The Death of Customer Service...

[ChubbyBanana]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

Horrible idea, calling leaves you without any record of what was said.

Pretty sure a lot of those convos with companies are recorded, in case you want to ask the Ohio Attorney General to subpoena those records for your case.

[woodjer]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

Here's the thing about people in retail and customer service that you don't seem to realize, man: They're also human beings.

A lot of people forget this. When I worked customer service at Target there were people who were nice to you, and people who threw human decency completely out the window. There are people who respect that your job is hard and you get paid almost nothing, and there's people who view you as a peasant to do your bidding.

You appear to be the latter. The kind who, if I've dealt with you before, when you walk in I'm already in a bad mood because I know you're going to be difficult.

Let's review some of your chat with Sandy and see where you ****ed up, shall we?



Give her a ****ing second man. You just started and you're already trying to escalate the situation. She's here to help you and instantly you're jumping down her throat demanding answers and lobbing chat logs I'm sure she already has at her.

Let's continue.



You probably lost me up top if I was your rep, but you definitely lost me here. You're talking to her like you're dealing with a 5 year old at this point. She's a ****ing adult, man. Treat her with respect.



Two things here. She doesn't care about your sob story yet. You've already burned up your goodwill. Second, "hello?"? Again. Give her a second. She's trying to fix a problem with you via a ****ing text chat. You don't know what she's doing on the other end. She could be working her *** off over there.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=unlock+at%26t+phone

At least try.



Ohhhh man. Oh I'd be livid. She told you how to do it. She gave you a link. She basically fixed your problem for you and you get snotty with her? Because it requires a little bit of work on your part?



Again, long past the point of caring about your sob stories. And you didn't do your part. She just told you what you can do and you blatantly told her to do it.



Yeah. Yell at her. Treat her like ****. If that's what makes you feel better I guess.

Anyway.

Dude, treat people in customer service with some ****ing respect. They're human beings too. If someone ever talked to you the way you talked to that poor lady, you'd ****ing hate them. And rightfully so. The golden rule, man. It's not just a saying, you should actually use it.

While I agree with your underlying message, wasn't there also a more respectful way to get your point across than going point-by-point through his post telling him every place he was a jerk? Besides, if you admit to going in with a bad mood because you've had a bad experience with a customer, how is it not ok for a customer to do the same because they've had a bad experience with the company? I'm not saying he was an angel, but treating people with respect goes both ways.

Also, I've had plenty of chats with support people that were obviously just following a script. For example, when I start the chat by saying that I saw a deal and verified that the service is in my area, why are the first things that I'm asked for are my address ("to see if it's available in your area") and then telling me about the great offer that is the exact same one I led with? If I'm expected to treat them as responsible human beings, why are they not able to do the same and a) listen to what I've already said or b) trust that I've done what I said I have?

Which leads to my examples:

1) Bought my first house and scheduled for cable to get installed. Of course, I'm given a window of time that I can't be there for so I ask my girlfriend (who was living with me) if she'll be home. Get home and she tells me that they didn't show up. Called the company and the first person tells me that nobody was home. After explaining that I had someone there waiting, they asked if it was a beige house with dark brown trim (it was) and then basically tell me I'm lying so I ask to speak to a supervisor. Supervisor gets on the line and looks up my record then tells me that they couldn't find the house. So which was it...they couldn't find the house? Or they found it but nobody was home? If you're going to tell me that it's my fault, at least stick to one story.

2) DSL modem stopped working. Called at 8:30 AM that morning and they said they would get one sent out to arrive the next day...something that they offered without me asking, much to my surprise. Nothing shows the next day so I call and they blame UPS for not delivering. Call UPS to see what I can do to pick it up and they tell me that the order didn't get to them until 11:00 PM the night before. Call the company back and ask if I could just pick one up at their wireless store instead (under the same company name, mind you) but am told that they are not affiliated (WTF?!) and that's not an option. When I ask for an explanation for why it took 15 hours for my order to get entered, they try to blow me off so I ask to speak with someone in the department that I spoke with the day before. Hold for a couple minutes and they come back to say that "they don't want to speak to you." WHAT?! I'm a paying customer calling because I didn't get what was promised.

