Connection

by E. Marmer
posted Apr 25, 2018

scientificamerican.com

My recent phone encounter with a Microsoft customer service representative from India has renewed my faith in humanity. Not that I’d lost all faith, but the constant, depressing revelations in the news these days chip away at it. A dose of connection between two people on different sides of the globe was a welcome infusion of hope.

Getting customer service from someone in India was once a source of frustration and impatience, if not disgust for many Americans. The language barrier was the biggest complaint, but there was a certain sense of outrage that the only customer service available for a product invented in America, and indeed purchased in America by the person needing help, would come from people overseas whose English was sometimes hard to understand, and you couldn’t be quite sure they understood you, either. It seems that improvements in the quality and number of excellent English speakers who do this work, and a wider acceptance of global solutions for a global world ameliorated the dread we Americans once experienced reaching out for technical support. Certainly, as I dialed the customer support number, the thought didn’t even cross my mind that I’d be subjected to someone who would barely understand me. But I think globalized customer service offers more these days than just having my immediate software problem solved without an arduous verbal exchange. My experience with a certain Indian Sikh gentleman a few days ago has led me to wonder whether getting phone support from someone in a different part of the world actually can promote greater communication generally among people of diverse cultures and beliefs.

My particular encounter with “V” began with the usual (and hopefully well-disguised) baseline, anticipatory anxiety many customers feel when reaching out to a customer service representative. There is always that concern in the back of my mind that I’m doing a poor job of explaining what is amiss, or that I won’t get very good service. V immediately said what I think all Microsoft software customer service agents in India seemed trained to say these days, that he would be very happy to help me with my problem. Only, for some reason, I believed him. That in itself was very reassuring. But it was what he said and did after that, that brought me a sense of our shared humanity, and the potential for humor, kindness and willingness to engage with strangers that lingers still, days later.

It began when I remarked in passing how at my age I was already at a disadvantage following all the changes and growth of our digital world. Apparently, the lightness of my tone, and my general, albeit tenuous grasp of what he was talking about had led him to believe I was a young person, and so he said, “Elisa, let me tell you, you do not sound 56!” Well! Of course that led to an even more playful attitude on my part. Though subsequent conversation remained focused on the matter at hand, V and I had taken the first step toward actual genuine communication. I did not tell him I was a Jewish New Yorker and he did not tell me he was a Sikh. I deduced that from his last name, Singh. That he was Indian was a given from his accent, if not his name. I imagined him sitting in his control room wearing his ritually wrapped turban around a bun of hair that had never been cut.

This is probably not V.

Neither is this. Though, how could I know?

This man, of whom I knew nothing except his nationality and religion, and who was located in some room in India, with a headset and surrounded by who knows how many other phone representatives, remained on the line with me during an entire download process which, for reasons not worth explaining, ended up taking a couple of hours. He told me that I could put my phone down, carry on with whatever I wanted to be doing, and he wouldn’t leave me. And he didn’t. At one point we lost the connection and he called me right back. Good old V.

In order to enable him to help me, I had given V permission to access control of my computer. This, by the way, is always a leap of faith. Yes, take control of my computer! Help me! Once everything had downloaded, and he had confirmed all was in good working order, he did something so simple, so unnecessary, so corny, and yet so sweetly remarkable that if I hadn’t already had my guard down, this would have cinched it. My Word software was open in connection with his assistance, and he playfully created a new document in which he typed “Elisa is a very nice person and is awesome!” We were still on the phone, and he could hear my reaction to the words appearing on my screen, which was a giggle and expressions of appreciation for the sentiment. Not only was I smiling, but I knew he was too. I told him I would give him an excellent review for his assistance, and after a few more exchanges of gratitude and wishes for a great day, we said goodbye.

V didn’t have to want to make me smile in order to earn his positive review. He was courteous, knowledgeable and patient. He didn’t pass me off to someone else when it became obvious that the fix would take hours. He solved my problem. But purely due to a positive human impulse, he goofed around with me. That simple gesture was so unexpected, so generous, so authentic, that it made me believe that our greater connectivity in this internet age will ultimately prevent us from killing each other. Is this too great a leap to make from a moment of sweet silliness?

If anyone is thinking of telling me that creating documents telling customers that they are awesome is a typical gimmick used by customer service reps for Microsoft, don’t do it! I’d rather believe in the authenticity of the moment! Viva internationally outsourced customer service!