Some Conversations Are More Fun to Overhear Than to Experience
I had an incredibly surreal phone conversation with a patron yesterday that went something like this:
Patron: I need to get to your website so I can Google a word.
Me: Our website doesn’t have Google on it. You need to go to Google for that.
Patron: Google isn’t working on my computer. That’s why I need to go to your website. I need to know another word for “cliff.”
Me: You don’t need to go to our website for that, you need a thesaurus site, like thesaurus.com. [At this point I go to thesaurus.com myself and read off several synonyms of "cliff."]
Patron: Some sites have dictionaries and thesauruses on them. You don’t have a thesaurus on your website I can Google more words on?
Me: You mean search for a word? No, we don’t have a thesaurus on our site. Try thesaurus.com.
Patron: I can’t go to sites unless I know their exact address. I told you, Google isn’t working on my computer.
Me: [Head explodes]
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September 26th, 2008 at 11:53 am
Hahahahahaha!
Can we get a descript of this patron!?
September 26th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Sounded young and female. And so very, very confused about the internet.
September 26th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
oh. my. god.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Yeah, pretty much. LOL
September 27th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
BUT I NEED TO GOOGLE!
Was she using “google” both as the proper noun and as a synonym for internet search? It seems to me that she was and didn’t understand the difference. Also what does “google doesn’t work on my computer” mean?
MY head is exploding already, and I didn’t even talk to her.
September 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
You know, I have had similar customer interactions on other things. Sounds like the makings for a new reality show.
September 27th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Craig: It’s worse than that: she was using “Google” to mean “search” or “look up,” in all kinds of inappropriate contexts. Like, “I want to Google the word ‘cliff’ in a thesaurus” or “I want to Google a book in your library catalog.”
And it became clear that when she said “Google isn’t working on my computer,” she meant “the built-in web-search field in my browser isn’t working.” It also became clear that she had no idea that Google was an actual website that you could go to by typing ‘google.com’ into the browser address bar.
Needless to say, the conversation was both longer and more frustrating (on both sides) than the edited version makes it seem.
tasithoughts: That’s a great idea. Write up a treatment and send it to ABC! You’ll be rich!
September 27th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
How sad for her.
I’d watch this show.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Good grief!
You should post that on the ‘(The Customer is) Not Always Right’ blog.
September 29th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Hmm. I might do that. Although most of the stuff on that site is much better than anything that’s happened to me at my job. Thank the Lord.