Spams R Us Diversifies
The folks at Spams R Us, the largest spam company in Shalampax and possibly the world, are never satisfied with their success. Bloodynose, CEO of Spams R Us, recently announced that the company will be diversifying by launching a major new division, an inbound call center for companies that want to outsource their customer support functions.
Bloodynose claims that Spams R Us will be able to undercut any company offering the same outsourcing services, even companies operating in low-wage countries. He plans to do this using two ingenious innovations.
First, the company’s communications costs will be next to nothing. Spams R Us has been able to hijack a trans-Pacific undersea fiber optic cable between the United States and Australia.
The international telecommunications company that laid down the line is stumped as to why it is not able to take advantage of any communication bandwidth through the cable. Consequently, it is now in the process of laying down a second undersea cable to replace the first. Bloodynose is thrilled with this development as it means that he will have another cable to hijack should his business volume warrant it.
The second innovation explains why Spams R Us can compete against even the lowest-wage countries. The new Spams R Us division will not have any employees.
Instead of humans, computers will answer all customer support calls. Callers will be directed through a complex, multi-layered set of “press one for this” and “press two for that” menus. Once the menu list is exhausted, the computers will play “your call is important to us, please continue to hold to keep your call in priority sequence” every 30 seconds until the caller voluntarily hangs up or dies, whichever comes first.
Just to make things interesting for callers, the menu list will be randomly scrambled on each call. This will keep the callers’ attention as even returning callers will have to listen carefully before they can get to the “your call is important to us …” endless playback.
To create further excitement for callers, about 10 percent of them, with the specific callers to be selected at random, will spend approximately five minutes working their way through the menu options before they will hear, “we’re sorry, but our menu options have changed during your call. You will have to return to the top of the menu. Please start again as your call is important to us.”
With almost zero variable costs, Bloodynose figures he can make a huge profit no matter what he charges for the service. I wish him well.
I wonder if Spams R Us will be mistaken for suppliers of the canned variety of Spam. You know over 7 billion cans of Spam have been sold worldwide since the food product – and I use the term “food” loosely – was first introduced in 1937. Of course I’ve never tried it myself but it sure seems more popular than the Spam you’re talking about. They’ve created over 100 recipes for the product – and I say “product” because I don’t know what else to call it. Do Shalampaxians eat this stuff?
@nonamedufus: They won’t mind being mistaken for anybody as long as “customers” continue to send in their money to “buy” Spams R Us’ “products” and “services.”
I’ve heard of that Spam. We don’t have anything that goes by that brand name, but someone here does can a similar product, but only when more visitors come to our island than we can eat fresh within a few weeks.