Customer Service Represenatives--Where are they trained?

Ok, over the past week we have had many instances where we needed to talk to customer support and I thought this was a great idea for a blog post. First off, Dell has great customer service and walk you through every step of your purchase and answer any questions you might have. They would have to be at the top of our list this week for overall customer support. Now, take a few steps back and look at the customer service for Comcast! Totally another story! After our home internet service being intermittent for about 2 weeks, I called and set up an appointment for the following day. The window they gave me was a 4 hour window so I made arrangements to have someone home. Four hours went by, no tech showed up. So I called them back, they checked their records and said there had been no service call set up. I was furious. I explained someone had been waiting and what in inconvenience it had been, they hung up. Now I was upset, but was not rude so I was by this time very upset. I calmly called again, got a human after going through the same 20 "press 1 for this extension, etc." that I now had memorized, and again got an appointment set up. This time they did show up about 2 hours later. Now, you would think problem solved, but no...last night...internet was not working properly again!

My point in all of this is that customer service seems to go this way with almost everything anymore. I waited in my cell carrier showroom the other day for about 30 minutes to check on an error that was made to my bill. They had several customer service reps working, but one girl who was just there for show apparently couldn't even help me. What good is that? So I had to wait until one of the other reps was finished with the customer she had, which if you have ever been in a cell phone place, this can take forever when you had just though you could run in.

One more thing, do you ever feel like you are in the Twilight Zone when you shop at some of the Supercenters? It never fails, I can get in line with one or two people in line in front of me, and stand in the same place for what seems an eternity! I always seem to pick the one who has issues with her register, needs a price check or needs change and her customers are paying with a check! Never fails! I never shop when I am in a hurry in these places now, I have just resigned to the wait and instead of getting frustrated, I decide ahead of time if I really have time and need the things I am in the line for.