Hold The Phone !

Welcome to another virtual camp fire sit down. Now here's a man who took six months to learn how to put out his hands. One will get a sign body, same gentlemen, Terry. After that introduction, golly well, welcome everybody, Welcome to the podcast, Welcome to White's Thoughts. I am your humbled host, Terry Wise. We are at the Purple Pit Studios in Studio B today and I'm mister producer. I'm digging this music. I don't know we dug up that in I don't already dug up that intro, but it's weird, but digging the show. Hey, everybody, welcome, Welcome to the podcast, Welcome to Weis's Thoughts. I am Terry Weiss and so glad you dropped by for the show today. And yeah, you can get rid of that music. Mister producer, How are you welcome to our virtual campfire sit down that I so lovingly call Weis's Thoughts. Let me move the microphone a little bit. There we go, Heidi, Heidi, Ho, there, campers, So glad you are here today. Boy, oh boy, oh boy, what a show. What an episode we've got in store for you this time on the program. But before I get underway, like I always do, visit the website. Please Weissthoughts dot com, w y Ce. I would greatly appreciate it if you visit my website and you know what you can do while you're there. You can listen to each and every episode of this podcast, yes you can. You can even check out my YouTube channel while you're there, which, hey, isn't that great? And so much more. You can leave feedback, you can leave a review rate on the website what have you. It's all waiting for you at Wis's thoughts dot com. And if you want to read the blog Weiss's Life, that the access to that is right on the web page at Weis's thoughts dot com. Just do me a favor, would you tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about Wis's Thoughts. All right, let's get right into the program. Got lots to talk about on today's episode of the podcast. And oh oh, one other thing too. Now we'll say that for later. Never mind, we'll save that for a little later in the show. Yeah, we'll do that anyway. Glad you're here. Glad you are here and spending some of your valuable time with me and I'll tell you there would be no show without you. I mean, yeah, I like talking. I do it pretty much for a living, in every facet of my life. I mean, we all talk, right. However, you know, my better half there, missus W says, you know you never shut up, you never shut up. I'm surprised you don't talk in your sleep, which I don't think I do. She hasn't told me that, but she says, I never you know, shut my big yapper. So I figure, well, my mine as will make the best of it, right, you know, you use the tools. You use the tools that you have. So that's what I do. But today on the program, what I want to talk to you about is something that is really grinding my gears and I don't want to. I don't want to go into a profanity laced tirade because that's golly whizz. I try not to be that person. I really do. I really, honestly, I really do now some of that, you know me say yeah, Terry right, yeah, sure, Honestly, I don't want to be that person. I'm trying to clean up my language. I really am. However, lately, something that is really really getting under my skin is these organizations, especially the larger ones. I guess medium and larger would be a safe assessment. The medium in large businesses that I have been trying to contact have this labyrinth of phone menu systems that have really been driving me up the wall lately. I think they've gotten worse in the past four or five years, I really do. Have you found that to be the case? Let me know in the comments in the show notes, you know down below, or you know, you can shoot me an email at Wis's thoughts dot com. Just send it to Terry to E R Y at Weis's Thoughts w wises thoughts dot com. These phone menu systems are like getting waterboarded. Man. I'm telling you. I was just on one year before I came into the studio to record this episode of the podcast Here for You Today, and I never did get a hold of anyone. And it was a simple question I had to ask because I am not a adult. You know, I can look up online and read things and look and do some research online. But I couldn't find the answer I was looking for. So I was trying to reach out to this company and I'll leave them nameless, you know, I'll be respectful However, their phone menu system just kept spinning me around in circles, and finally I I did what well, probably a lot of you have done, or have been told to do. You hit zero about six or seven times in a rowis d you know, and hoping, hoping by God to reach somebody? And uh, you know, because I do. You feel like you've won a race or a marathon when you finally reach somebody in the phone menu systems. Yeah, you expect the crowds to cheer and say, yeah, you did it, man, you got through to somebody. And that's just the first. But usually it's just you know, yeah, it's just crickets and you're like, what in it? You know, what is going on here? You know? I never did, you know, I did that little trick and then it it hung up on me and I just gave up, and I'm like, yeah, whatever, maybe I'll try later when I have more time to waste, you know, because I've got nothing better to do than waste my time running through a labyrinth of phone menu systems. You know, why why not? Why Why should I bother? Right? Why