Date: May 27, 1999
To: Office of the Vice-President, Bell Canada
From: Barry Base
Dear Sir/Madam:
If you’ve ever wondered who the moron (I mean the obvious moron) in your new TV campaign is, I believe I have traced him to your service department.
His name is ‘Gus’, and he’s the one I had repeated conversations with (after many minutes on hold to preface each occasion), over a period of three-quarters of an hour between 10 and 11 o’clock last night.
This was about 12 hours after we reported the voicemail function on my business line had vanished, and been promised a call from a service technician ‘within 20 minutes’ to report on the problem.
By the time ‘Gus’ got involved, 12 hours later, it was ourselves who should have called Bell back within 20 minutes. (I’ve been pondering what additional information I might have shared with them after 20 minutes had elapsed.) But since we had not rung back, it was obviously our problem that my clients had not been able to reach my voicemail all day, not his.
‘Gus’ and his supervisor chatted for a while at one point, and had me do several little exercises like call star 90, hang up, and then dial 2100-924. When that had no effect, I rang back, and after a few minutes on hold, had the misfortune to get you-know-who back on the line. This time ‘Gus’ and his supervisor had me ring star 92 and hang up, et cetera, again with zero effect.
Because ‘Gus’ was by now accusing me of becoming ‘abusive’, I was glad to contact his accomplice ‘Shawn’ after my next session on hold. She was no help either, but went so far as to suggest that ‘Gus’ was perhaps misguided in his suggestions to me that I attempt to rectify my situation by dialing star 90 or star 92.
‘Shawn’ had a better idea. She would do a report on my missing voicemail to a service technician, and did not seem to appreciate my comment that such a report was supposed to have been made 13 hours ago.
But then something happened!
Due to the fact that after each futile call to Bell Service, I had to call my business phone from another phone to ascertain that indeed my voicemail had not been restored, I discovered that instead of my voicemail, after three rings my business line now automatically connected all callers to the Bell Service Department!
As you might imagine, I’d had rather enough of Bell ‘Service’ by that time at night, so I decided to pour myself a small port, turn on CNN, and postpone our next call for reverification of my voicemail service until this morning.
Refreshed after a night’s sleep, we contacted ‘Pamela’ at Bell Service by calling our own business line. She had no record whatsoever of our previous chats, and was in fact so uninterested in the details of our dilemma that, in spite of being told she was not listening, and should now LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY, she had to be told three times that now, when someone dialed my business line, they were automatically connected to Bell Telephone service after three rings. I rather suspect she still does not believe us yet.
‘Pamela’ suggested she would refer our problem to a service technician but, unlike her counterpart of 24 hours ago, was most dubious about the possibility of one calling us back with a report any time soon.
As I sit by my telephone, I wonder why I allowed a Bell telemarketer to hector me into accepting a 1-877 line option for my business phone (which I’m not really interested in), and which, curiously, was due to be connected on exactly the same day (May 25) that I lost my voicemail service.
‘Gus’ strongly disagrees with this idea, which was planted in our minds by the (like yourself, anonymous) employee of Bell, to whom we spoke to report my missing voicemail in the first place, but I was in no position to argue technical cause-and-effect with him, so I demurred.
Maybe you know better.
I just wanted to share all this with you, as one business person to another, in case you’re wondering why Bell customers seek alternative telephone services in spite of your most rigorous marketing and advertising efforts.
If you decide to have anyone ring me as a result of this missive, tell them to make sure I’m here, because after three rings they’ll get connected automatically to some moron in the Bell Service Department.
Very sincerely,
Barry Base
President
* * *
Subsequent to my faxing this thing, I received not one but two conciliatory voicemail messages from intelligent-sounding people with real names in the Office of the Vice-President at Bell. One had the good humour to say she was glad to get my restored voicemail, and not to find herself talking to someone in the Bell Service Department.
Barry Base creates advertising campaigns for a living. He creates this column for fun, and to test the unproven theory that clients who find the latter amusing may also find the former to their liking. Barry can be reached at (416) 924-5533, or faxed at (416) 960-5255, at the Toronto office of Barry Base & Partners.
