Friendly Customer Service

"What's this piece of junk? This is the solution to our sudden increase in customer serviced calls. Say hello to Gilbert."

- Ben and Tom

Friendly Customer Service is the second episode of the Season 1, though it was the fourth at launch.

YouTube
Ben and I programmed the computer to provide the friendliest customer service. But friendly just got terrifying...

IMDb
A friend in need is a friend indeed. At first Talking Tom is thrilled that his customer service answering machine wants to be everyone's BFF. But when Tom gets on the wrong side of the invention, he needs to pull the plug on this tough customer.

Plot
There is a big update on the Talking Ben app, but it wasn't ready, and now that there was so many angry customers, Ben didn't have time to fix the bugs. Hank was originally helping out with customer service but wasn't anymore.

Tom brings in Gilbert, an answering telephone, but things went awry for him and Ben when Gilbert was misunderstanding what Ben was trying to say, until he thought of the idea to reprogram Gilbert into making sure nobody is let go until they are one of Gilbert's friends.

Ben succeeds in reprogramming him. Someone calls Gilbert as a perfect opportunity to test him. A customer was telling Gilbert about the flaws of the new pointless update, and Gilbert pities him whilst telling him about the new features for the next update. The customer gets excited, but Gilbert stops him from hanging up, asking him if he provided him with excellent customer service. The customer says that Gilbert was “pretty friendly” with Gilbert double-checking if they were actually friends; the customer agrees and promises to call Gilbert tomorrow. Tom is happy with the success and says that he and Gilbert were going to get along just fine; Gilbert agrees so.

Later, Ben is still trying to fix the bugs when Tom suggests they both meet Angela at Ben's favorite theme park; the Enchanted Headache! Ben and Tom were about to leave when Gilbert overhears Tom's shout: "Who's ready to ride a roller coaster?!" Gilbert thinks it will be his first time riding a theme park ride, but Tom explains that Gilbert couldn't come with just because he's an answering machine. So Tom and Ben try to power him off or unplug him, but Gilbert won't let the two of them go.

Gilbert confronts Tom and Ben again later. They both want to apologise to Gilbert, but the answering machine declines it, and plans to reprogram Tom and Ben. First, he asks about his favorite color. Tom suggests blue, but it's actually red. Also, Tom gets shocked, and Ben gets shocked, too! Suddenly, Angela calls for somebody to let her in. Hank asks Gilbert if he could let Angela inside, and the answering machine doesn't mind at all. Tom and Ben were about to take their chance, but Hank shuts the door. Angela, Tom and Ben have a discussion about where they were at the whole time and what has been happening. As soon as Tom and Ben explain to Angela about Gilbert, the answering machine, Angela calls Gilbert "dumb answering machine," and the answering machine overhears. Angela was about to apologise when she regrets her apology. Tom and Ben defend Gilbert, and Angela has the idea of unplugging Gilbert, but then he shoots Angela with lasers. Gilbert then starts destroying the whole living room. Tom and Ben get into a short argument about Ben programming Gilbert to be a monster. The couple then realises that Gilbert's prime directive is impossible, and then has the plan to get rid of Gilbert. Angela pretends to be another person by speaking with her nose pinched and said that there was a guy who she thought was a friend but now wasn't since if they don't do what he wants, he gets dangerous. Then, Angela literally comes up and says to Gilbert that the guy she mentioned was the answering machine, and then Tom and Ben ask Gilbert a trick question “how can you tell people to be your friend and also tell them not to be your friend!” which confuses Gilbert into shutdown.

The big update on the Talking Ben app was all properly ready and Tom was the one who stated that he answers the phones now. The same customer from the beginning calls Tom, saying that he wants to talk to Gilbert, as he said yesterday he'd call him, but Tom told the news, The customer hangs up distraught.

Secretly, Ginger reactivated him to befriend him, causing Gilbert to strike again several years later.

Characters

 * Tom
 * Ben
 * Hank
 * Ginger
 * Angela
 * Gilbert
 * Gil (Mentioned)
 * Bert (Mentioned)

Locations

 * The Studio
 * The Enchanted Headache (Mentioned)

Cast

 * Colin Hanks as Tom
 * James Adomian as Ben
 * Tom Kenny as Hank and Gilbert
 * Maria Bamford as Ginger
 * Lisa Schwartz as Angela

Trivia

 * Gilbert befriending Ginger in the end led to his return in "Escape: Impossible!".
 * In the first shot of Hank helping with Customer Service, a Rubik's Cube is seen in one of the shelves near Ben's computer desk.
 * At one point of the episode, Ben mentions Captain Kirk, which is a character from Star Trek.
 * There is confusion with this episode and "Assertive App" in order of episodes, when this was uploaded, it was originally the fourth episode, with the latter obviously being the second. The only surviving evidence is the dates these episodes were uploaded. No one know why the change happened, but it is possible this episode was produced fourth.


 * Despite this, IMDb has not been affected.
 * Also, a few years later, the thumbnails for these episodes were changed.

Errors

 * List of Errors/Season 1