not? And it's it's all facets of businesses. Lately, I've noticed especially in the last three to five years that their phone menu systems. You know, they want to pass it off on us. The American consumer is, Oh, it's more convenient for you, it's more you know, it helps us be more efficient at customer service. I don't know about that. I must take umbrage. I'm not sure if that is the case, my friends, I'm really not that sure, because I ain't got much hair left, and what little I have left them pulling out trying to reach you. Okay, oh God, And again, it's not like I'm some person that needs to have my handheld through life, through every stink and thing. But good Lord, God and Heaven above, it shouldn't be this difficult to reach a human being just to ask a couple of questions or get confirmation or get some assistance. Why why, oh Lord, why right? I don't know and if I had my and this is just my humble opinion on the subject. I think these organizations are cutting and trying to maximize profits so much to stay competitive or stay in business or whatever. And I don't begrudge any company trying to stay in business. Lord knows, they've got enough to deal with with taxation and competition and foreign competition, and you know, I get it, I get it. I understand that. Being said, However, if you don't hire enough people to service your customers, are you really doing a service to the rest of us, to your end user, to your clients, to your customers, are you really providing at least the minimum competent level, all right, the minimum competent level for you to stay relevant? And I suppose, I suppose a lot of this blame for the poor customer service lately in the past three to five years by a lot of organizations, and the poor treatment of the American consumer. I believe a lot of that blame rests on us, the American consumer. Let me let me tell you why I believe the fault falls he falls upon us, the American consumer, us out here in the general public. Why the customer service has tended to get more crappy or at least at least in my observation overall. And I'm not saying it's the end of days for customer service. I think it can be rebound. You know, it can rebound. However, maybe I've just had a bad uh dealt a bad set of cards, or you know, a bad run or something. And this is why I make those statements. We as consumers are allowing companies to do this to us. And it is proven. It has been proven throughout history. It has been proven throughout business history as well. If we raise our voices, vote with our dollars, vote with our BUI business, boycott what have you. Certain organizations or the organizations that continue to try and provide crappy customer service, these companies will will buckle. It's a proven fact. I can give you a perfect case in point. There was a certain media online media company that I've been using for quite a number of years. They help you make memes, they help you make you know, slides, and you know, graphic art and all kinds of things like that. I've been using them for a number of years and I've been paying over one hundred and twenty dollars a year for this privilege. I went through to a couple of price increases with them, and you know, started at seventy now it's up to like one nineteen and one nineteen. I believe it is a year to have this privilege. Now, while their service is great, it's convenient, it's very easy to use, and that's one of the reasons that I've used it and they've added some new features. Okay, However, a few months back, said company, and again I'm going to leave companies' names out of this, just for professionalism's sake. This company sent out an email that said, hey, thanks for being a great customer, and just wanted to know that you know your plan actually starting next billing cycle when your current plant expires here in a few months, is going to go from one nineteen to two ninety nine a month. No, no, no, not this cat not now, not ever, absolutely not. You know, over one hundred and like fifty to sixty dollars price increase for year over year ain't happening. So I just sent them an email and said, cancel my plan. I no, thanks, thanks, but no thanks. You know what, I'll go the old way. I'll open up my Microsoft office and take clip art from there and do what I got to do. It'll take me more time. It would take me more time to do what I need to do, and I'll have to open up some other video program and do this instead of havingthing all in convenience sake in one But you know what, I'm going to be one hundred and you know, seventy plus dollars with tax, probably over two hundred plus dollars richer at the end of the year. And two hundred dollars, my friends, is two hundred dollars. You know, These these companies. You know, if you go back a few episodes of the podcast and Wise Thoughts, look for the episode titled get your hand out of My Pocket. Some of these companies, they are getting ridiculous. The streaming companies, you know, these online companies. For everything has to be a subscription nowadays. You just can't buy a piece of software and own it anymore. It has to be a subscription where they just keep over and over again. Perfect example is one company that was in the news over the summer for privacy concerns through AI and you know, not owning content and their terms, et