I work in a position where I rely on the phone reps quite a bit.
5 years ago, you’d call some specialist department and get in depth knowledge beyond what they were paid
Now you call, most of the time the rep is audibly pi---d off and you feel they hate you from the get go. This is as an internal Schwab rep.
Often they give you completely wrong information. They dont state they don’t know, they just give you the wrong info. If you question it, they get even more annoyed and usually give you additional wrong info to justify their first answer.
If they do tell you they don’t know, there’s no impetus for them to reach out to someone who might know. The conversation ends with them saying they don’t know, you might even ask if they can reach out to someone who does know. I have a feeling they put you on hold while they go to the restroom and tell you no one knows.
They tell you they will follow up and never do.
They tell you to call X department, who tells you to call Y department, who tells you to call Z department, who tells you they don’t know and will not find out.
If you don’t know something, you need a sample of at least five people from the department you’re calling to maybe maybe a good guess based on the answers you get. Often the second person disagrees with the first, but they are often both wrong.
If this is what it’s like as an internal rep, I can only imagine what it’s like as a customer. How are they getting anything accomplished at all? How much terrible guidance are they given for things as simple as opening a trust account or doing a 60 day rollover?
Why has the service changed to be so demonstrably terrible? My assumption is the hiring freeze + volumes has sapped the will to live out of phone reps. Good reps moved on. The training is terrible, which is fine if you have tenured reps that taught themselves over years, but not anymore.
This is of course not to discredit the very kind and knowledgeable minority that likely holds the whole ship together.