The White House believes Americans should be able receive customer service on their terms and their own time without significant hassle or hardship. “If you want to talk to a human, you should be able to talk to a human at convenient times and without interminable waits,” the administration wrote in a new announcement on Monday.
The sentiment is one online sellers have frequently voiced when it comes to getting help from ecommerce platforms and online marketplaces when they encounter technical glitches, billing errors and problematic policies. But they may also be wary of new regulations that could impact their own businesses.
President Biden and Vice President Harris launched the “Time Is Money” governmentwide effort on August 12, 2024, to crack down on ways that corporations add unnecessary headaches and hassles to people’s days and degrade their quality of life.
The administration accused companies of often deliberately designing their business processes to be time-consuming or otherwise burdensome for consumers “in order to deter them from getting a rebate or refund they are due or canceling a subscription or membership they no longer want,” with the goal of maximizing profits.
The administration provided numerous examples of the type of corporate behavior it will target, including the following two examples:
Cracking down on customer service “doom loops.”
Too often customers seeking assistance from a real person are instead sent through a maze of menu options and automated recordings, wasting their time and failing to get the support they need. In a recent survey, respondents said that being forced to listen to long messages before being permitted to speak to a live representative was their top customer service complaint. To tackle these “doom loops,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will initiate a rulemaking process that would require companies under its jurisdiction to let customers talk to a human by pressing a single button. The FCC will launch an inquiry into considering similar requirements for phone, broadband, and cable companies. HHS and DOL will similarly call on health plan providers to make it easier to talk to a customer service agent.
Ensuring accountability for companies that provide bad service.
People shopping for products or services should be able to rely on customer reviews to assess which companies will provide streamlined service and not waste their time. The FTC has proposed a rule that, if finalized as proposed, would stop marketers from using illicit review and endorsement practices such as using fake reviews, suppressing honest negative reviews, and paying for positive reviews, which deceive consumers looking for real feedback on a product or service and undercut honest businesses.
The full fact sheet is available on the White House website, which includes a link to a form where people can share their own experiences with corporate practices that have wasted their time or money, as well as any recommendations they may have for federal actions “to help give Americans their time and money back.”
PBS broadcast the 2 pm briefing at the White House in the following video on YouTube:
*** Fantastic ***
This is the right move by the White House. Compared to the EU, consumer protections within the U.S. have fallen behind. As a consumer, I always cringe when I need to contact any company as I have to burn my valuable time to wait for customer support, to then be ‘cut off’ by some robot on the other side.
Good stuff.
I would go further and propose legislation that would remove tax breaks / or tax stock options T a higher rate if a company outsources abroad whatever real live human customer service it does deign to offer. Let them create jobs here in the USA. Enough outsourcing.
For me, UPS has been a perfect example of this sort of thing, especially as it relates to claims. I recently had a package lost that was 48” long. Dropped off on July 8, was finally marked as LOST by UPS on July 18. Still waiting on a refund after hours and hours of follow-up to UPS CS.