Customer service either leaves a bad taste in the mouth of consumers or helps them through one of their lousiest days. Unfortunately, more than half of consumers can empathize with the first one since, let’s face it, customer service usually sucks. It’s hard to pinpoint why that is so since the hiring percentage for customer service specialists or representatives are always high. That means there is no shortage of customer service reps to handle consumer concerns. This fact leads to the million dollar question – why are consumers still feel frustrated over the general concept of “customer service”?

There could be a variety of reasons, and below are some of these:

• Long hold time

As much as possible, customer service representatives are trained to assist customers with their concerns in less than one minute, two at the most. That’s to avoid queuing or having a long line of customers waiting for their chance to speak to a rep. Nevertheless, some reps still put customers on hold when they need to verify information. This can be frustrating because the reps are wasting a precious commodity – the customers’ time.

• IVR nightmare

The Interactive Voice Response (IVR) unit is a nightmare for many consumers. Imagine dialing the customer service hotline only to be answered by a robotic voice that prompts you to press a gazillion choices before you could actually speak to a living, breathing representative. IVRs are annoying and downright frustrating, especially when time runs out on a customer and he has to go through the entire process again…and again.

• Endless call transfers

So someone, an actual person, finally picks up the phone after a customer spent a considerable amount of time dealing with the IVR. However, the one who picked up informs you that he’ll have to route your call to another agent, and he does so without waiting for your response. Overall, you end up being bounced off from one agent to another with the dreary, “We cannot do anything about it. Sorry” spiel. Talk about frustrating.

• Insufficient information

After punching through several choices on the IVR menu, an agent answers your call, verifies your information, and proceeds to “assist” you. You throw your inquiries at him because that’s actually why you called in the first place – to inquire, resolve an issue, etc. However, at the end of the call, nothing is resolved since the agent doesn’t have enough information to answer your queries.

• Rude representatives

Yes, a customer service representative’s job can be challenging and demanding. However, reps are being paid handsomely to manage the concerns of customers, so they’re actually not in a position to treat customers with annoyance. After all, the customer is always right. Unfortunately, some reps don’t hold back from showing rudeness to customers.

Fortunately, there are entities that make life easier for customers. How? Well, if you check out http://ca.2shay.co/ you’ll see that it’s a community meant to make things easier for consumers. There, you can find customer care numbers and customer support information, file complaints, suggest improvements, and others of some of the major companies in Canada. It’s like a one-stop shop for consumers so they wouldn’t have to go through the harrowing experience that often leads to customer service frustration. Try it out and see how 2Shay can help you.