It made me disconcertingly furious on behalf of that customer to read your message, which, however you meant it, echoed in my mind as "you have no hope, don't show up in person, don't do anything except accept that BigCo screwed you, the world is unfair and you lost hahahahaha".
We might wish for every customer to muster infinite patience no matter how poorly treated, but when a company behaves as unreasonably as described in this story about YouTube, it's not solely the fault of the customer finally losing their shit when "front desk" turns into "front line".
"Hire armed guards to protect the company from its own customers" is a wonderfully apt summary of the modern tech approach to customer service.
If a company doesn't have a real human helpdesk for dispute resolution, fronting onto the people who have to man a desk to direct visitors to the right meeting room, or handle incoming calls to corporate offices, is just wrong.
I'm a customer of google. I pay them money. I would never, EVER recommend that people front into the Mountain View, or any other google office worldwide to discuss their issues. Never.
If the company makes the person manning the front desk the only human customers can get in touch with, that's on the company, not customers with a critical issue who just needs a person to understand and rectify the company's mistake.
It's not wrong to talk to the people at the front desk about their company's bullshit practices. I don't have to be a customer, and neither do you have to be an employee. Dealing with people who need help dealing with your company is not going to fucking kill you.
We might wish for every customer to muster infinite patience no matter how poorly treated, but when a company behaves as unreasonably as described in this story about YouTube, it's not solely the fault of the customer finally losing their shit when "front desk" turns into "front line".
"Hire armed guards to protect the company from its own customers" is a wonderfully apt summary of the modern tech approach to customer service.