Which of these phrases often used by customer service representatives annoys you most when you hear it?

WooHoo! First vote... I had to go with "That's your purgative," as I would interpret that as another way of saying "Do what you want, we don't care anymore..."

"Our Terms and Conditions state..." is also fairly annoying.

Kevin

It depends if they're being honest and sincere or not.

I agree with RossMan. I think sometimes we on the support end, make mistakes we regret. As long as no harm was done, expressing regret should not be viewed just a phrase.

Cheers
Jeff

I voted for: "I am sorry for the inconvenience.", because when I am calling someone about a problem, I really dont care if they are sorry, I just want it fixed. You tell a customer you are sorry with a freebie or an account credit or a refund, as approprtiate and after the problem has been corrected, not by sitting there and saying how sorry you are.

What I like is when I get on the phone with the telco to gripe that our ISDN line is dead (again) and all they can do is say "We're sorry for the inconvenience." I have been known to come back and say "I don't give a damn if you're sorry, just fix the problem. Sorry dosent pay the bills or get the fax on demand system back online!"

Jeff: A sincere apology should be well thought out and lacking any overused phrases. "I am sorry for the inconvenience." is used way to damn much.

And a real apology is put into writing (typed on letterhead) and written in a personal manner (read: not a form letter) and hand-signed (not rubber stamped) by a department head, placed into a hand addressed envelope and sent to the customer in the mail.

THAT is how you say you're sorry. And if a customer isnt worth a peice of paper, an envelope and a stamp and some of your time, then you're not really sorry for the customer, you're sorry for yourself and the business you might lose.

I will second that. If the host really means it and is not just saying it then saying they're sorry for a problem is not annoying. I'd personally hate not to hear it.

I have been on both ends, so I couldn't make a decision on what is the most annoying because I have seen it from both ways.

Imma put a twist to this and say "the most shocking email I've gotten from a customer is..."

I am ***** owner of *****.org which, to my neverending regret, is hosted at verohost. I attempted to sign on today to manage my website only to find out that your service no longer recognizes that I have that site hosted there. Now, while it would fill me with eternal joy to be hosted at another service, I am still so cursed as to be afflicted with your hosting services. These things are as they are, and no amount of wishful thinking can affect them; we must fess up to our misfortunes and accept our lot in life. Therefore, wretched creature that I am, I ask you to please restore my website hosting contract or refund the money I paid you.

Their account went active yesterday and their domain doesn't even point to our servers.

Wow, talk about an interesting one there.

"I'm sorry there's just nothing I can do to help you"
"Well, it's what the system says"
"That's what the manual says"
"Hold ON, let me go to page xxx in the manual"

David K.

"I'm sorry there's just nothing I can do to help you"

RS famous reply. hehehe

SEP "Somebody Else's Problem."

Never heard any negative statements from the company I host with. ;)

The one that really drives me nuts is:

"Its unfortunate that you feel that way."
Or

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

I really abhor hearing "I am sorry for the inconvenience."

I mean, if you're sorry, then why not SHOW it by getting something done about it instead of telling me how sorry you are? That really ticks me off because a sorry won't solve the problem; it only aggravates it because dammit - I called/emailed because I want a solution, not an apology.

My 2 cents :)

'All our representatives are currently busy, please hold...'

Hearing that for 10 minutes running would seriously miff me off any day.

And here's one I got today from iracks.org:

'Hiya Tazzman, i have been trying to get hold of our technician, he has flown over to Amsterdam, the dedicated server will be assigned to him, so he should hopefully fix it soon '

I found that annoying in so many ways:


They promised to have the server up on Saturday. It would be Sunday at the very latest. Now it's Monday and I still have no idea what's going on after submitting a trouble ticket and posting in their support forums
The technician has flown over to Amsterdam? I know quite a few of their staff are in the UK and their DC is in Amsterdam, but this suggests they have nobody on site :(
The only reply I got to my ticket on Sunday took 4 hours to receive and that also stated they were trying to get hold of this technician. 12 hours later they're still looking for him, which suggests internal communication is a mess

I'll give them till midnight to get themselves sorted out, otherwise I think I'll be trying to get my money back. I wouldn't mind if they just truthfully said what was happening and what timeframe I'm looking at for the setup.

I just used this to illustrate I hate when hosting companies say something they haven't put any thought into first. They're making themselves look bad with answers like this.

Somehow I don't think "purgative" is the word you are looking for...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=purgative

How 'bout prerogative instead?

-Bob

In defence of support staff that use the phrase "sorry for any inconvenience" to me that is good manners and if they did not say that i am sure posts would be put up here complaining that "my hosting company never even apologised".
The first step has to always be an apology and recognistion of the problem, otherwise in the absence of good manners how long would one stay with them, yes it may be annoying but i dont see any other way of them of acknowleding the problem in a polite way.
To say "yes we know and we are working on it, good day" i think would be more annoying.

Originally posted by jablunka
In defence of support staff that use the phrase "sorry for any inconvenience" to me that is good manners and if they did not say that i am sure posts would be put up here complaining that "my hosting company never even apologised".

