Expect this everywhere. I called American recently (whose checkin website didn't even work, so why would I think anything more advanced would) and got ten minutes of automated nagging to go use their website or app or whatever. Companies hate the idea of helping their customers anymore, they want takers who will jump through whatever hoops and incompetence they have without complaining. And they know people have no choice because they're all doing it.

Notice the coincidence of the end of proper customer service with the "abusive behavior will not be tolerated" signs. This is their way of saying, "we know we treat you like shit, but if you dare complain we'll consider it abuse". Personally I hope we can collectively push back on how horrible companies have become, but I expect it will only get worse, and worse still these actions will have all kinds of support from ordinary "useful idiots" who have some ideological reason why shitty customer service is more egalitarian or something

I have been dealing with my bank recently. They have a hard limit on online transactions. Anything below the limit must be done online, anything above must be done by a branch worker. They really don't want to deal with transactions below the limit, so even if you show up in branch to do the below-limit transaction, they'll just walk you through the web interface at a public computer in the branch.

I had to make a couple of above-limit transactions, which meant going into the branch. While there, I left behind some documents that I had not intended to. So I wanted to phone the branch to confirm they had them before returning to pick them up. Upon noticing, I rang their branch phone number printed on my reciept. It redirected me to their central support phone system, despite being a local number. The option to speak to a person was behind a four deep phone tree, with each step playing a minute long message asking me if I knew the types of transactions their website could handle before listing out the tree options.

This may be a shocker but the banks in Singapore are worse.

You can do routine things online but anything signed needs to be in person.

They have a number you can text to get to a queue number, but it’s not unusual for all queue numbers to be used up 20 min after the bank opens.

Doing anything in person is a half day experience of sitting for a couple hours at the bank. And they are all like this.

I yearned for the days of Citibank where I could walk in anytime and the worst was a 30 min wait in line while 4 customers were helped by one teller.

Sounds like you need to switch to a credit union ASAP

Big banks dont deserve your money, they are awful institutions.

I really hope this leads to a skyrocketing number of credit card charge backs.

We need a consumer protection law saying that non-responsive monopoly vendors cannot deny future business after successful charge backs. I'm not sure how to structure that to avoid abuse, though.

They’re testing what the market will bear.

My prediction is it will get sick of picking up more of the effort for less of reward while growing food and making stuff for an unelected and unaccountable rich who demand through threat of violence we cart around in our heads deference to their grand story, until the public gets sick of it.

Scalia suggested the public revolt if they didn’t like the US system.

Not that I think that’s what should happen but only 14% of adults have more than a masters in the US while the public believes it’s closer to 40%. My point is I’m not so sure the majority will be so clever when selecting from their options.

Elites have cobbled together a new cognitive Ponzi scheme; collecting agency/time investment from the public and not paying out in time for self. Church, god kings; all pretty much the same routine for the masse; deference in the form of constant servitude and constraints on benefits.

Some companies have already brought this in already but via stealthier means.

All those 30min, 1h and 1hr30+ waits times are designed as a deterrent to people phoning up.

I work for a call centre observability startup (operata.com) and my take is — call centres aren’t going away anytime soon.

In fact Zoom, Microsoft, and Salesforce have all recently announced they are entering the Call Center as a Service space (AWS already have their own call centre PaaS).

In the consumer space we’re seeing further consolidation and homogenisation of products/services. It’s now so easy for me to churn my energy retailer, my insurance broker, my phone provider, etc.

Outside of price, the only other competitive differentiator will in-part be the customer experience.

Websites, chat and BOTs are great for standard workflows. For reasonably complex customer queries (either sales or support) nothing yet beats voice or video with a human.

How do visually impaired people now get a hold of Frontier without having to rely on intermediary accessibility technologies like screen readers?

I’d assume they just don’t. Frontier has run the numbers and decided that their shareholders will get a higher return if they are shitty to their customers.

Pretty sure that violates the ADA law.

I assume they have some number available for the hearing and visually impaired.

Oddly, I ran into this yesterday. I wanted to cancel a flight and called only to be sent a text message with a link to the online chat.

I started chatting with the agent but the response times were super flow. After about an hour, I had to sign off. My interpretation of their cancellation policy was wrong and had I understood it better I would have changed my flight instead.

I like Frontier for a budget airline but am not sure I will spend $1k+ for tickets for the family without having access to even mediocre customer service.

I am flying JetBlue for the first time soon. For some unknown reason, I can’t manage my flight or even view it on the website. Googling around makes it seem like the error goes back years and JetBlue is lethargic about fixing it. Anyways, their iMessage support is actually really nice. I hate in-browser chat sessions and how they tie you to your computer or tab the entirety of the interaction and appreciate that chatting with companies via iMessage at least lets me switch to a mobile device

Sadly, big tech has already determined that the market will bear this — for all intents and purposes, companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google haven't had consumer phone support for years. I'm honestly surprised it's taken so long for other companies to follow suit. Contact centers which survive will need to become profit centers, rather than cost centers.

Perhaps they’re the outlier, but Apple customer service is great. I’m only ever a few minutes away from talking to a sales or support person.

They make you go through some hoops hoping you'll self service, but you can reach Amazon by phone.

Also ebay. But I've never seen a way to contact Google or Facebook.

I think the difference is you spend cash with Amazon and eBay.

> They make you go through some hoops hoping you'll self service, but you can reach Amazon by phone.

By "for all intents and purposes", I mean that Amazon does its best to actively bury the phone number for Amazon.com issues using the official channel¹. The solution is to use pissedconsumer.com² or similar sites to get the secret code, and once you do the phone service you'll receive is bottom-of-the-barrel even if you're a Prime customer.

¹ https://www.amazon.com/hz/contact-us/foresight/hubgateway ² https://amazon.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html

America, racing to the bottom headfirst.

You clearly don’t have experience with airlines in other countries!