I recently heard about people losing their cool when trying to call the municipality. Supposedly, there were delays in trying to access a live voice, to the point callers were angry by the time someone did pick up.
I heard such interactions wound up with hangups from municipal staff, no doubt only driving up the caller’s blood pressure.
So, when I had a public-safety issue recently, I thought I’d experience the process. In the past, I found everything rather seamless. Hit the right numbers at the prompts and you’re speaking to a customer service representative in no time.
Well, it appears things have changed.
I began by dialling 519-360-1998, the general number for the municipality. That landed me in the land of voicemail. You hit “0” and go straight to customer service.
I was sent into a holding pattern, subjected to that ear-dirge hold music as I waited, and waited…and waited.
I simply wanted to try normal channels to report a visibility issue with signage at the corner of Sass Road and Colborne Street. The construction signage, at my time of writing this, all but blocked visibility from Sass looking east down Colborne.
It took a few days, but they moved the signs. If nothing had been done, there woul have been an accident there before the work is completed at the intersection of Sass Road and Park Avenue. You just couldn’t see westbound traffic if you’re sitting at the stop sign on Sass Road at Colborne. You had to pull out into the eastbound lane to take a peek.
But back to the phone call. “The estimated wait time is less than 10 minutes” was frustrating to hear the first time. To hear it again several minutes later only ramped up the impatience. Then came a third time, eight minutes after I initially dialed.
Given I made the call in the middle of a work day when I had a free moment, here I was, on the phone, listening to horrible music, for an extended period of time.
No wonder people lose their cool and chirp at the customer service agents when a real voice finally, eventually, answers one’s call.
For me, it was nine minutes after I called on an issue of public safety before an agent answered. She was perfectly fine to deal with. I was polite, and explained the issue. But getting there was unnecessarily annoying.
I should mention I tried calling after 4:25 p.m. the previous day, only to languish in that voicemail limbo. Their offices close at 4:30 p.m. My call went into the system prior to that. Yet…no one answered.
Businesses don’t operate this way.
