Taking customer service to its logical conclusion — angry shouting
Like many Mets fans, I placed an order for discounted All-Star merchandise after All-Star fever had subsided. After all, when’s the next time we’ll be able to buy orange and blue All-Star gear? Despite everything on my order being listed as “In stock,” several items were initially backordered. That’s to be expected when you get a large quantity of orders placed in a short time. Some shipped a few days later, others remained in indefinite backorder. And then I decided to cancel one.
The e-mail made everything seem simple. “To cancel your order, please contact the Customer Service department at 1.888.MLB.SHOP (1.888.652.7467) and we will gladly issue a full refund.” Sounds easy enough. So I called the number and dove straight into phone tree hell.
There are lots of reasons to call the MLB Shop, so the first couple of menus made sense. A couple of quick button presses had my reason for calling narrowed down to a question about an existing order. Everything was using the “press or say” a number system, which is a lot more useful than the “say a phrase describing what you want and hope it works, or wait for it to fail and we might reveal what numbers go with what options” systems that are the latest infuriating fad. Next, it asked for my billing zip code. Again, simple enough. This might take a few more menus, but at least it was going somewhere. Or so I thought.
I should have just found a way out when I heard what was up next. They found 7 orders from my zip code and wanted the 10-digit order number. Or I could choose an order from the list. I had the order number, so I typed it in. And it repeated my options. I typed it in again, and it once more ignored me. All of a sudden, the system had turned on me. It failed into the list of orders, giving the last four digits and assigning each a keypad number. The order I wanted was number 2. As in, “What bodily function would you equate this experience to?”
My mission: press or say 2 to select the order I wanted. The first dozen or so attempts to press two were complete failures. The system showed no sign of recognizing my key presses and just kept looping back to the start. Pressing 2 was not getting me anywhere. Next, I tried saying “two.” This caused the audio on the other end to drop out for a second or two, but the options kept coming. After a couple more attempts, it finally registered and it asked if it had the right order number. It did not. After saying no, it was back to the list of orders.
This was a slight setback, but at least something was happening, unlike the previous 30+ key presses. I said “two” again, the audio dropped out, then the options kept coming. Finally, I shouted “TWO!” and it brought up an order. The correct order. Yes! Is what I said in response. Almost there…
My order has been split into three shipments. Well, yes, but I’m not calling about the shipped items. So let’s just select the option to go to unshipped items… Which doesn’t exist. Instead, I get to listen to it list the contents of the first shipment. The only options after that are to get more information about that package or move on to the next package. There’s no “press or say” here, so I say “next package.” Which the system doesn’t recognize. After another time through the options, I say “next package” again and am ignored again. Even if I get through this, it will take another shipment listing, another “next package” battle, and yet another shipment listing to get to a menu that might, but probably won’t, contain a relevant option.
So I did what worked in the previous round and shouted “NEXT PACKAGE!!!” at the top of my lungs. And as if by magic, I was connected to an actual human being who was able to cancel the item in a fraction of the time I spent in battle with the world’s worst phone menu system.
So that’s the lesson here: the only way to win is not to play. If you for some reason have no choice but to call the MLB Shop for something, pretend you’re Jordany Valdespin getting demoted to AAA and let their phone system know just how you feel. Because if you didn’t feel that way when you picked up your phone, you will soon enough.
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