Bad customer service, amirite?
It’s immensely difficult to get good customer service from most companies and government agencies these days. There’s no telling how much time we waste sitting on hold, answering dumb questions to unhelpful computer “voices,” or yelling “REPRESENTATIVE” at our phones.
I’ve written multiple times about troubles with the U.S. Postal Service. Delivery companies in general seem to be some of the worst offenders when it comes to getting a human being on the phone.
Related: USPS Delivers: Eventually. Maybe. Probably Not.
That said, a handful of companies give me good customer service experiences nearly every time. Apple Support has decent customer service, and if you have ongoing tech support issues, the advisors are good at following up. My internet and cellphone service provider (the same company) has excellent customer service from a team of U.S.-based employees. My bank is a regional bank, and nearly every time I call in, I get an agent with a Southern accent — almost any customer service exchange with a representative with a Southern accent is going to go well.
One notable figure recently found himself on the receiving end of a bad customer service experience with his bank. A friend of Pope Leo XIV related the story of how it went when the pontiff called into his bank to try to change his address.
Pope Leo XIV ran into trouble when he called his bank's customer service line last year, his longtime friend the Rev. Tom McCarthy said at an April 29 event in Illinois.
Two months into his papacy last year, the pontiff called his bank in Chicago to change his phone number and address, McCarthy said.
After Leo, who was born Robert Prevost, answered a series of security questions, the customer service representative offered him a seemingly straightforward solution.
"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. It says here you have to come in person," the woman said, per McCarthy.
The pope tried to explain his situation without playing the “don’t you know who I am” card, but the representative wouldn’t budge. He wound up having to tell the agent, "Would it matter to you if I told you I'm Pope Leo?"
At this point, we can only assume that the customer service representative thought she was dealing with a prankster. She hung up on him.
Another priest connected the pope with the bank’s president, who repeated the policy that the pope would have to come to the bank in person, which is obviously an inconvenience.
The response was something no executive wants to hear: "Well, then the pope is going to move his account to a different bank." Oof.
The bank eventually relented and allowed the pontiff to change his phone number in the system.
"They finally changed his phone number," McCarthy said. "And then he said, 'And don't give the phone number out.'"
We hear a lot of people complain about “privilege” allowing people to get exceptions to the rules and regulations that the proles have to follow. There’s something comforting that the head of the Catholic church had to follow the same rules as other bank customers; at the same time, it’s an awfully inflexible rule. It’s also interesting that the pope can commiserate with the rest of us when it comes to bad customer service.
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