Customer Service Hot Potato -3

( Customer Service Hot Potato -2 ) “I ask to speak to a supervisor”.

To the next young lady, Susan, who comes on line I explain again how, when I try to get from “4340 Bloor Street West”, to “Downsview Subway Station”, the Trip Planner fails me.

We run through the scenario again.

On her system she gets a drop-down box, and there is yet again the veiled suggestion that anyone with half an ounce of brain matter (NOT her words!) would know to type “Downsview Station” as a destination, rather than “Downsview Subway Station”.

I’m not so sure of that.

I remain unconvinced that tourists and travelers who land here would have an instinct for a very narrow definition of location.

I think too that there may even be people currently sitting at their computers overseas who are wandering around the site thinking of how to plan their trip for Toronto. People from Waco Texas, Lodz Poland, Adelaide Australia, and other places where they don’t speak English, and write it worse.

Susan seems anxious to get rid of me, and tries to brush me off with “I’ll file this with our web guys” (so why not have me email in my screen snapshots directly?).

But I am tenacious.

I ask how will I know the outcome.

Susan assures me that she will call me back to let me know, and as an afterthought, asks for my telephone number.

I think it significant that the TTC doesn’t ask for that up front, in case the line gets dropped, or so that on their “This call is being recorded” they have a responsible record of who called.

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