3) Bought my second house and found a great deal on Uverse so ordered via their online portal. I get a call that the previous owners still had it connected and they couldn't schedule anything until that was resolved. Contact previous owners to clear it up and they replied to tell me that it was set. Contacted Uverse again to tell them that I had been told it was cleared up so they look up the address and schedule me for a timeslot. That timeslot comes and goes with nothing so I call to find out what's up only to be told that there was still an account active on those lines and that the install shouldn't have been scheduled. They try to arrange for a timeslot that's 2 weeks out. I explained that I took the day off of work to be there and asked what could be done to resolve it quickly. They said that they would elevate the issue and gave me a new timeslot (2 hours later). Sounds fine...until I get the alert that it had changed. I go in to check and they've totally wiped out the deal I had and want to charge me full price. Simple mistake and easy fix? Nope...I call to explain and they tell me that I modified the order so they can't do it even though the deal was still active. I explained that the mistakes were on their end so the guy works out a "deal" that's still $30/month higher than I ordered and was a lower package. I said it was unacceptable and, after spending 2 hours on the phone, I told him I'd call the next day. Strangely, when I called the next day, the person on the other end immediately saw the issue and fixed it in 5 minutes. Only had to spend over 4 hours on the phone arguing with a number of customer service people before getting someone that cared enough (or knew enough) to actually spend 5 minutes to understand my situation and resolve it.

[SmashMan]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

Besides, if you admit to going in with a bad mood because you've had a bad experience with a customer, how is it not ok for a customer to do the same because they've had a bad experience with the company? I'm not saying he was an angel, but treating people with respect goes both ways.

His example would be going into an interaction with a specific customer based on a past negative experience.

Your example is saying it's okay someone to take out frustration on any random employee because they had a bad interaction with someone else in the company?

You don't see how those are different situations?

I could see going into a second chat with someone and not being optimistic based on previous experience, but there was no reason to start going after the second rep in this case and especially being ready to jump on them before even confirming there was an issue from the first chat.

[woodjer]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

His example would be going into an interaction with a specific customer based on a past negative experience.

Your example is saying it's okay someone to take out frustration on any random employee because they had a bad interaction with someone else in the company?

You don't see how those are different situations?

I could see going into a second chat with someone and not being optimistic based on previous experience, but there was no reason to start going after the second rep in this case and especially being ready to jump on them before even confirming there was an issue from the first chat.

Alright, I have some egg on my face...I read the first page or two the other day and then came to the last page today without reading the rest of the thread. Having done that now, I feel a little differently.

I want to believe that ODogg genuinely thought he was being helpful by offering to share the chat (maybe if she sees the terminology that was used, it can help?) but it seems to me that things could have been handled better from the customer perspective. Yes, it was their mistake but she offered the information to help resolve the situation (actually faster than originally planned, too) and even said that she would wait while an attempt was made (so she wasn't trying to just rush out of the chat). If it's already been tried, simply say so and try to explain what happened when it failed. If you want to take the "it's your mistake, you fix it" approach, I think you're better off on the phone with someone that can actually hear the tone rather than rely on the reader to "hear" it the way it was intended.

As far as there being a difference in my example, I respectfully disagree. A customer service rep IS the company during an exchange with a customer and he/she should understand that bad experiences may have happened and, if so, try to change the perception. As an individual, I know that I've behaved poorly in some customer service situations and, when I interact with the company again, I know that they probably have notes about what a jerk I was. The onus is on me to change that perception. If you're not willing to give me the opportunity to do that and come in with a bad attitude, you've got to accept that some people feel the same about interactions with the company that you represent. It may not have been you but who's to say that, in the reverse situation, I didn't just have one bad day but would otherwise have been a delight to work with?

And I'm not saying it's ok to treat "any random employee" this way but, until I have a way to reach out directly to the last person I spoke with, other customer service reps (same job and role) get to handle my frustration with their company and/or department because that's who they represent to the customer, for better or worse.

The main point that I was trying to make is: If you want to lecture someone on respect, saying "Let's review some of your chat with Sandy and see where you ****ed up, shall we?" probably isn't the best way to get your point across. Sure, it doesn't sound like calmer responses worked in the past but if those didn't, why would this? The irony of it is that, while talk of shutting down based on responses and perceived tone (which is all that exists in type) is fine, leading with that had the same effect on my perception of the post.

[SmashMan]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

As far as there being a difference in my example, I respectfully disagree. A customer service rep IS the company during an exchange with a customer and he/she should understand that bad experiences may have happened and, if so, try to change the perception. As an individual, I know that I've behaved poorly in some customer service situations and, when I interact with the company again, I know that they probably have notes about what a jerk I was. The onus is on me to change that perception. If you're not willing to give me the opportunity to do that and come in with a bad attitude, you've got to accept that some people feel the same about interactions with the company that you represent. It may not have been you but who's to say that, in the reverse situation, I didn't just have one bad day but would otherwise have been a delight to work with?

