When we arrived in New Zealand, we bought a local data SIM card right away so that we could get driving directions as we explored the South Island. Our SIM card is from the company Spark. On day three of our visit, I needed to call the excursion company we had reservations with the next day to coordinate details, so I used the Spark app to add some phone call minutes to my SIM card and it seemed pretty slick. But when I then tried to call the number I needed to reach, I immediately got a Spark error recording saying I had insufficient funds to make a call. Frustrated, I turned my phone off and then on. The phone call wouldn't go through. I checked the Spark app and confirmed that I'd actually added the minutes. The phone call wouldn't go through. I couldn't find a customer service number for Spark, but I did find a "live chat" icon and I embarked on a 45 minute not-so-live-chat with a bot that eventually did transition into a chat with a person. But the person couldn't solve my problem. The best the customer service chatter could do for me was put me in the queue to get a call from a person . . . in 59 minutes . . . and give me a phone number I could call with a warning that I should expect to wait on hold for longer than 59 minutes. I turned my phone off and on again just in case the second reboot would magically solve my problem. It didn't.
Needless to say, I was incredibly frustrated and tried to call the customer service phone number to see if the wait REALLY was longer than an hour. Yes. A recorded voice informed me I was in the queue and my call would be answered in 90-120 minutes. Stubbornly, I refused to hang up. Twenty-five minutes into my sojourn on hold, I got a call! (Ten minutes ahead of my estimated 59 minutes.)
This customer service representative was very pleasant and determined to be helpful after she read through the notes in my file. We tried a few simple changes and she asked for the phone number I was trying to call. She wanted to call it herself to confirm it was a working number.
Me: The number is +64 3 4422351. [I read it off the e-mail the company had sent Seth.]
Her: Can you tell me again what the number is before the 4422 . . .
Me: 3
Her: 03?
Me: Um . . . yes?
At which point it dawned on me that I might have been dialing the number in the wrong format! The customer service rep put me on hold, dialed the number, it worked and she came back on the line to tell me that I should hang up with her and try calling the excursion company again. She promised to call me back in five minutes to learn if I'd been successful.
Lo and behold! With 03-44223511, I was able to make my call--an hour and a half after I started trying.
User error! But really, how was I to have known? I did feel sheepish when the customer service representative called me back. I didn't have the heart to tell her that it had been user error all along.
Haha! They always have a zero first in European phone numbers (area codes) as well...maybe it's only the US that doesn't do that. But it might help you to know that when you call from another country, you use the country code and DROP the zero at the start of the area code.
ReplyDeleteThank you! That must be the phone dialing convention here, as well. It's additionally confusing because some of the phone numbers have different lengths (numbers of digits). But I've been able to make a few calls. I'm just grateful I'm figuring this out in an English speaking country. It will be a lot more exciting (and tricky) when I'm trying to make it work across a language barrier.
ReplyDelete