Last Updated on 28 February 2007

Recently I needed technical support and acquired the phone number via the company’s website. The support page featured an image of the woman below…

I’m pretty darn certain the scruffy sounding guy, with the thick Brooklyn accent wasn’t her. Helpful, but not the “attractive woman” featured in the photo.

More times than not, I feel like I’ve been speaking with Greenie the Clown


Is this false advertising? Where’s the friendly looking person you featured on the website?

Fiction, I’m afraid.

Is there a chance that through phone support you would actually speak to any of these people below? Each of these actually represents a company’s phone contact.





Check out that last person. There’s no way she’s dealing with customer issues for 9-hours a day using a pad and a laptop

Perhaps we don’t want to see the honest truth. Scores of people, trained to manage irate (and a couple of happy) customers, hidden in a maze of cubicles. Wires all around. “Number of Calls in Queue” LED display. Walls plastered with the support protocol, recall notices, and response time reminders…

Doesn’t this – even a little bit – degrade the credibility of your business? Shouldn’t you take a few minute to find a clean desk and take a photo of someone actually employed by you? (Or at least outsourced by you?) In addition to being authentic, it would probably improve the morale of the folks answering your phones as well.