CorporateSpeak - Your Business is Important To Us, and Other Orwellianisms
If you take a close look at corporate rhetoric these days you can easily conclude that we live in an Orwellian time when it comes to customer treatment.
You remember George Orwell, author of "1984," a cautionary tale about a totalitarian society where great banners and giant flat-screen TV's are everywhere, touting expressions such as: WAR IS PEACE! HATE IS LOVE! Today's corporations are beaming out similar oxymorons.
Here is a sampling, along with their actual meanings in parentheses: (1) "Self Service is Great Service!" (We've cut back on phone staff and human handlers of all kinds, so visit our web site, engage us in emails at our convenience, or simply go away!) (2) "We've offshored our service and support units to give you 24/7 access to us!" (Why should we pay an American a dollar when his counterpart in India or South America earns 20 cents or less? Who cares if they speak with incomprehensible accents?) (3) "We're on the line with other customers; your waiting time is approximately 20 minutes.
" (Purposely, we under-staff during prime calling hours.
Making you wait is aversive enough to nudge you to go away, to blame yourself for calling, or to call back in off-peak hours when our offshored units will pick-up the line.
Our software knows who you are, having detected your phone number.
Some customers are more valuable than others and you simply don't rate, so you'll wait!) (4) "Your business is important to us.
" (That's exactly why we're hiding from you at this very moment and minimizing our contacts with you!) (5) "Our menu has changed" (It was too easy to get through to a "live" human before, especially by zeroing-out.
) (6) "The options have changed" (You don't have any!) (7) "Your call may be recorded for quality improvement.
" (There are so few of us in Quality Control that we have no time to listen to the lion's share of these calls.
The recording announcement is to intimidate you so you won't yell and scream or be too insulting, and to keep our skeleton crew awake.
) The list goes on.
The next time you hear some lofty pronouncement, reverse its meaning, and you'll probably decode something closer to the truth.
You remember George Orwell, author of "1984," a cautionary tale about a totalitarian society where great banners and giant flat-screen TV's are everywhere, touting expressions such as: WAR IS PEACE! HATE IS LOVE! Today's corporations are beaming out similar oxymorons.
Here is a sampling, along with their actual meanings in parentheses: (1) "Self Service is Great Service!" (We've cut back on phone staff and human handlers of all kinds, so visit our web site, engage us in emails at our convenience, or simply go away!) (2) "We've offshored our service and support units to give you 24/7 access to us!" (Why should we pay an American a dollar when his counterpart in India or South America earns 20 cents or less? Who cares if they speak with incomprehensible accents?) (3) "We're on the line with other customers; your waiting time is approximately 20 minutes.
" (Purposely, we under-staff during prime calling hours.
Making you wait is aversive enough to nudge you to go away, to blame yourself for calling, or to call back in off-peak hours when our offshored units will pick-up the line.
Our software knows who you are, having detected your phone number.
Some customers are more valuable than others and you simply don't rate, so you'll wait!) (4) "Your business is important to us.
" (That's exactly why we're hiding from you at this very moment and minimizing our contacts with you!) (5) "Our menu has changed" (It was too easy to get through to a "live" human before, especially by zeroing-out.
) (6) "The options have changed" (You don't have any!) (7) "Your call may be recorded for quality improvement.
" (There are so few of us in Quality Control that we have no time to listen to the lion's share of these calls.
The recording announcement is to intimidate you so you won't yell and scream or be too insulting, and to keep our skeleton crew awake.
) The list goes on.
The next time you hear some lofty pronouncement, reverse its meaning, and you'll probably decode something closer to the truth.