‘Your call is important to us’ and other porkies put the BS in business

A superannuation consultant, medical administrator, and barista walk into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, right? If only! For me, they all have something in common, and it’s not to entertain me whilst I’m drinking coffee in good health and financial security.

This unfortunate tale connects these vastly different vocations with what I can only describe “assertive erroneousness”, a condition by which a provider of customer service, a supposed expert in their field, confidently and decisively provides their customer with information which is total bollocks.

I’m not here to tackle the much-maligned call centre in regard to the time it takes to get through – “you are number 38 in our queue” – or the location of said centre. I am here today, dear reader, to talk about the answers, the replies, the resolutions to the queries I have sat so patiently waiting to be answered. Scratch that! I’m usually on hands-free and have been known to do an entire load of washing whilst waiting to speak to the “next available operator”.

I’ll start with the more first-world problems I’ve experienced when I enquired separately about coffee beans and movie tickets. Oh, I can sense what you are thinking! Don’t think my mind didn’t go straight to a time when our choice was a jar of instant in the kitchen cupboard. But, in a world of choice – sometimes spoilt for it – I decided to start drinking decaf and did some research before ringing a local coffee shop, keen to calculate the carbon miles.

When the barista confidently told me their beans were sourced and decaffeinated in New Guinea, I could not help but point out that there are only a few countries in the world that decaffeinate beans and New Guinea is not one of them. Those beans – although from New Guinea – would have to take a trip to South America or Canada to be decaffeinated before they would be returned to Australia for him to sell. Would he like to try “Option B”, or phone a friend?

Another who-the-hell-cares encounter came on a call to a cinema where, due to a hiccup with their website, I needed to purchase tickets over the phone. It was explained with the utmost authority that this wasn’t possible, and I would need to come into their ticket office. I would have accepted that had I not experienced the exact same problem a week before where a different staff member happily transacted my tickets – over the phone!

Hmm, what are we talking here? I have adrenal fatigue from too much caffeine and I got the crap seats at the movies. No senate inquiry necessary, I grant you. The stakes were higher, however, when my phone calls were more in the life and death category of “assertive erroneousness”.

Like the medical administrator who tried to tell me that NSW legislation was the reason I’d have to start again with another of their specialists because the guy I saw just once had moved overseas. That will be another $700 and redoing of all the tests, thank you. Bollocks!