And I'm not saying it's ok to treat "any random employee" this way but, until I have a way to reach out directly to the last person I spoke with, other customer service reps (same job and role) get to handle my frustration with their company and/or department because that's who they represent to the customer, for better or worse.

Yeah, we'll just agree to disagree. I know what you're saying and I know people like that, but I personally don't carry over any negative impressions from one rep to the other.

My last real customer service experience (where I needed repeated attention) was trying to nail down a six-month-long intermittent noise issue that killed my internet multiple times every single day. I had to go through a lot of Comcast people before resolving it (needed someone to be checking at one of the moments it dropped because the signal read fine otherwise) and while I was frustrated at the situation, the rep didn't get any of that from me. I knew that for all they knew it was my first time having a problem and I went into it with that in mind.

Going through so many "let's try restarting the modem" attempts had me screaming at home though, haha.

I agree with the overall point of being respectful on both sides.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

My biggest pet peeve in this whole matter is how ODogg thinks his behavior and tone is justified simply because there was a minor mix-up between AT&T's terminology. Using that confusion as an excuse he got bent completely out of shape for no reason.

From his previous stories I feel like he's the type of customer that is just waiting for somebody to make a mistake so he can jump down their throats and lord over the lowly retail worker.

[Dog]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I feel like customers that behave that way should be fined a fee for being a ****ty person during the process. Kinda like suing for pain and suffering

[AUChase]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I worked in retail for a long time... we all know those people.

[BunnyHardaway]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I worked in retail for a long time... we all know those people.

Man if I had a dollar for every time I got reamed out because the customer's 8 month old coupon expired and they couldn't use it*....

*-This is an instance in which I'd still apply the discount if they were cool about it. ODogg would have to go find a new coupon.

[Hassan Darkside]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I thought this thread was gonna be like that Comcast call that went viral a couple years ago but this is far from that.

Though the hyperbolic thread title was kind of ironic from someone who contacts Amazon's customer service "a lot" and has never had an issue.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

My biggest thing is the fact they gave him/you a link to do it on your own, but you chose to continue to be difficult about the situation.

If you needed it done so bad, go to the link and do it. No reason to keep getting an attitude with the lady.

You could have even asked her to stay in the chat with you while you did it to make sure everything went through.

I think we all can get annoyed with customer service at times. We've all had bad experiences, but you chose to make it more difficult than it had to be.

[ImTellinTim]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

Best experience of customer service I had was Enterprise. I screwed up everything from the reservation to the payment and they went above and beyond to help me out and hook me up. I wrote in about how positive that was. Seen the same guys since and they're mad cool.

Funny enough, me too.

I was driving to Milwuakee a few years back when my engine blew about 25 miles into the trip. I got towed back to the shop, and I'm thinking about what the hell I'm going to do because I had this whole trip planned for awhile. Was meeting some old friends and had tickets to a Brewers game. On the tow ride back, I realized I had won a package at an auction that included, among other things, a weekend car rental from Enterprise with enough mileage to cover a trip to Minneapolis and back.

So I get a cab to Enterprise and tell them my situation and ask if I could transfer the car rental from the weekend it was supposed to be for to right now. "Sure, no problem, we'll just bring you to your place and you can grab the coupon from the auction." I get back to my place, and I can't find this thing anywhere. By this time, I'm all bent out of shape at myself. I go back out and say "just bring me back, I guess I can't find it." I get back and the manager still gives me the free rental even though I was fully prepared to pay them, and says to not even worry about bringing in the coupon whenever I find it.

They got a message from me about their unreal customer service as well.

[kt-od]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I'm just wondering now if he regrets posting this as maybe it hasn't gotten the responses he sought.

[SmashMan]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I'm just wondering now if he regrets posting this as maybe it hasn't gotten the responses he sought.

Nah, he dug his heels in pretty hard even after the initial replies. I do like that it turned around into people posting good customer service stories too though.

[kehlis]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

My biggest thing is the fact they gave him/you a link to do it on your own, but you chose to continue to be difficult about the situation.

If you needed it done so bad, go to the link and do it. No reason to keep getting an attitude with the lady.

You could have even asked her to stay in the chat with you while you did it to make sure everything went through.

I think we all can get annoyed with customer service at times. We've all had bad experiences, but you chose to make it more difficult than it had to be.

She even offered to stay in the chat while he did it to ensure it went okay! Literally the opposite of bad customer service but he won't acknowledge all the things she did right and is instead focusing on the previous conversation and something getting screwed up.

I think we've all experienced some form of bad customer service at one point but this example isn't it.

If the point of the thread was to share those experiences it's probably not best to start of the thread with that example.