The Coup of the "Customer Service" paradigm

Simply put: The separation of you from the person that makes the decisions.

You call the customer service number. Answered by a computer menu system or person, either way, when you finally get to a human, it's a "Customer Service Representative".

What does this mean?

From what I've been able to establish, it's a paid hourly employee (whether out-sourced or not) that is given a preset list of answers to your questions/concerns/disputes.

These "representatives" generally are not in the position to resolve disputes or affect change, they are middle-men put as a front between you and the person that will ultimately make the decision about said question/concern/dispute.

What firstly comes to mind are banks & banking institutions. Probably the most notorious of this strategy. When have you ever got the person that will make the decision on the phone with a credit card? Asking to talk to a 'supervisor' really only changes the face, but the position is no different.

Other examples of this? Insurance company, telephone company, internet service provider. I don't have cable, but from what I hear, they're on the list too. I'm sure you can think of your own examples.

To have a basis of comparison I had to sit and think of an example of a service call I've made that I actually 'do' speak directly with a person that makes the decisions. What I came up with was airlines. Many times have I traveled and run into some hitch in the plan. Late plane, no plane, change of flight, lost ID, lost bag, etc... I usually am speaking with the person that is affecting change.

Keep in mind I'm speaking in general here. I'm sure there are examples to support or negate my first sentence, but overall I would say it's a good average.

That being the case I'd say the process is fairly unjust. People are separated from the decision makers while the service front is veiled in an atmosphere of policy.

Having been a person that is still recovering from a particularly unfortunate scenario with Chase Bank and a visa card, I've come to experience just how well the customer service front works.

Those are my thoughts of the moment on it...