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Cory Doctorow
@pluralistic@mamot.fr  ·  activity timestamp 16 hours ago

It's worse than that, though. Call centers cheap out on long distance service, trading off call quality and reliability to save a few pennies. The fact that you can't hear the person on the other end of the line clearly, and that your call is randomly disconnected, sending you to the back of the hold queue? That's a feature, not a bug.

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Cory Doctorow
@pluralistic@mamot.fr replied  ·  activity timestamp 16 hours ago

In a recent article for *The Atlantic* about his year-long quest to get Ford to honor its warranty on his brand-new car, Chris Colin describes the suite of tactics that companies engage in to exhaust your patience so that you just go away and stop trying to get your refund, warranty exchange or credit, branding them "sludge":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/customer-service-sludge/683340/

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Nick
@filifa@social.dairydemon.net replied  ·  activity timestamp 5 hours ago

@pluralistic that article gets wild once they start talking to Tenumah. Spot the difference between customer service tactics and mob tactics:

“No one says, ‘Let’s do bad service,’” Tenumah told me. “Instead they talk about things like credit percentages”—the number of refunds, rebates, or payouts extended to customers. “My boss would say, ‘We spent a million dollars in credits last month. That needs to come down to 750.’ That number becomes an edict, makes its way down to the agents answering the phones. You just start thinking about what levers you have.”

“Does anyone tell them to pull those levers?” I asked.

“The brilliance of the system is that they don’t have to say it out loud,” Tenumah said. “It’s built into the incentive structure.”
“No one says, ‘Let’s do bad service,’” Tenumah told me. “Instead they talk about things like credit percentages”—the number of refunds, rebates, or payouts extended to customers. “My boss would say, ‘We spent a million dollars in credits last month. That needs to come down to 750.’ That number becomes an edict, makes its way down to the agents answering the phones. You just start thinking about what levers you have.” “Does anyone tell them to pull those levers?” I asked. “The brilliance of the system is that they don’t have to say it out loud,” Tenumah said. “It’s built into the incentive structure.”
“No one says, ‘Let’s do bad service,’” Tenumah told me. “Instead they talk about things like credit percentages”—the number of refunds, rebates, or payouts extended to customers. “My boss would say, ‘We spent a million dollars in credits last month. That needs to come down to 750.’ That number becomes an edict, makes its way down to the agents answering the phones. You just start thinking about what levers you have.” “Does anyone tell them to pull those levers?” I asked. “The brilliance of the system is that they don’t have to say it out loud,” Tenumah said. “It’s built into the incentive structure.”
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Nick
@filifa@social.dairydemon.net replied  ·  activity timestamp 5 hours ago

@pluralistic also has a heaping dose of SciFi dystopia

Helpfulness aside, I mentioned that I frequently felt like I was talking with someone alarmingly indifferent to my plight.

“That’s called good training,” Tenumah said. “What you’re hearing is a human successfully smoothed into a corporate algorithm, conditioned to prioritize policy over people. If you leave humans in their natural state, they start to care about people and listen to nuance, and are less likely to follow the policy.”
Helpfulness aside, I mentioned that I frequently felt like I was talking with someone alarmingly indifferent to my plight. “That’s called good training,” Tenumah said. “What you’re hearing is a human successfully smoothed into a corporate algorithm, conditioned to prioritize policy over people. If you leave humans in their natural state, they start to care about people and listen to nuance, and are less likely to follow the policy.”
Helpfulness aside, I mentioned that I frequently felt like I was talking with someone alarmingly indifferent to my plight. “That’s called good training,” Tenumah said. “What you’re hearing is a human successfully smoothed into a corporate algorithm, conditioned to prioritize policy over people. If you leave humans in their natural state, they start to care about people and listen to nuance, and are less likely to follow the policy.”
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Cory Doctorow
@pluralistic@mamot.fr replied  ·  activity timestamp 16 hours ago

In a recent article for *The Atlantic* about his year-long quest to get Toyota to honor its warranty on his brand-new car, Chris Colin describes the suite of tactics that companies engage in to exhaust your patience so that you just go away and stop trying to get your refund, warranty exchange or credit, branding them "sludge":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/06/customer-service-sludge/683340/

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