Re: I can't see it catching on
You realise that most service providers, be it IT, banking or insurance, have at least one or two levels of "Customer Service" you have to go through until you can reach an actual fully qualified staff member. Your best bet is to get it logged with all the info needed, and wait for a call back.
Unless you already pay (or your custom is worth) a direct line to the specialists you need. Much the same way that if you walk into a bank, the counter assistant isn't going to give you a loan. But if your Sir Moneybags, then the manager whisks you away so you never actually deal with the counter assistant or loan officer.
In my time on assorted varietys of service desks, a lot of the improvements consist of getting the people who can do the complex tasks to ONLY do those, and get the simple tasks done by those who can't handle the more fiddly stuff. Even if it means making all the people calling with complex problems have either run the gauntlet of ensuring it's not a known issue, or know enough to insist the call is handed to person/group x. Since your high value staff are busy, it's almost certain that you can't just call them. However, when your job gets to them, they can in fact fix it. Or you fault is one of many stemming from the same root cause, and all that's going to happen is that will be fixed, and then your job closed.
As for getting internet providers or phone companies to do ANYTHING it's beyond me. Almost nothing can actually be changed by anyone short of selling you something. If you're paying top dollar for your service, then they should be excellent (and usually are, like most premium services), if you've taken the cheapest option (and not checked what their support is like) then don't be shocked when you're talking to Bangalore and being given the run around. Because that's the support you paid for. Not that I've anything against Indian call centres, at least I can go off script without losing my job as compared to those poor buggers.
My personal gripe is people blaming IT for business decisions. Especially outsourced IT, since that seems to be one of the "advantages" from management perspective. Approval for new laptop denied? I can tell you what the policy is, and even who said no (sometimes we couldn't tell them that). But I can't issue you one without the right sign offs. System is too "slow" (unresponsive) because it's now all done on a TS, yelling at me that your home computer is faster and that "I don't know IT" will not suddenly make me reverse the policy. God forbid that I point out where this should be raised, they are far too busy to actually write a complaint but can chew my ear off. Oh, and if I put this feedback in, it gets ignored ("staff are to use the correct feedback methods").
"Bad" customer service can be a deliberate policy. If you know it's going to be 45+ minutes before your ISP answers the phone, why ever bother calling? If feedback on decisions is made too difficult, then you never have to deal with negative results. Ryanair as a case unto itself...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
