Hacker News Reader

Comment by mistermann | Hacker News Reader

We are experiencing higher than normal call volume.

Every. Single. Day.

I would like to give executives the option to stop this or go to prison for this never ending nonsense. I think most would choose to stop.

View on HN

Relatedly, I've been flying a lot more than usual in the last couple of months.

Every single flight, the boarding announcements start with something along the lines of "this plane is going to be more full than usual, so we're going to need to check some of your carry-ons".

Well guess what, United? Maybe if you didn't cram passengers into the fuselage like sardines in a goddamn tin can, you'd have enough room for everyone's carry-on luggage in the bins.

Even if most flights are not crowded, the distribution of people on flights is probably such that if your flight preferences are distributed in the same way that people are distributed among flights, you're more likely to be on full flights. For example, say flights either had 10 or 90 people on them, with equal probability, then 90 % of people are on flights that are "more full than usual."

I've learned that storage is rarely the issue - they do this to reduce boarding time to stay on schedule. I often board later in the line and there is still plenty of space. Really they should just ban carry-on rollers for non-elderly, able people, they're the ones people spend ages trying to jam in.

> Really they should just ban carry-on rollers for non-elderly, able people, they're the ones people spend ages trying to jam in.

I would agree, but they charge for checked bags.

At some point, when it happens day in, day out, day or night, doesn't it become the new normal call volume?

I just assume that they put this in regardless to get some amount of people to think "Oh well I better send an email instead...". Emails are cheaper to deal with.

And in emails they put in "We're experiencing a higher-than-usual volume of support requests and we encourage you to look at the FAQ instead".

Every. Damn. Time.

As has been pointed out in past threads, the typical HN reader probably only calls on the phone when something has failed or is unavailable on the website, but from the point of view of the call center, most of their incoming calls are going to be people who refuse to use the website for things that could in principle be easily done there. So they are always trying to cut that fraction down or automate it.

> And in emails they put in "We're experiencing a higher-than-usual volume of support requests and we encourage you to look at the FAQ instead".

To be fair, you wouldn't believe the number of people that will send a request to support before looking at the FAQ when the item (and resolution) is in the FAQ.

I would :) I also do CS for my company.

I honestly believe almost nobody reads FAQs, and the presence of an item in an FAQ is a symptom of a UX failure somewhere down the line.

And the inability to find it in the FAQ is itself a failure. It seems like almost no one is even trying, no wonder we tend toward monopolies.

Executives should go to prison for not staffing call centers properly?

I think what the parent poster meant is that there is a criminal element to wasting your customers' time on purpose in order to discourage them from, for example, cancelling a service.

There are laws around this in other areas, it's not unprecedented.

No. For lying to their customers.

Correct.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com