Public Companies – Private Phone Numbers
The web is a great tool to get useful information about stuff you may want to buy. But what happens when you have a question while visiting a particular companies website? Quite often a company sets-up a FAQ section on its site; and many times you can find the answer to your questions there. But what if you can’t? What if you need to talk with a live customer service representative over the phone? Here’s a test. Head over to two or three of your favorite shopping websites. While there see how easy or tough it is to find a customer service phone number? Go ahead, I’ll wait a few minutes…….
Welcome back! So what did you find? If some of your favorite shopping websites included Amazon.com, EBay or Microsoft you either had to click several times to find a number to call or even worse, there isn’t a customer service number listed at all! Recently, the LA Times devoted an entire article to this issue. My bottom line opinion about this is, while companies should certainly reap the benefits of the lower costs of doing business on the web they can’t detach themselves completely from engaging with customers. Recently, I had a question regarding my AT&T wireless phone account. I couldn’t find the answer on its website, but I was able to “live” chat with an AT&T customer service representative online. I hope more companies offer similar online options. In the meantime, a few websites have popped up that have dug deep into company profiles and have unearthed the customer service numbers you can call if you need to talk with a “live” person to resolve your questions.Hardtofind800numbers.com and Hoovers.com can help you talk to a human if you have to. I’m going to feature these two sites during my segment on Fox 61 on Friday. If you know of other creative ways to reach hard to get customer service reps on the phone leave me a comment. I may share one or two of your tips on air next Friday.