cetera. This, you know, and I use this company software, but I'm more than likely going to move away from it. Here I pay almost three hundred dollars to use a piece of audio software a year from this company from my voiceover business and such. And you know what I have been researching over the past six to eight months alternatives and alternative ways to do it? Is it a little more involved. Yes, Is it not as convenient, yes, But you know what, my friends, in the long run, I'm going to be three hundred dollars a year richer. Three hundred dollars. Think about that. Think about that, three hundred dollars. And it's software that really hasn't really changed much in the past three or four years. It really hasn't, you know. And I'm going to say a company's name now, because they are a great company. Apple. I purchased logic Pro almost a decade ago for the price of two hundred and ninety nine dollars, which was quite competitive and read in line with a lot of things back in the day. But you know what, one of the great things about Apple, And if you want to call me an Apple fanboy, that's fine. I'll wear that badge with honor. Send me the hat and the T shirt. Because Apple has never to this day, never let me or my studio down, in my business down. Apple has not gone to a subscription model, you know, for something that I paid for and I own, and they have kept it updated yearly with updates and made it more relative, better functionality, bug fixes, et cetera. They don't keep reaching their hand into my pocket to buy software that I paid over three hundred dollars for and then it's by once. And you know another company that allows you to buy once and then you get I believe it's two full version upgrades of their software. Is Reaper Audio Software, great platform. Oh you know it's it's a step above, I would say, in my opinion, above open source. You know, you pay, I think it's for an individual or something. It's like sixty dollars, sixty or seventy dollars. Mister producers. We we have a copy of that, and you know what, You get full functionality to use it, I believe for up to sixty days, and then if you want to, you know, keep upgrading, or you can keep using the same version you got and it's still functional. They don't cripple it. But you get two full years of upgrades, two version upgrades, I believe. If I'm not mistaken, I could be wrong. It might be one full version, but they're constantly updating Reaper with bug fixes, tweaks, performance enhancements, and it's fast and it's efficient as well, just like Logic pro for Apple. Now, the other software that I pay a subscription for almost three hundred dollars a year, and it's I'm not going to say the name of the company, but it's pretty much the industry standard in radio, broadcast studios and such. It's buggy, it crashes at times, at times, it acts like it doesn't know you're there. And yet I'm sure there's tens of thousands, if not you know, hundreds of thousands of people across the country paying for this software. Well, what exactly are we all paying for almost three hundred dollars a year or more? If you get other suite of their products by this organization, your software should never crash, should never fail, should never have issues, and should be up to date, and you should have all these new and exciting features and everything that has to offer immediately. Because that's a lot of money. Man, That to me, that you know you got let's say you got one hundred, you know, fifty thousand people paying three hundred bucks a year, that's a that's a shit ton of money. Well, terry, there's overhead, and there's development teams, and there's labor costs, and there's salaries for workers and buildings and not my problem. You're a business. Figure it out. You're making a buckets and buckets and barrels full of money. Figure it out, because every apples seem to figure it out and they charge one price. Reapers seem to have figured it out, and they charge a very minimal price for a one to two version upgrade of their software for a license to use it. So you tell me, my friends, you know these companies keep digging into your p I know I got off and again on the pricing thing, but I started out about the phone labyrinth menu. It's customer service. It all relates to customer service and how these companies and it should be thankful that we're spending our hard earned dollars, especially here in you know they're coming near to the end of twenty twenty four. Money's not easy to come by lately with the economy in the United States of America. Every dollar counts. But the audacity of some of these organizations and I'm not and it's I don't want it to come off like I'm bitching and moaning and whining and crying. A lot of these businesses provide great services, streaming platform. I understand it takes money to make money, and you have to have capital to invest in technologies and for backbone and for your employees to provide benefits, et cetera. But some of these organizations, you know, send their jobs overseas. A lot of these organizations send their call center and customer support that's the word I'm trying to say, customer support staff overseas and farm it out and pay next to nothing. And I can speak to it because years ago I used to work in a support center that was a United States base and the organization