FAQ By Whom?

 
FAQ or Frequently Asked Questions don't ask the questions that are mine. You too? Fortunately, the "good" companies, if you're patient, allow you to scroll down and find a way to ask your question. But another frustration is that often you have to "speak" to someone with a cute name who is not a human being but an android that reads your question and then has its computer brain try to scan its collection of FAQs, hopefully to find one that  answers your question. Often, this doesn't work because it is not foolproof, and I know it is not a human answering because it tells me it doesn't understand what I am asking and suggests that I rephrase or that I check my spelling. Huh? Companies who use this FAQ joke, seldom have a list of questions that are negative to what service they think they provide. They do answer questions that are relatively simple, such as information about the product or service and thus you go away happy. They hope. If the question and answer is that easy, it's likely something you can find all by yourself if you read the material sent with the product, the one that reads Instruction Manual. Oh that. Who reads that first? Few of us, is the correct answer. The questions I speak of, are ones that don't reflect well on the product and these are seldom included in the FAQ. Banks are the worst at this. When you find that your credit card balance is weird, you want answers right away because most of us don't use the jingly stuff in our wallets. We use plastic. And when our plastic balance as seen on line, doesn't appear to match, we get a bit upset. Often when I buy something it records immediately on the balance on line, but when I go on line, the balance doesn't jibe. When I call the company running the credit card, they assure me that I have to wait a few days for this and that to happen. Well, hey, if I can use my credit card to pay, I want to know right away, not in three business days. Like most of us, we use online to do our business. My accountant husband who was borne in the old fashioned adding machine era but later moved to computer,  was meticulous about balances. They had to be to the penny and immediate. Not in "three business days". If you can take my money immediately, I want to get the balance immediately because I depend on cyberspace to be my accountant. If you try to complain to a bank, you get standard answers that are obviously cooked up verbiage by a computer and seldom do you check the little box that says "did this help - yes". I gave up because trying to phone banks which you can't because you are handed off to the far east of the country to someone who doesn't know you from a computer key, it's so cumbersome you hang up. Banks are supported by us, the users, and should do better. The companies I frequent, have actual human beings with phones. One of them, my most frequently shopped at, has great people who listen to you, tell you truths and actually try to solve your problem. And most of the time they do. Okay, you might have to take a picture of the situation if it's about something tangible, but that is so easy, it's laughable and immediately you both know what's going on. Most good companies will accept returns and pay you back the postage and one company, my fave, gives me a big discount as well. Give me people-to-people in business, and I will do business. No FAQs please. It's a fact.