Wednesday Poll: Fighting Back Against Poor Customer Service

I was watching the news last night when I saw this story, about Mona "the Hammer" Shaw, a little old lady who--when presented with horrible customer service from her phone company--grabbed the aforementioned tool, took it to the phone company's office, and began smashing office equipment.

While I don't know that I can condone such behavior, I have to think about what it must really have taken to get this woman--who has probably hardly had so much as a speeding ticket--to this point. 

For this week's poll:

Ever had customer service that was that bad?  What did you want to do?  What did you actually do?

Comment and discuss.

Comments

[StacyH]

Oh TIVO. My dear, dear, dear friends at TIVO.

About two years ago, we were living in an apartment in Dallas that had proprietary rules on which cable company you could use. We could only use one, so we did. (Since then Texas has passed a law that such things are illegal, but it didn't help us then.)

The one, did not provide DVR service. This was a tragedy. To combat this injustice, we went to TIVO, ordered a machine, and attempted to set it up.

We could not get it to work. It could not see the computer, it could not find the internet, it could not download it's necessary software. I called customer support.

"Is the machine plugged in?"

This was level 1 support. I had to answer this question, A LOT. I did get escalated ...

To make a 3 day long customer service battle short, I got so angry I was crying on the phone with the customer service guy, who essentially told me I was an idiot. Lewis took over about this point, got just as frustrated, because TIVO said it was our internet provider, who said nope you're fine. And then they said it was our modem, whom we also called and spent hours on the phone with, who also said everything was fine. It was awful. In the end, I said fine, I want to return it. I got yet ANOTHER number to call at TIVO. Now THESE people, (the people who have to try and stop you from cancelling your service) were nice to me. But by then it was too late. I was so upset (Lew wasn't happy either) I just wanted the machine with it's filthy logo out of my house.

I will use DVR and cable for the rest of my life. It will have to take serious arm twist / breakage for me to ever give them one cent of my money.

Which, by the way, they tried to keep $75 of my fee. Even though I'd only had it 3 days, never got to use it, and their customer service team were the ones that could not get it set up properly.

6 weeks later I won that battle. But I had to keep calling, and calling, and calling. I think they keep a tally of how many times you call. If you reach point B - they refund the money because it's costing more money in CSR time to talk to you than the refund is worth.

Made me so angry.

I have others, as I'm sure we all do. Specifically with my company's HR department who thought I needed more health care than I wanted, and who charged me 3 months of premiums all in one pay check, without even telling me. I was $500 short. That's a lot of money when you're pay check to pay check. And they didn't even tell me it was going to happen.

Meanies. I got that worked out too though. But Lewis had to help me out that month (we weren't married.)

[Anita Eichhorn]

I have two. One was Verizon land line service
in Virginia. We were moving and they turned of our long distance service about 10 days before my phone was turned off. This created about a 200.00 charge on my bill. It made it more complicated because it showed on my final bill I received in Florida. It took many hours, many calls to get the charge off my bill. There was no specific person who I remember being rude but it was not an easy process to get it off my bill. I think they think if they make it really hard we will give up and pay the bill.
My second episode was with Tri-Care. The military health care system. Long story short. They wanted me to pay for a Dr's visit because I didn't have a referral, I did have a referral but it was lost somewhere between the Dr's and the Tri-Care office. Again Many Phone Calls and long hours. I won in the end but again if your not up for a marathon you have to pay the bill. Customer Service is not important in Government health Care, just the bottom line.

[Meryl]

What is it with technology related services and poor customer service?

One of my worst experiences was with my (old, Cingular) cell phone. When I got it I thought the coverage in my area was questionable, but the salesperson assured me, "No roaming as long as you stay in Kansas." First bill comes, and it's $150, for my, like, $30 plan.

So I call, sit on hold for half an hour, explain, and am told that the salesguy was right and I shouldn't have been charged for roaming in the areas I was calling from. They said it was just some sort of weird glitch, and took the extra off of my bill.

Only the next month I got charged again, and had to call and wait again. Same story, it's a glitch.

This went on every month for an entire year (I was locked into a contract, of course), at the end of which I canceled my plan and vowed to avoid Cingular until the day I die.

