Would Someone Please Answer the Phone? by Scott Stolz, CFP, RICP (week 30)

 

I’m going to warn everyone that not only am I going to go on a bit of a rant this week, but the topic I’m going to rant about isn’t really going to be about retirement.  Now that you’re forewarned, I’m going to start with a question.  When did it become OK for businesses to quit answering the phone?  Or for that matter, force us to talk to a chatbot rather than an actual person?  Last week I realized I had to reschedule a dentist appointment.  I called and worked my way through the numerous prompts only to find my call going to voicemail.  The recording said I would be called back by the end of the day.  I wasn’t.  So, the next day I tried again with the exact same result.  Still no call back.  Since my dentist’s office is just 3 blocks away, I realized I would save time if I just walked over and handled this face to face with the receptionist.  But what if their office was across town?  Would I still be waiting for my return call?  Probably.  But I’m sure I’d be getting a dozen texts reminding me of the appointment. 

While my example is specific to my dentist’s office, they are far from alone.  I’m quite confident that each of you have had similar experiences.  In fact, no matter what company we have to call, getting someone on the phone in a short amount of time (and someone that speaks clear English) is now the exception rather than the rule.  When I ran service operations for SunAmerica (now Corebridge), North American Security Life and Jackson National, our goal was to answer 85% of the calls within 30 seconds.  We wanted less than 1% of the callers to hang up before talking to a live person.  Computer prompts were used only when necessary and always made as short as possible.  Every service associate sat together in the office.  They were not working from home or sitting overseas.  Supervisors had to report each morning on how they did versus these standards and provide explanations for days they came up short.  That could not be any further from today’s reality.

With the goal of cutting expenses, companies began to slowly lower their service standards, outsource their service centers overseas and introduce more and more “automation.”  And then Covid hit and this trend went on steroids.  Every toll-free phone call started with a recording that said something along the lines of “due to the pandemic, you are likely to experience longer than usual wait times.”  Some companies went as far as completely eliminating the option of calling them.  Ticketmaster not only eliminated their toll-free number but also got rid of their chat function.  It literally became impossible to communicate with them, which created a nightmare for clients that had tickets for cancelled concerts.  To this day, you still can’t find a toll-free number for Ticketmaster and their chat function is only with a computer (a little hint, through great effort I found out that their customer escalation team can be reached at 866-830-3164, so you might want to save that number).

Through all of this, companies found out that while their customers got increasingly upset, few actually quit doing business with them.  After all, everyone else was reducing their service levels as well.  And so here we now are – customers with problems that seem impossible to fix.

I don’t expect this blog to change anything.  I’m afraid the Jeannie is out of the bottle.  I know I probably sound like an old, retired guy that longs for the old days, but I’m guessing I’m not alone on this one.

As long as I’m ranting, this week’s Barron’s Retirement Column had a story on “Why You Should Embrace Market Uncertainty.”  In this article, Jim Paulsen, an economist and former chief investment strategist at Wells Fargo and Leuthold Group was quoted as saying “retirees should have an asset allocation that ‘takes them out of harm’s way’”.  I fully agree with this. In fact, that is why this blog is entitled retirement moats.  Not surprisingly, the article goes on to talk about having a diversified 60/40 portfolio as a good starting point.  The equity percentage can then be dialed “…up or down based on circumstances.  For example, retirees who have their essential expenses covered by a pension can generally afford to take on more risk in the stock market and may opt for a higher equity allocation.”  Now if only the article had added the words “and/or an annuity” after the word “pension.”  After all, an annuity is really just a personal pension plan.  And what retiree doesn’t like a pension.  But since fewer and fewer retirees have a pension, more and more should be using an annuity as a substitute in order to help keep them out of “harm’s way”.