Horrible Customer Service experience

[kanonfodr]

Ugh, my cable internet account went out of due while I was on vacation and my account became inactive. Paid my balance right as I got home, couple days ago, and today I have spent over an hour and a half on the phone, probably an hour of that spent waiting on hold, and talked to about 7 people. The last word I got was "Well, you should be good to go, but it will take about 2 hours and if that doesn't work, call us tomorrow."

Urgh, Corporate America sucks. The worst part is that these companies tend to have monopolies on that service so it's not like I can just choose another provider :/.

Anybody else have any recent horror stories with Customer Service?

Peace,
Greg

[Bass_Thumper]

That stinks but I have to say that CenturyLink isn't much better I'm afraid.

[MJ5150]

What sucks here?

-Mike

[RosieB]

My Internet and home phone, bundled together through our cable company, went out Thursday evening for no good reason. A technician will be out late Tuesday afternoon to look in to it. Lucky me. No Internet is driving me crazy! None at work either. Been visiting my mom and her internet a lot over the weekend. :-)

[hdracer]

The cable company's around here do no cut you off until you are 45 days past due.
How long were you on vacation.
You can pay on line too, from anywhere.

[fjadams]

A friend now lives in Brisbane. He always tells me as bad as he thought it was dealing with utilities here, they are completely customer service friendly compared to dealing with cable, phone, electric, internet, etc. He claims for the most part it is absolutely horrible, and the rest is worse.

[runmikeyrun]

I've been waiting 5 days for an online motorcycle parts/accessories dealer to return my call. Their return policy is that you fill out an online form then they call you with instructions on how to return your item. Frustrating.

[fourstringdrums]

I had just moved into my house and was waiting for Sears to deliver a new washer. I was given an 8-12 delivery window, and when 1 came and went I called. I was told that they came by but no one was home. B.S... I was home, in the living room the whole time and there was a driveway full of cars because we were unpacking. We didn't hear the doorbell or even a knock at the door. They described our house exactly so I know they were at the right place.

I was told that it would be a week until they'd be able to deliver again, that is until I canceled the dryer and suddenly they wanted to have someone come out first thing the next day.

[sandmangeck]

Originally Posted by kanonfodr

Ugh, my cable internet account went out of due while I was on vacation and my account became inactive.

Did they charge you a late fee?

[kanonfodr]

Originally Posted by sandmangeck

Did they charge you a late fee?

They can charge me my left babymaker, I just want my internet working!

Peace,
Greg

[guy n. cognito]

So isnt the problem here less "corporate America" and more "I should pay my bills on time"?

[sandmangeck]

Originally Posted by guy n. cognito

So isnt the problem here less "corporate America" and more "I should pay my bills on time"?

Whoa Whoa, Fiscal responsibility is CaRazy.

[Selta]

Originally Posted by guy n. cognito

So isnt the problem here less "corporate America" and more "I should pay my bills on time"?

Bingo!

[MJ5150]

That was what I was getting at too. A guy doesn't pay his bill, service is cancelled, then he spends a few hours getting it squared up, and it is somehow corporate America sucks? I'm confuzzled how one draws that conclusion.

-Mike

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by MJ5150

That was what I was getting at too. A guy doesn't pay his bill, service is cancelled, then he spends a few hours getting it squared up, and it is somehow corporate America sucks? I'm confuzzled how one draws that conclusion.

If I ask a customer service representative of a service provider (of any service) whether my problem has now been resolved - there are only two acceptable answers:

1) Yes.
2) No.

"I don't know" is an example of why some of customer service in corporate America sucks. It taking multiple HOURS, involving being on hold for more than 1-2 minutes at a time is an example of why some of customer service in corporate America sucks.

They're both examples of unacceptable customer service - regardless of whether one is behind on payment or not.

[Selta]

Originally Posted by aborgman

If I ask a customer service representative of a service provider (of any service) whether my problem has now been resolved - there are only two acceptable answers:

1) Yes.
2) No.

"I don't know" is an example of why some of customer service in corporate America sucks. It taking multiple HOURS, involving being on hold for more than 1-2 minutes at a time is an example of why some of customer service in corporate America sucks.

They're both examples of unacceptable customer service - regardless of whether one is behind on payment or not.