Yes, exactly. :)

Originally posted by jablunka
In defence of support staff that use the phrase "sorry for any inconvenience" to me that is good manners and if they did not say that i am sure posts would be put up here complaining that "my hosting company never even apologised".
The first step has to always be an apology and recognistion of the problem, otherwise in the absence of good manners how long would one stay with them, yes it may be annoying but i dont see any other way of them of acknowleding the problem in a polite way.
To say "yes we know and we are working on it, good day" i think would be more annoying.


I agree with that, although I'm more pointing fingers at the customer support officers who have told me - "Sorry for the inconvenience caused, we'll let you know if we can sort out the problem."

Having waited a full week for a callback and still no reply, their apology really does leave a lot to be desired. An apology is fine, but not when it's used as a decoy to throw customers off when the staff don't know what is going on. Apology + action would be much better to implement ;)

Hai,

Mr.Jamlunka you're absoluely correct,the first things to apology andrecognistion of the problem.We donot have any motto to annoy our customer some time few problems may arise its nature and everyone should accept that nothing is perfect 100% at all the time everything may have the up and down it's unavoidablesometimes.We are looking for business only through pleasing the customer not by irritating them.Everyone should understand the situations.

code_renegade you are correct, an apology is fine as long as it is not used as pretext at delay, an apology+action is the best apology, with that i agree.
For all its worth though an apology is always better than no apology, it is a start at the very least.

Surely,

An apology+action is the best apology,every company will have to follow that.Definetly not as a pretext at delay.

That only company which follows the above systems are going to be the besteverone to their customers.

So to become the bestever company the basic thing is apology+instant action.

It's good when everyone follows it.

Originally posted by kkimmel
And a real apology is put into writing (typed on letterhead) and written in a personal manner (read: not a form letter) and hand-signed (not rubber stamped) by a department head, placed into a hand addressed envelope and sent to the customer in the mail.

* Making mental note to add to corporate policy. *

I had already implemented the credit as a resolution to our SLA, but I had not thought so far as to snailmail it. Great idea. :)

I would agree with most. I find that the appology is usually simply a decoy to the fact that the person doesn't know what to do or doesn't have the time at the exact moment to deal with the situation.

I once read in an article, and have learned this from several locations, that keeping a customer informed with proper communication is important.

I think a good and honest reply would be: "Let's see what we can do to fix that for you. I'll email you back within an hour, [insert time here] at the latest, to let you know how the situation is going."

Richard

"I am sorry, but the system..."
That’s is a favorite of my local telecom company. It is not on the screen in front of them then it is not possible. Another really annoying one is ‘For your conveniences…’ when it is actually a negative thing.

Why not put all of them together?:

“I am sorry for the inconvenience, but that is your purgative. It is unfortunate that you feel that way, but the system…” :)

apologies are fine, but when your host can't get your site up for over 3 days and you ask for a cancellation and refund and then the host says (in the most professional voice possible) "I'm sorry, but unfortunately our ToS states..." ooooh, that really burns my bum!

Happy to say that none of them apply to me.
My host just takes care of things..........

The worst of my customer service experiences is when, without even listening to the problem, "Let me transfer you..." is said to me by at least 3 different people. Many companies - like telephone services I have used - seem to use the transferring tactic to just scoot your call around and waste valuable time. Because no one knows anything other than what's in the script they read. :P

The phone company reallys like to transfer me around when I have a complaint I need resolved - especially about billing ;) But, when I actually ask for a manager or supervisor, they *refuse* to transfer me and tell me they can handle the problem wihtout supervisor intervention - hmm.

I cant stand when a support person answers part of the question in the hopes you wont notice they didnt answer the whole question ...and ends in with hope that helps ...ticket closed

Originally posted by AceWeb
Why not put all of them together?:

“I am sorry for the inconvenience, but that is your purgative. It is unfortunate that you feel that way, but the system…” :)


Way funny! Actually, the most annoying thing is:

"Rocky: Hello Daniel, thank you for using MSN Interactive Online Support. My name is Rocky, I will be your Online Technical Support Engineer."

There names can be Billy Bob, Justin, Sarah...whatever...none of them know what they are doing. I swear that MSN hires homeless people to staff its customer service. And they dare to call themselves "Online Technical Support Engineers". The longer and more complicated the title, the less they actually do.

By the way, the most annoying line is "For your convenience..." This is customer support talk saying that you have just been screwed.

i so hate ISP's technical support, ALWAYS saying it's a problem on your end and never on their's.
i know they are trained to NEVER admit liability, but it really gets annoying how alot of them think you are dumb and alot of times, you know alot more about stuff than them.
my ISP is the worst for this, thats why when theres a problem i never ring them up anymore, they tend to "belittle you", which is really irratating.

kkimmel, very very very nice post. :)

Not from a host, but I have gotten an letter along these lines from a ISP :

Dear 555-1212 :

We regret to inform you that your account, created under our "unlimited dialup" access, has been disabled because of extra-ordinary use of resources that has been a burden on our system.

Although we cannot recover your email, or reinstate your previous login name, we invite you to sign up for our Business 100 plan.

Regards,
Accounts Dept.

This was from an ISP that had "unlimited" dialup plans for $19.99. What I did was dialup, and was on the second cd download of RedHat when I was kicked off.