Wednesday, July 30, 2014

I think I see what you kind of did there

The other day, I was watching TV and at several points, a commercial for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card was aired. It's a credit card for rich people that offers rewards and high interest rates. With a higher end clientele, Chase offers a level of service that's not available to Joe and Jane T-Shirt. This was evidenced subtly by something I noticed in the commercial.
I looked for it on YouTube but it's not there so I can't share it with you but here's what happens...
We see a guy walking along a beach and he's on his phone. We hear the person on the other end say something like, "Thank you for calling Chase Sapphire. This is Stacy from Springfield. How can I help you?" and the man on the beach gets a big comfortable smile on his face.
Why? Because he's reached a customer service rep on the phone? Most of us feel some sense of relief when that happens because we've usually been on hold for an extended period. Relief, not happiness. No, I think it's because the customer service rep he's reached is Stacy from Springfield, not Swapna from Surepally.
"Stacy's at lunch. Can I help you? Hello?"
We've all heard... and made... jokes about companies outsourcing their telephone customer service overseas, much of it to India. This is nothing new. Yet, most of us still dread having to deal with those reps. It could be anything from outright xenophobia (if not outright racism) to just dreading what we anticipate to be a painful interaction further complicated by having to deal with someone with whom we have little in common (which is basically what xenophobia is, just so you know).
Is Chase saying, subliminally or overtly, that you don't have to worry about it and can bring your service issues to a good, ol' fashioned, all-American white girl named Stacy... if you're a customer of "preferred" status?
I don't know. Maybe.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey Clark, Rod from Australia, noticed the same bull you noticed while watching an American ad on Hulu. I just found it stupid that the adviser told the customer where she was... As if anyone really cared where she was pedaling her crap.