Poor customer service on this USDA hotline

What do you think of when you hear “Environmental Protection Agency”? Air and water pollution? Dangerous chemicals? Earth day? Richard Nixon? bed bugs?

It’s probably not bedbugs. But the EPA has an expert on bedbugs, Dr. Marcia Anderson, who said last June that she has a lot of this knowledge, active blog posts Learn how to get rid of bedbugs from your home. Anderson works for his EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, from which he also produces webinars on pest control.

If you’re unfortunate enough to experience a bed bug infestation, this information can help.

And what an interesting person! I never met Dr. Anderson, but while looking for something else on EPA.gov, one of his home page topics caught my eye: bed bugs.

I’ve never enjoyed a bed bug infestation in my own home, so I’ll add it to my list of things to be grateful for tomorrow. is required.

Government is a challenging environment. It’s what he’s covered for 30 years, and sometimes I wonder how it accomplishes anything. But it is, and it’s all thanks to the people who work there. People, not turkeys.

Bed bugs are a professional concern for Dr. Anderson. Saving people from frigid, turbulent rivers was personal to TSA Officer Gavin Gard.Story on the Transportation Security Administration site Learn more How off-duty guards Rescued an unrelated child with his girlfriend’s grandparents.

Stories are the product of TSA’s public relations efforts. It maintains a section of his website for the agency that only posts articles about TSA people. TSA wants to make them available to the public, not just airport uniforms. However, this agency has extensive customer experience in the support they give people before they fly—all the help they need to know about what they can and can’t bring on the plane.

The USDA has many resources dedicated to food safety. Thanksgiving, of course, focuses on turkey.

An example of humanizing this information: USDA spokesperson Kenneth King.his timely blog It deals with myths about handling the Thanksgiving turkey.

And, as always, we should thank the personnel at the Department of Agriculture’s Thanksgiving Hotline (888-674-6854) for how to cook turkey so guests don’t have a gastrointestinal emergency. I wonder if the USDA has ever made a race for the A-76 for Turkey’s hotline, or if it can be assumed to be essentially a government function. Mass producers of frozen turkey also operate hotlines.

So what about the Turkish hotline customer experience?

Web editor Robert O’Shaughnessy and I each called both the USDA and Butterball LLC hotlines and compared the notes. Both organizations have decades of experience running Thanksgiving turkey hotlines.

Sadly, the customer experience nod has to go to Butterball.

We asked (or wanted to ask) both call centers three questions: where to plug a thermometer to test 180 degrees, whether to cover the drumsticks with foil, at the last minute. I asked if they would open a hotline on Thanksgiving just in case.

Both numbers had long queues the day before Thanksgiving. One of Butterball’s glitches was caused by embedded links. I dialed the 800 number on the website and was connected to the Trane Air Conditioning Company. They seem to expect people to tap a number from their mobile device instead of actually dialing it. However, we now know the correct number of Butterballs.

At Butterball, it took about 10 minutes to reach someone named Robert. Christmas for ersatz Throughout his season of music on standby, Butterball offered the option to leave a callback number so you wouldn’t hang up and lose your place. column. The audio also provided tips on handling and cooking the turkey. As with all call centers today, people were directed to online information. You can even submit your questions to Butterball and get answered that way – definitely omnichannel as they say in the CX world.

When the gentleman picked me up, I told him I was really waiting to speak to someone. He joked, “I’m sure that’s what you’re talking about.” I told him it didn’t sound like a turkey. He seemed enthusiastic and knowledgeable. He gave me detailed advice on how to cut the skin and how to measure the temperature. He told me not to cover the drumsticks with foil so the collagen doesn’t break down.Robert’s Butterball rep puts the drumsticks in the tent during his two-thirds of the roasting cycle. Told. I think it’s broken collagen, but it’s not burnt skin. Robert’s man told me to preheat the oven and grease the bird with vegetable oil.

Neither Robert nor I have had contact with USDA representatives. No callbacks or text options. Once you dial, you should reach the USDA’s General Food Safety line and ask for the menu. There’s no specific reference to Thanksgiving turkey, but it’s option #3 if you call it that.

The “Agent busy” message repeats every few seconds and the call automatically switches to voice message shortly before the promised 15 minute wait. Our aim was to reach people, so we didn’t pursue it further.

The USDA website has all the information you need to safely prepare, cook and serve turkey. In fact, such telephone hotlines are an outdated concept. Yes, No. people like to talk to people So if you want a phone hotline, you need to roast the USDA’s, uh, turkey a little more.