THIS BIRD FLIES

It seems I have a theme this week for my blog: "Customer Service People Who Hate the Customers." Are we really that bad as consumers? Yesterday, I wrote about a Boston Market employee who was fired because he hates customers. Today, I have a story about a Russian flight attendant named Tatiana Kozlenko, who was canned after posting a photo of herself flipping the bird at passengers and went viral. 

Kozlenko allegedly uploaded the snapshot, which shows the arm of an air hostess giving the finger to a cabin full of passengers from the back of an airplane and then posted it to a social network called Vkontakte. The photo was later re-posted on Twitter, where it was re-tweeted by thousands of users within a matter of hours. It eventually attracted the attention of top bosses at airline Aeroflot, who quickly fired her and then revealed the details of her firing through its Twitter account saying, "Posting this photo shows Tatiana's attitude towards passengers and her duties. She acknowledged her fault when she spoke to her managers." Despite admitting that she tagged herself in the picture, Kozlenko claims that the arm in the picture is not hers. She also claimed that the photo wasn't even taken on an Aeroflot plane. 

 Kozlenko, who feels she was wrongfully terminated, posted on her Vkontakte page, “I don't consider myself guilty! The photo was added to my page, I only tagged myself on it!!! The hand isn't mine; the plane is not my company's!!! I don't understand what they spoil my life for!!! I'm asking you for help and support!!!" Now, if you really look at the photo with the finger and then look at the photo of Kozlenko, it doesn't seem Kozlenko's uniform has a black sleeve, and she seems to wear gloves with her uniform. Can she be telling the truth? Maybe it is someone else's hand and just maybe she just tagged herself on the photo. I believe that this is just another case of "be careful of what you post on your social media page because it can come back to bite you in the ass!" Do you think she did it?

OUTSOURCING AMERICA

I need to apologize in advance for this tirade. I know that I've been writing about news stories, and the basis of this blog is just mindless ramblings of me. So here is one for you; one of our big problems today is our unemployment rate. Could the problem be blamed on the fact that our companies are outsourcing? Meaning, are they hiring in India to handle all of their customer service needs and paying them a lot less than the average American will make in that department? For example, I recently called Comcast because there was something wrong with our Internet. At first, I had to deal with an automated system, which is a whole other story. Then, when the automated system couldn't help me, I had to hold for the next available representative. Are you kidding me?

I finally get a representative, and the guy could not even speak English! The gentleman was clearly Hindu Indian. If he was Chinese or something, I would have been shocked! So, he was clearly Indian, and it's no secret they have strong accents. Why would you hire someone for customer service that the majority of your customers simply won't understand? I just don't get it. Customer service is about serving the customer, and not aggravating them because they can't understand a word they are saying. Then when you outsmart them, which I try not to do but I need because they are so cocky, they start stuttering and stammering. This is not someone that you want handling your customer service! Companies need to smarten up and hire unemployed Americans because trust me, you can get them cheap now too! At least, you can understand Americans, and it you screen them right, you can even find the smart ones. 

The automated operators are the worst too! Companies, I am sure, are spending top dollar to replace human reps with computerized ones. Is that right? I can't count how many times I got angry because I couldn't speak to a human. I've even caught myself saying, "What? Nobody wants to work anymore?" In some cases that may be true, but when you really need to talk to somebody they're never there anymore more because the automation has taken over. I mean, if you're checking your bank account or something, automation is fine, but when you’re calling about a service? Oh, my God! 

I guess what I'm saying, America, is that you have a high unemployment rate here at home. Quit the outsourcing and hire Americans to handle your phone customer service. The keyword here is "customer". If the customer is not happy, you will lose them and your front line of defense is your customer service, so I would think that would be most important! Just a thought!

I'm off to Argentina, so blogs may be scarce next week or you may get a blog everyday, almost like a diary of my trip! We'll see what kind of Internet service they have!