The Corporate Structure

Scrolling through drafts in this here blog, I stumbled across this tale, obviously hastily written in an attempt to get it down while the frustration was still fresh.  So I reread it, polished it up, and figured I'd share it with all ya'll!

A few months ago, I was in the process of changing my phone provider but attempting to keep my same number.  I had frankly started to think that the snafus down the road due to a new number may, in fact, be less troublesome than undertaking this process.  Here's the bright-side though: it certainly gave me a hands-on, concrete experience regarding corporate structure, and, more importantly, the sometimes ridiculous setup some (sadly, probably many, if not most) have.

So here's how it went down: each time I called customer service of this new provider, I follow the voice commands to get to my answers, pressing one for English, pressing five for more options, so on and so on.  All in all, I ended up calling seven times. Count 'em, seven.  On that seventh attempt, I was informed that the person on the other end could not help, but would, in fact, transfer me to another department.

Fair enough, super duper.

Shortly thereafter, I received an email (from the transferred-to department) explaining that the zip code I had provided for my old billing address was incorrect, and was given a number to call as well as my case number for reference.  On to lucky call number eight.  Again, following the command prompts, I followed the breadcrumbs to the department where I was told the issue was something completely different.  I gently explained the email I received.

Aha, the email was correct and it was mistaken zip code.  The service rep misspoke.  

Okay, I can handle that.

So I asked what I needed to do to move this process forward.  At this point it's been well over fifteen minutes (I realize it doesn't sound like much, but that was fifteen minutes well-spent sitting and waiting while the rep on the other end struggled to believe the apparently far-fetched story I was selling).  I was told that I would need to provide the correct zip code.

Okay, and I gave my old zip code.

"No, no, no, I'm sorry sir, I can not change that information.  I will transfer you to the blah blah blah department."

After explaining to the rep my confusion (and hiding the frustration as best I could) that I received this email and followed it to a tee to solve the problem, so why I was being transferred to a different department?  Why I wasn't just sent to the problem-solving department right off the bat instead of the problem-reporting department?  There was no real answer to that.

By the end of the half hour call, I had been transferred one more time before the issue was solved.  Though I'm not entirely sure how.  I don't know what kind of computers they're using, but by the sound of it they had to type in each number and letter in binary code.

So here's the question: what exactly are the cost-saving measures of having multiple departments that can't really do anything to help?  How many of us have worked under layers of bureaucracy, stifling creativity, smothering productivity, and sending clients on a round-about chase?  Is that really a Lean organization?

I mean really.