The letter B stands for many things. Baby, break, bottle, bling and birthday. Today however my B stands for the following: bastards, bitching, brute and brains. As in, those bastards at Avery really need to get some better customer service support unless they want to continue to hear my bitching because the brutes that I dealt with are bots with no brains. Phew that feels better. Curious about my day? Well it all started with me being asked by the lady I'm temping for (who I shall refer to as Wonder Woman), to order labels.
The company I'm subbing for is a widely know and distributed company in it's field (they do all kinds of computer software for scientific research, nifty huh?) and currently they are trying to a promotional package together, and to do so they have decided that clear 1" Avery labels (item number 5248) are the ONLY thing that is going to work. Ok sure I understand no sweat! Fully loaded with the corporate credit card, a phone book and google, I believe this to be an easy task.
Perhaps the fact that wonder woman had yet to locate them as a clue (as far as I'm concerned this woman who I'm temping for is a Saint for all the crap she puts up with in a day if I'm only seeing even 1/10th of what she does in a day) that this task may be a little more in depth than previously thought.
I started off the job by calling a bunch of the office supply places in town that wonder woman had not yet tried. No dice. Fine, problem solved lets just call Avery. Surely they will be able to tell me where I can order them or at the very least be able to send them to me directly. That's what they do right? Supply labels and seals to offices who need them? Seemed legit enough. Apparently not.
The Avery customer service line has got to be the most poorly designed call in service in the world. Upon calling you are given two options. Service in English press 1, service in french option 2. Easy enough, one thanks. I press one, and another two options are given. For service in Canada press 1, for service in United States press 2. Sweet ok, 1 thanks. The phone rings and somehow magically you are dialed through to Computer Software Services.....WOOOOAH hold the phone? Why do I want to talk to these people??? HELLLLO where what THAT option? FINE. After trying to get a word in edge wise with the fellow who barely spoke English, I managed to get out that I believed to be at the wrong number and to please put me through to someone I could talk to about labels, as I clearly did not have software issues (ok well not with Avery so SHHH). The fellow on the other line seemed rather annoyed and put out, but patched me through none the less (Ie because it was his job and the call was recorded for quality control reasons....wow finally those warnings have come in handy!).
SO after 15 minutes on the phone with Avery software support, I am FINALLY through to customer service. I tell them my problem, and again I am given a huge ramble about Avery and cannot get a word in edge wise to clarify my problem, and might I add, am attempting to dechiper more broken english clearly being read ver bat-um off a script. Finally the lady pauses to take a breath and I jump in with the product code and the lady on the other end confirms that I want the clear mailing seals. Yes, I want them, where the EFF do I get them? She then tells me to call back staples (one of the places already called) because they can special order them for me as they carry 80% of all Avery products and they are my best bet for a Canadian Supplier as you cannot just order them off the website. Call Staples. Hmm...I'm pessimistic about this because if they were already called and wonder woman couldn't figure that out, then I figure somethings up. But this lady is INSISTENT and I figure, fine give it a go. At this point I'm starting to get concerned that I cannot order a companies product directly from a company, yet could purchase them from a drugstore.....but I digress
I call Staples preferred customers line and got the NICEST customer service rep I have EVER met (GO ROSE GO), who not only tried to order these labels, but when she couldn't went a million more steps to find me the numbers of where I could get them. She even tried company contacts, and googled and tried the Avery website to order them. While Rose also had no luck because as luck would have it THEY AREN'T AVAILABLE IN CANADA(I find this out later....but I suspected something was up when Amazing Rose couldn't special order them), I really greatly appreciated her help. So much in fact that I fully plan on emailing her supervisor tomorrow and singing her praises.
SO after Staples comes up empty I call Avery again. I get the SAME issue, where I am put through to software help and NOT customer, regardless of how many times I try to press 2 without getting service in the US or service in French (je ne parle pas le francis bien). The SAME fellow answers the phone and before he can even TRY to give me the whole shpeel on how the call will be recorded etc, I cut him off and tell him to patch me through to customer service and yes I know I'm at the wrong number. He doesn't say much (probably because he was ready to get a little stabby on me) and patches me through.
I get BACK to the same woman at customer service. BAH, she tries to tell me to call staples again. I cut her off at the punch to say that Staples doesn't have them, that we are a preferred customer, and that they cannot, as hard as they have tried (which I wanted to add was 5 million times harder than the actual Avery company) get them to me. I then told her "We need these labels, I want these labels, find me somewhere that will sell me your avery brand labels", and FINALLY she went "the labels you want are not available in Canada, this company is one of two that will sell them across the boarder"...
HOLD THE PHONE.....I called an hour before and you said to call Staples because they carried 80% of your products, and you KNEW which LABELS I wanted when I called because I told you the number and you confirmed clear labels....you just figured out I COULDN'T GET THEM......well.....GEE THANKS....seriously, because of you and your total lack of will to get the job done right I had to go on this wild goose chase. Really wish Customer Service had brought their brains and common sense to work today.
SO I finally get off the phone with them and call a company in California called Ellsworth (big shout out guys! You rock!) and following conversation took place:
Ex Student : My name is Ex Student and I'm calling from BC Canada, I need 2 pkgs of Avery Labels 5248 and I need them sent across the boarder as soon as possible, can you do this? (no hello, no pleasantries)
Ellsworth Company: You've been talking with the Avery so called customer service line haven't you?
Ex Student: How did you know?
Ellsworth: We get the majority of their annoyed Canadian clients, and yes we can get them to you, and yes they will go out on our next mail truck you'll have them tomorrow.
Ex Student: Ellsworth California? YOU ROCK.
So, that was day two at the tech company. Along with the great label chase of 2010, I also worked on an expense sheet (totally never done that before and man did it make me stir crazy), and ordered a 8ft cork board to put on an entire wall. I also get to spend my morning tomorrow calling England to set up a phone interview with a prospective employee! Oh and of course the maid duties of cleaning up after fully grown adults who leave tea bags in the sink over night. Sigh, I applied for another whack of jobs today, man do I hope something pans out so the temp work can end! But, another day another dollar, and tomorrow, I work another 8 hours so I can afford to go back to school, and clean up after myself :)
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