decided to shut down and they started bringing in people from the Philippines. And nothing against the Philippines, nothing against those great people, but what we were making, okay, we were making close to fifteen dollars per hour plus benefits these people, because one of them told me they were making are you ready three dollars and ninety cents an hour, and a lot of them didn't get any type of benefits because a lot of them were part time. They were, you know, when they were starting to be brought in. So the company was saving a big amount of money, no benefits right off the bat and paying you know, pennies on the dollar for these workers. And God bless these people and to them, that's a lot of money over there too. I understand that, I understand that I get it. But again, this all ties into the level of customer service that you and I receive as customers of certain companies and these Now with the AI revolution, that's you know, we're in the uh, the stages of the beginning of that. Good luck trying to get to a human being. Good luck. You know, I just want to talk to a human being most of the time. I mean, I don't mind putting in information to get me to the proper person. But some of these phone labyrinths, some of these phone mazes that you and I have to go through to to try and even reach a human being, and a lot of them won't even get you to a human being. To a voicemail box. Or I made a call the other day to a business and once I went through their their labyrinth of the phone system. Okay, it says your estimated way time is thirty six minutes. I got better things to do in my life than hang on and hold for thirty six minutes. I'm not going to do that, you know. Now, Thankfully, some of these organizations will do a callback for you, a bounce callback, but that's a fifty to fifty crap shoot I found whether you know, you get hung up on when the call comes back in or you're off doing something else and you can't take the call. So it's I guess what I'm trying to say at the end of the day is that it's extremely disappointing lately some of the customer service issues I've been running into. You know, one company, I could say, I really I have never had any customer service issues with and it you know, involving audio and video equipment and musical instruments of sweet Water. I know you've take terry you talk about sweet Sweetwater. What are they sponsoring you? They're giving you money? No, not at all. I have just dealt with Sweetwater nowl for almost going on a decade, and you know what, always easy to reach a live human being, always friendly and responsive to any questions, concerns or comments that I may have and need answered. So my friends, again, once again, I'll be the unpaid shill. If you need musical instruments, studio equipment, microphones, audio video software, they're into even two for your you know your computer and such, go to Sweetwater. Dave Cody DA ve c O. D Y is my my sound engineer. I believe they call him software. Yeah, sound engineer, my engineer, sales engineer. I don't know one of the He's a good guy. Okay, he'll treat you well. Just tell him Terry sent you, and he'll hook you up. And you developed that one on one personal relationship. It feels like a personal relationship because it is because you're not thrown into the maze out in the cornfield saying, well, maybe you can find your way to a person if you're lucky, if you've got a problem, you know, you have a question before you want to buy, spend one or two, three thousand dollars good luck? I know, I know, Harry your man jerk. No, I get it, I get it. I don't want to be that guy. Okay, I'm trying not to be that guy. I really am. And it's not about you know, it's not all about me. I understand there are other people on the planet besides myself. I get it, Okay, I get it all. All I'm asking for is and I think all of us out here are asking for is when we need help. Please, can't you make it easy to get to a human being and help us? Because in turn, we'll be more satisfied with our purchase, our service, what have you, and we'll tell people about it. You're going to get free advertising by taking care of your customers, not you know, grinding your knuckle into their back or stepping all over them. You know you want to build that long term relationship again, businesses, listen up. I don't let me know on the comments below what you think about it, or reach out to me at Terry atwis thoughts dot com. And who knows, maybe if we all band together and use our spending, might we can turn the ship around. Hey, thanks for listening to the program today. I truly appreciate each and every one of you out there. And remember to see a change in the world, you have to be the change in the world you want to see. It all starts with you, the person looking back at you in the mirror every morning. Remember to be kind to yourself, be kind to others. If you want to tweet at me on Twitter, it's at Terry Weiss. Stop by the website Wis's thoughts dot com. Just to make sure you spell my name right wye Wyss thoughts dot com, and hey, leave us a positive rating and review on your favorite podcast provider. Won't you tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about White's thoughts, And I look forward to gathering yet again around the virtual campfire with you real soon. Take care,