Note from Art: this is a rave. I was on the receiving end of one too many miserable support experiences recently, and this is my, “I’m Madder than Hell…” response.  Back soon with my regularly scheduled and much milder content on management and leadership.

Executive One: The numbers are undeniable. The money we’ll save by outsourcing the call center to (insert country where English is neither a primary or secondary language) will add a full percentage point to our earnings this year.  The savings come from paying below poverty-level wages and instead of a building, we’re giving the people Burner Phones and letting them work wherever they want.

Executive Two: Has anyone thought about the customers?

Executive Three: Screw the customers. If they don’t like the service, they can switch to one of our competitors.  And we all know that our competitors do the same thing.  We’re just keeping up.  I fully support this initiative.

Executive Two: Won’t this adversely impact our image?

Executive One: We’ve done extensive polling, and we project that our customer satisfaction ratings will move slightly from their current “Dissatisfied” to “Genuinely Pissed Off.”  We can live with that.  This keeps us well ahead of our two competitors who have ratings of “Hate Beyond Comprehension.” Heck, we might even pick up some customers if we market this right.

CEO: Do the people in this call center speak English?

Executive One: Yes, a bit. We’re exposing them to one new Dr. Seuss book every month. You should hear them read “Green Eggs and Ham.”  And remember, our manuals are written in a combination of Kanji, Sanskrit and Pig Latin, so the customers will feel relieved to connect with someone who they can partially understand.

Executive Three: My favorite is Yertle the Turtle. Bet they’ll love that one.

Executive One’s Lackey: Don’t forget, we’ve created a fail-safe system to reduce call volume. The phone menu is a lot like playing “Angry Birds” blindfolded, and we suspect that 40% of callers will never reach the level where they connect to a real person.

Executive One: That’s right, Lackey. Thanks for reminding us. This is actually part of our corporate “Educate America” program, where we encourage more people to think for themselves and solve their own problems. And if someone is really stumped on an issue they can always use Twitter to get help.

CEO: Brilliant…I’ve been looking for a social media strategy and you just nailed it.

CEO: One last question, who do I call if I have a problem with one of our products?

Executive One: No worries, we’ve got our best local engineers available on call to take questions from the executive group.

CEO: Brilliant, how fast can we get this started.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

To all of the Executive One’s and CEO’s who perpetrate these miserable systems and services on customers, in my most heartfelt tone, you are complete asses.

If Dante were writing his Diving Comedy today, there would be a special level of hell reserved just for you. I suspect it would involve a miserable support call where you never get the answer, lasting for what seems like eternity. After all, that’s what you do to us.

Get a clue. Respect your customers. Put the support help in the market you are doing business in…and if that happens to be here in America, hire, train and support some Americans.  I for one am tired of the crap you pass off for support.

As for you geniuses who have decided that live support is only at the end of an instant message, your level in hell is currently under construction.