"Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain"

-Friedrich von Schiller

And boy, was HE ever right. Our phone went out this past weekend. Normally no big deal, but we had kinda hoped to do some online stuff, and if the phone's out, the DSL is out, so I called Verizon's 24-hour line.
It's now an automated line, which quite frankly I like infinitely better than the human-staffed line. For one thing, I don't have to wait on the phone for an hour for a live person to answer, just to get the same questions the automated line asked me. For another, the automated line doesn't get snotty with me and ask me stupid things like "if your phone is out, then how are you calling us to report a problem?"
The fact that it's an automated line is very important. Remember that fact.

It asked the usual things, phone number (with area code), what kind of problem am I reporting, etc. Then I got the following two questions:
"Does the phone have a dial tone at all?" No.
"I know this is highly unlikely, but are you placing this call from that phone?" Um. What?

Really, it did say "I know this is highly unlikely".
I think my brain just melted.
I mean, really, think about that.

They know that you're not gonna be able to call the phone company if your phone doesn't work at all, especially to the extent of "no dial tone". And yet...apparently there are enough incredibly stupid people that will place calls to the phone company, reporting no service on their phone, and no DIAL TONE on their phone, and will do so using the phone that is supposedly out of service, that the phone company needs to program that question into their automated helpline.

I weep for humanity.

Customer Service?

I thought this would be obvious. I mean, y'know, you'd think it'd be obvious - giving good customer service results in more business. No, I don't mean "the customer is always right" kind of customer service - sometimes the customer is patently wrong, and needs to be told so. I mean good, intelligent, responsive customer service.
For example: calling your customers back when they're trying to patronize your business! We needed some home repair work done (replacing the fascia behind the rear gutter, and re-attaching the gutter. Oh yeah, and do it without ripping the phone wire out, which is right underneath the gutter. In fact, the gutter would currently be resting on the wire if we hadn't propped it up.) so we called the guy we've dealt with in the past for similar home repairs. He'd always done a good job, and the charges were reasonable, so we felt fairly confident in calling him.
Kev left a message on his machine (the usual practice) and we waited for a callback to make an appointment.
And waited.
And Kev called again.
And we waited.
We waited two weeks and didn't hear a thing. Finally, this past Saturday, I looked in the Yellow Pages, saw a listing for "General Contractor" in our town, and called them. Explained the gutter situation to the real live person (NOT an answering machine) on the other end of the line, who said she'd pass along the information and we could expect a call back to set up an appointment to check the situation out and get an estimate.
Less than one HOUR later, we got a call, he came out and checked out the gutter, gave us an estimate and said he'd be out either Tuesday or Wednesday, and he'd call the night before to let us know which it'd be.
Yeah, guess who we'll call next time we need home repairs done. And guess who just lost our business - forever.
Seriously, if you're not accepting new business right now, or you're on vacation, or just aren't going to return calls for a month, say so on your machine. If you're so overbooked you couldn't get to us till December, call us back to say so! Don't leave your potential customers hanging! I mean, really, if you can't be bothered to even call back to confirm an appointment, with someone who's seeking YOU out and wanting to give you money, I have to wonder how much you can be bothered to QC your work after it's been paid for. Nope, not going to call you anymore, dude. Bye, bye, former contractor guy.

Schott Construction, you have MY business for being professional, for being there, for promptly returning calls. Next time we need home repair / general contracting done, we're calling YOU GUYS the FIRST time, so we don't need to look for a "second time".