The actual issue is the OP not paying his bill.
Also, we can't expect every company to hire enough people to have every call ever answered in just a few minutes. If they would try to, they'd end up with a lot of people sitting idle.
Also, I can't believe that the OP would have to talk to 7 people just to sort out a very, very basic thing like missing a payment. That's such a routine task, the guy that picked up the phone the first time probably had it resolved. The only reason I could see talking to multiple people, especially seven (really, seven?), is if the customer is being a jerk on the phone, or demands to talk to someone else. Even then, you usually get a manager and that's that.
All in all, OP needs to pay his bills on time.

[briand]

I used to have internet service and television reception from the same company. I won't mention any names, or anything about their cutesy commercials featuring turtles...

One day, as I was arriving home from work, I saw several vans and pickup trucks in our neighborhood; the former emblazoned with the company logo, the latter outfitted with magnetic signs indicating they were contractors for that same company. Clearly, they were doing some big project in the neighborhood. When I walked in my house, I saw that I had no television reception or internet service. Trucks and vans and workers still milled about the neighborhood, so I figured they were still doing whatever needed to be done, and were working on whatever they were doing, etc.

The next day, I still had no reception or internet, so I asked my neighbors when they thought we'd get service back -- theirs was back on the previous afternoon, and had only been out for a few hours! :sigh: I called the Customer Service department, and explained the situation. They'd have to dispatch a worker to come out, and I'd need to be home. I tried to explain to them that I didn't need to be home for them to break it, and shouldn't need to be home for them to fix it, either; that argument didn't go well. I needed to be at the house, a week from the following Friday, between 1 and 4. I took the entire day off work and waited. (mind you, it's not very entertaining in my house with no television or internet service!!) No technician showed. At 6 PM, I called and was told that the technician had been running a little late all afternoon, and that he had, in fact, just been at my house but I wasn't there so he cancelled the work order. I, of course, knew that I was there, since I had been there with myself the entire time, and never saw myself leave the property at any point during the day....

So anyway, they'd have to reschedule a work order.

Two weeks from the following Tuesday.

I hung up and called a DSL provider (previously mentioned in this thread) and had broadband internet service at my house the following afternoon.

I'm still waiting for the cable company technician to come fix whatever it was that they broke that afternoon. That all happened in June, 2007.

I really don't miss television, to be honest. gotta have that internet, though!!

[guy n. cognito]

Personally, I'm not willing to pay more for services, so that delinquent customers can have a two minute hold time.

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

The actual issue is the OP not paying his bill.

No, it isn't.

The issue is the bad customer service he experienced while attempting to resolve not paying his bill.

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

Also, we can't expect every company to hire enough people to have every call ever answered in just a few minutes.

Yes, we can.

We can expect good customer service, and when we don't get it we should move on to another provider.

The idea that providing good customer service is impossible economically is falsified by the numerous companies that DO manage to answer every call in a few minutes.

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

Also, I can't believe that the OP would have to talk to 7 people just to sort out a very, very basic thing like missing a payment.

I can.

Originally Posted by Ray Salamon

That's such a routine task, the guy that picked up the phone the first time probably had it resolved. The only reason I could see talking to multiple people, especially seven (really, seven?), is if the customer is being a jerk on the phone, or demands to talk to someone else. Even then, you usually get a manager and that's that.

There is about a 50% chance the person he talked to doesn't work for the company, but is just an outsourced call center.... and given that and the fact that I know several people who used to work in Windows phone support (and it ain't Microsoft you're talking to) - talking to numerous people doesn't surprise me.

When my wife was doing Windows phone support she was allowed to be on the phone with a customer for 8 minutes - at which point she had to either:

1) Have fixed the problem
2) Hand it off to the next person up the line.

If she knew how to fix your problem, but it was going to take 12 minutes? Oh well, you get handed off after 8 minutes and the next guy gets his 10 minutes to solve your problem.

[aborgman]

Originally Posted by guy n. cognito

Personally, I'm not willing to pay more for services, so that delinquent customers can have a two minute hold time.

The idea that you have to pay more is a canard foisted by companies with poor service.

My previous television provider (who I was with for 11 years) never made me wait more than 5 minutes on the phone in that entire time. My current television provider has already kept me on hold longer than that twice in 8 months.

...and the previous provider was (in the long run) only about 3% more expensive.

I'm going back to the previous provider as soon as they release their new TiVo nationwide.