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The Calliope music sounding in her ears, the woman must hang up without asking for a ticket number or even the name of the clown in order to keep from screaming, knowing full well she is dooming herself (or more likely her husband whom she will convince to use his over developed sense of his own managerial skills) to start the loop over again at a later time.

What the customer did wrong: First, assuming that these clowns have any sense of caring about the value of the customer to their company when in fact the only measure they have that matters is time on the phone and laughs they can evoke from co-workers when they retell this story later over lattes. Also, raising her voice because every circus has rules that protect the safety of the clowns from the rowdy crowd. Lastly, not getting the name and ticket number means the clown's anonymity is maintained behind the face paint instead of treating them as a human to appeal to their inner "customer" and having some way to track back to them for accountability later.

What was eventually done right: After making the second call at 8:00 pm that night and being on hold for "only" 12 minutes, the woman encouraged the new clown whose name she miraculously discovered was "Tony," the same as her first born, to pick up where the troubleshooting had left off last time by connecting to her cable modem. With ticket number in hand, after Tony could not figure it out, the woman asked to speak to the "head clown" also known as the supervisor. This is what we clowns call an "escalation." Patiently, the woman waded through the attempt to confuse her with magic tricks such as "no supervisor is available at this time" and "sorry, there is nobody higher level than me to escalate to" by using the term "You can get on to the next call as soon as you connect me to the supervisor." After being on hold for a long 4 minutes, the woman found she was speaking to a clown with a different accent and an amazing grasp of the actual workings of a home network. This clown could juggle! That is what we in the circus call "second level" or "back line." These clowns have some real skills and can often actually entertain. After about 4 good questions and 5 more minutes of checking on things while speaking to the woman at the same time (always a good sign when the clown can do two things or more at once) the root cause was found and the real remedy was determined. Just in case, you think there was not a third ring in the circus, alas, the remedy required a home visit by a local field technician but we can review how to handle that part of the circus (the animal trainer) in another article.

Please share your customer circus stories with the rest of us and we can all rejoice in the humor of attending the greatest show on earth.

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