Seriously! FIX THE GLITCH!

[Fergus' Mom]

oh man, anything that requires talking to someone on a phone is a pain in the patootie, be it Dell, FedEx, or our postage provider. Thankfully you can't actually get your hands on them, but I do remember one or two very heated calls. Now, one lovely fall day I was out shopping with my aunt and cousin in our favorite old town haunts when we decided we wanted coffee. Our favorite locally owned shop had just closed down so we had to find an alternative and Starbucks had not found our little town yet so we headed to Borders. Apparently on the busiest shopping day of the year they decided to staff with all newbies and had no manager on site. We stood in line for an hour with only 3 people in front of us while I watched the barista churn out wrong drink order after wrong drink order after wrong drink order. Apparently if you wanted a mocha, she made a hot chocolate; if you wanted a latte, she made a hot chocolate; you get the idea...This went on and I was marveling at my reserve until she got to my order and made me no less than 4 hot chocolates! When she was remembering to bother with my drink at all. Four people behind me got their drinks while I continued to wait and wait and wait. At this point, as you can imagine, there was a backlog of hot chocolates on the counter that no one was claiming. I asked where my drink was in the queue of her drinks and she picked up the hot chocolates (I'm going to say to make room for my drink, but I'm not entirely sure) and threw them at me! Mind you, I've done/said things in the past that would make me want to throw a drink at me, but I was REALLY trying to behave and be understanding of an obviously overwhelmed newbie this time! I dodged the projectile chocolate and headed to customer service loaded for bear. Calmly as I could through gritted teeth explained my displeasure with the way they ran their coffee shop (seemed understaffed, undermanaged, undertrained) and let them know that I wasn't happy having to dodge hot chocolate. I'm pretty sure I said more than that, but it has been a while and the memory gets fuzzy. Had to repeat this all again for the coffee manager who was apparently in store but didn't see reason to be with her staff. Repeated how I thought that it was a poor way to do business AND for my trouble got a 'so what do you want me to do about it?'. Lovely. I was thinking maybe her job, but instead I got two free coupons for coffee at a store I never wanted to buy coffee from again. Thanked her for her time, told her the coupons were worthless to me there, and went away shaking my head. I think at points, in my fantasy version of events, I a) wanted to hop the bar and make my own damn coffee, b) forget that I was a professional adult and throttle the little bitch when she threw the drinks, and c)assume management of the coffee shop and fire all the idiots. Thankfully Starbucks has found our little 'Burg and while I'm still on the hunt for another wonderful locally owned store, I know I don't have to put up with THOSE wingnuts anymore!

[Meryl]

She THREW a hot chocolate at you?!? And didn't get fired?!?!

That is insane.

[Fergus' Mom]

She threw TWO hot chocolates at me and was still gainfully employed thanks to one moron of a manager.

[Amy]

Well, for the most recent account of bad customer service you can click here to read my blog about how much Delta Airlines sucks. Nights spent in airports, canceled flights, standing still for hours on the runway, lost luggage, over an hour on the phone for customer service...all the result of only 1 trip... and just the return half at that!

I have very little tolerance for poor customer service. And once my business is lost, I typically will tell anyone and everyone I meet never to do business with them as well. Case in point: Sax 5th Avenue. The time, 2000. I was in a play at PSU and we needed shopping bags from really pricy shops for a scene. I happened to be home for a weekend and hit up the Plaza shops first thing in the morning when they first opened and had virtually no other customers. I came equipped with a play poster to prove that I wasn't just collecting bags so I could steal/return something in them later. Several stores like Coach and Brooks Brothers had already hooked me up when I went into Sax. I talked to a nice lady at the make up counter who could only offer me a tiny little bag and suggested I head upstairs to get a bigger one. That's where the most horrible woman was. Not only did she refuse me, she took the bag the makeup lady had given me and had me escorted from the store by a uniformed security guard with a gun! That was after she made a scene about store policy and asked me to rat out the make up lady who'd been so kind. I refused to tell and vowed never to shop in Sax and to tell everyone I know never to shop there as well. I told my story to every store I went in on the Plaza. And I was delighted to learn not all that long ago that the Plaza store had closed it's doors. Gone out of Business. I like to think I had something to do with that.