Lauren Soth: They don't want to talk about it

At what point did customer service become so cold?

By LAUREN SOTH

Last update: May 19, 2008 - 1:52 PM

NORTHFIELD, Minn. - Some years ago I purchased an IRA from what I'll call the Diminutive Life Insurance Company. It was headquartered in a small Midwestern city. Over the years I had a few questions for Diminutive. Their customer-care number would invariably be answered by a pleasant woman who would promptly answer my question. The experience was hardly earthshaking, but it left me with a nice, warm feeling for Diminutive, for its hometown and for the Midwest.

Recently it came time to cash in my IRA. For instructions, I called the same number I had called in the past. This time, however, I got a recorded male voice that, in hectoring tones, welcomed me to something I'll call Enoga. Hector then commanded me to pick one of five options, none of them to speak to a human being. Hector next demanded I enter my policy number, then my PIN. Finally, after several false starts on my part, Hector presented a menu that included an option to speak to a customer-service representative. I selected it, and Hector came back on the line to inform me that the current hold time was between 43 and 53 minutes. I gave up and wrote a letter instead.

In my letter I asked to be given the name and telephone extension number of a specific individual whom I could call in case things went wrong. No such courtesy was extended, and of course things did go wrong. After waiting more than enough time for the check to arrive, I resigned myself to the phone. This time Hector promised a hold time of 10 to 16 minutes. After 30 minutes, a human being finally came on the line. After some investigation, she determined that my request had been put "in suspension," which I believe was her euphemism for "misplaced." Now, this woman was helpful (and I did eventually get my check), but when I asked for the name and number of a specific individual "just in case," she refused. I wondered why a business that ostensibly catered to the public could be so uptight.

On Enoga's website, I learned that it is "the holding company of one of the world's largest life insurance and pension companies." From the site's history section (which is mostly a list of Enoga's acquisitions), I read that it acquired Diminutive in 1986, the same year that it acquired a Spanish company.

A light dawned. So this was the human or, rather, the inhuman face of globalization. It was easy to fantasize giant Enoga gobbling up little Diminutive and replacing its open, friendly, small-town culture with an impenetrable anonymity. It certainly seemed no fantasy that the little company I had grown fond of had been transformed into an institution that saw more value in financial operations on a global scale than in customer care at the local level.

Lauren Soth is a professor emeritus of art history at Carleton College.

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