Sung to the tune of "What Have I Done to Deserve This"

Subtitled "I don't know who peed in your Cheerios this morning, lady, but it wasn't me"...

Today's Customer Service Nightmare brought to you by the Pet Shop Boys - goooo 80's flashback!

Now that this is firmly implanted in your brain, let me tell you about ANGRY WOMAN, who spoke to me this afternoon for a mercifully brief, albeit excruciating, time.

In the course of a phone call to place a refill order, I am required to ask an average of 10-12 questions. Some of them, if the customer has played nice with the phone system, I am able to skip.  Some questions are a result of the way I choose to go about placing an order, but most are required for verification purposes, either to comply with HIPAA privacy laws, or for our own procedures to make sure we've got the correct address, phone number, and credit card info for our customers.

ANGRY WOMAN did not want to answer questions.  ANGRY WOMAN wanted me to do things in her way, in her time frame, and was already apparently in a snit when I answered her call.

First question:  "Can I have your name please?"  Normally this elicits the customer's first and last name - other reps phrase it as "Can I have your first and last name please?", which I suppose could cut down on the additional questions later... but then, when I have someone calling from another department within the company, or from a pharmacy or a doctor's office, I don't always need their full name.    ANGRY WOMAN gave me her first name, and then very curtly stated she wanted a refill order.  I could already tell that she was going to be difficult.

Second question:  "Can I have your ID number please?"   ANGRY WOMAN rattled off the 9 digit ID so quickly I was barely able to follow it - thankfully, I managed to get it right the first time so as to save myself from being berated at this point.  That came later.

Third and fourth questions: "And your last name and date of birth, please?"  These are things I have to verify for privacy purposes.  Most people are understanding about this.  ANGRY WOMAN does not care about HIPAA and her internal pressure is clearly building.