direct users to a representative.

So a valid strategy is to swear at the automated system and then be polite to the real human that you get.

[Ocha]

I was patient and calm for 30 minutes trying to get same day flight after Turkish Airlines bumped me off my connecting flight and told me to wait 24h in airport for next one. They kept giving me different excuses why they cannot put me in airport hotel, why they can’t put me on a different airline that had flights and only gave me $12 food voucher. After yelling at them for 5 min I was booked on KLM flight departing in 2 hours.

You can have assholes on both sides and set up is already adversarial from the get-go

[steveBK123]

Yes unfortunately I've observed this in some support systems. The best way is to thread the needle between being extremely personally polite to the other human on the line, but going through the required machinations on their runbook to trigger an escalation.

That is - you don't really have to behave unpleasant (raise voice, swear, be impolite, threaten) but you should just refuse to get off the line, demand escalation, and importantly emphasize with their predicament in needing to escalate you. Possibly including phrasing like "what do we need to do to resolve this issue".

I had a cellphone provider send me a $3000 bill because someone apparently was able to open 5 lines & new devices in my name/address. I went through the first few steps of their runbook including going to police department, getting report filed, and providing them the report number. They then tried to demand further work from me and I escalated.

At that point I turned it around - what evidence do you have that I opened this line. Show me the store security footage of me buying the phones, show me the scan of my drivers license, show me my social security number? Tim, are you saying I can just go to the store with your name & address and open 5 lines in your name? Being able to point out the asymmetry of evidence, unreasonableness of their demands, and putting the support staff in my shoes.. they relented and cleared the case.

[ethbr1]

> Possibly including phrasing like "what do we need to do to resolve this issue".

"We" phrasing is an empathy hack for CS, because it lets you continue to be nice to the person you're talking to AND be persistent about "our" issue being solved.

It's kind of like judo, especially when faced with an apathetic, resistant, or adversarial rep: "This isn't just my problem. This is our problem. So how can we fix it?"

PS: In the same way that my favorite cancellation reason turns the situation on its head. Don't play the game they've rigged up for you to lose. "Why are you cancelling?" -> "Personal reasons." There's literally no counter-response.

[liamwire]

Situations like this make me incredibly grateful for the various industry ombudsmen we have in Australia. Often it’s only a case of submitting the initial complaint to the provider, having it be acknowledged, and advising them that they’ve not resolved the problem. It’s not uncommon for the mere mention of the name of the ombudsman’s office to get the problem magically escalated and resolved by an on-shore team very quickly.

[throwaway7783]

Doordash tier 1 is so extreme that they terminate conversations unilaterally. One of the worst trashy customer services I've ever seen. Then you yell in the email and you get the right response from a "manager". Waste of everyone's time

[selfselfgo]

I ask for something, when they say they can’t do that. I say the magic words “Maybe your manager can do it?” You just don’t accept the possibility of your request not being fulfilled, say they are contractually obliged to do, even if you’re not sure, if all else fails reverse the charges on your card. Threatening small claims court works well. I now do that on the on the second email, do I look like a fool? Yes. Do I have a lot of time to investigate your platform's org structure and capabilities when I have dozens of companies like this I deal with daily? No.

[atoav]

As someone who worked in support as a youngling:

If you behave unpleasant enough I'll go out of my way to make sure your behavior does not pay off. I will note your abrasive behavior in the ticket or might even mark your mail as spam. On telephone our line will suddenly experience technical difficulties. And throughout I will remain as friendly and patient as ever.

I will warn superiors about you, so once you escalate they already have a colorful 3D image of your wonderful personality in mind. Whether that 100% is in your favor, you can guess.

Play asshole games? Win asshole prices.

Behave like a decent person with empathy instead, press the right buttons and I might even skip some of the company rules for you. Many people in support do not give a single damn if they lose their job over you and you might just be worth it.

These are not sfter-the-fact shower thoughts, these are actually lived experiences from the trenches and I know how other people in those roles think.

Persistence pays off, being an asshole not so much

[hkon]

If you are helping, why would they be assholes?

[rfrey]

I was once on the phone with a cell phone company customer support rep who was clearly as dis-empowered as it's possible for a worker to be. He was obviously forbidden to hang up on me, so I used my normal tactic of just refusing to give up - I was friendly enough but refused to end the call. He was refusing to escalate my call, but couldn't help me himself.

20 or 25 minutes in I realized that wasn't going to work, so I asked if they had a protocol to escalate in an abusive situation. He said "ummm....". I said, "hey, you're doing a great job, and I hope the rest of your day goes better, and I hope you know you're not a motherfucker, you motherfucker."

I think (hope?) he stifled a laugh and said "I'm afraid I'll have to escalate this call to my manager, sir."

[buran77]

> He was obviously forbidden to hang up on me

Plenty of big companies found a workaround. The "forever on hold" routine where they don't hang up, you will eventually. This works perfectly for toll free numbers (so you can't claim you had to pay for the call) and provides just the right amount of plausible deniability (took longer than expected to find an answer, it was an accident, etc.).

I have my suspicions that in some cases this also prevents the survey going out to the customer. All the more reason to abuse it.

[dividuum]

> [..] it incentivises people to behave as unpleasantly as possible — because it's often the only way to trigger the exception [..]

Thus creating an asshole filter: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1209794.html

[pixl97]

FTA

>An asshole filter happens when you publicly promulgate a straitened contact boundary and then don't enforce it; or worse, reward the people who transgress it.

A lot of people do this unwittingly, so it's a good article to read.

The converse is to this is many companies demand it. If you're not an asshole, you're simply going to get ignored.

[etruong42]

I have seen this as well, watching customer support issues get escalated to engineering. Many times, engineering tries to blow off the issue. It was fascinating to me how quickly an issue got escalated to numerous engineering managers, directors, leads, etc when the customer threaten to cancel their contract.

I was even more blown away when the whole thing becomes old, forgotten news the moment the customer stopped threatening to cancel the contract, even if the underlying problem remains.

This really reinforces the lesson that the main power structures of the world does not listen to "reason" - it only responds to incentives, whether they're airlines or ginormous tech companies.

Hacker News has also repeatedly noticed the same thing whenever a big tech customer issue hits the top of Hacker News, and the comments point out that the only way that customer got help was when it got enough attention to cause a reputation risk to the big tech company.

[antithesizer]

This has become the norm in customer service. That is why a taboo has been invoked by companies against being a "Karen". That's how they get you. The ugliest thing you can be today is a customer who knows they're right and won't roll over.