USAA is the best.

I've been in that guy's position before. Sometimes frantically pantomiming for your call center neighbors is the only way to keep your cool while dealing with a particularly frustrating customer. He was still polite to the person on the phone, explaining things until they either got it or gave up trying to understand. I'd hire that guy to work the phones at my company any day.

When you work support sometimes the only thing you can do with that idiot who just doesn't get it and silently scream or pretend to choke yourself. I've been there, I'm sure had i not been able to gesticulate when I worked with RCN I probably would have developed a brain aneurism.

At least he knows his shit, and makes sure someone understands something before terminating the call. Much rather that than some bozo who has no clue and can't give a definitive answer on anything.

USAA has always been great for me, particularly their customer service. The company's cross-selling is so good it's almost spooky. The perfect offers (credit, insurance, planning, etc.) at key moments in life.

Hilarious. I love the brutal "That's why you're in the military" tag. Sadly, he probably just pantomimed himself out of a job. Or, more accurately, his buddy videotaped him out of a job.

Do the USAA reps have to listen to that background Muzak all day?

Too funny! Annie is right, sometimes it's the only way to stay sane when dealing with unreasonable customers. The mute button is handy too, but be careful. I once missed the button and told a customer to fuck off. Luckily my manager agreed that that's what the particular customer needed to do as well. Oops.

I'll chime in on USAA being all sorts of awesome, including, but not limited to, their CSRs.

Add a "me too" to USAA's CSR's being the absolute best in the business, if not in the entire universe.

They handle everything politely and promptly. I'm not sure whether low-level reps have authority to make useful decisions for customers, or their managers are always instantly available for approvals. However they do it, they're a model for customer service other companies should emulate.

If only USAA was my mobile phone carrier!

I have to say, what I did support a decade ago, that was the the only thing that kept me sane. Frequent muting and letting out the pain worked. Let me tell you walking an illiterate dyslexic through installing a network card in Windows 3.11 was at least an hour job. But I always got it done, and was always kept it professional with the customer. In fact, I think I was one of a handful of people in the center of over 600 who never had an irate customer, or was able to calm an already irate customer down.