A Netflix user who experienced a glitch while watching a popular sitcom found help and humor recently in the form of a customer-service representative who adopted the persona of a Star Fleet captain from Star Trek.
The user, Norm, contacted customer service after an episode of Parks and Recreation became caught in a "temporal loop," replaying three seconds of footage over and over. At first he simply told the rep that he had a problem to report, but when the rep introduced himself as "[Captain] Mike of the good ship Netflix," Norm decided to play along. He identified himself as a lieutenant, and said, "Engineering has a problem to report."
The two continued to roleplay while going through the details of the glitch, including whether or not other episodes or TV shows were affected. Norm also expressed existential concerns. "Worst of all, Captain... the dialogue... It looped over Councilwoman Knope saying, "This is real life... This is real life... This is real life..." WHAT DOES IT MEAN???" he wrote.
"That is a horrible place to get stuck," the rep said.
Mike's offbeat approach resulted in the "best customer service experience I think I have ever had," said Norm. Other companies could take a lesson from Netflix. Ditching the pre-written script can make customers happier than robotic customer-service protocols ever will.
VentureBeat has the full chat log.
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