Ever notice that tech financial companies that are "designed for Millenials in mind".... have ZERO customer service?

7. These kids won’t get off my lawn.

Of course. They are companies designed for people who grew up with human interaction as an alien concept. Personal attention is about as familiar to these folks as reading an actual book or newspaper.

No, haven’t noticed that. However, some of your points wouldn’t trouble me at all. I would always rather not make a phone call, and I don’t need to use a website when there’s an app. As to bugs: I don’t think the existence of those imply that the startup in question thinks anyone is “stupid”. It’s much more likely that they’re overwhelmed by the complexity of programming, and just working on their code to fix things.

@stanleybmanly Millenials (usually defined as birth years 1981–1996) grew up without smartphones, and when the internet still made this sound. Pictures often took five minutes to load. I remember at age 11, I would go to the website of my local animal shelter, and then read my (physical) copy of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” until the page was actually usable.

People had pagers, and kids didn’t even have that. My friends called the landline or simply rang the bell when they wanted to play.

So, your characterization is a little off. Maybe more suited to poorly parented kids born after 2000?

I hate when I can’t call someone for help. I often try chat online first, but if it’s not going well I want to make a phone call. That’s one thing I like about Apple they answer the phone and it’s always someone from North America. I’ve had luck with QuickBooks too.

Plenty of companies that have been around a long time have trended towards sucky customer service and more and more figure things out yourself attitude.

I didn’t associate it with millennials, but rather money hungry entrepreneurs. Start-ups I can see having limited staff for answering phone calls, but companies making millions? No excuse.

One thing that happened to me recently, and it’s not exactly what you are talking about, but it comes to mind, is I called my cardiologist Friday about a bill and the answering service picked up. I didn’t know they left the office early on Fridays. The answering service took a message! I don’t know any other doctor that their answering service takes a message, or even lets you leave a message on a machine after hours. I attribute that to the doctor not being born and raised in the United States. She looks to be in her 40’s, so I guess born in the late 70’s or 80’s.

Yes. I think everything is more and more expecting you to download the app and do everything online. It can be frustrating when one’s techie son is across the country! (I know; I’m a little old lady as one of my neighbors inadvertently called me.)

Friends have apps for everything – McDs app, Starbucks app, DD app, Walmart app. Apps make things convenient but they also keep track of your buying habits and they use up data on the phone. They lure you by offering specials (drink and food deals) to try to suck you in. I’m resistant to all of it.

Sometimes when I want to open a webpage it automatically switches over to the app, and I can’t find a way out of it. I hate that.

Points 1–3 and 6 seem to be more and more common with more and more companies of all kinds for all customers, it seems to me.

Recent popular web site design in particular seems to me like an absolute disaster. Entire pages that only show some abstract image with smiling customers and a line or two of empty marketing text promoting their top product. Scroll down to other similar pages of near-zero-content ads for what they want you to buy. Almost no actual information. Almost impossible to contact anyone. Etc.