With Service Like This…
You could say this experience inspired me to start this Blog….today…not a moment later. Yeah, it’s a rant. In the mail this day, I received a “Collection” letter. Now, before you start worrying about my finances, don’t. This letter was from a satellite radio service of which I’ve enjoyed 3 years of entertainment. In this case, I was not entertained. In fact, I was quite mad. The letter went on to say my yearly payment was due and in their attempt to put it through, my credit card company kicked it back, hence the letter. What? No call? No nice letter saying “could you kindly update your info?” No. None of these warm fuzzies.
I pity people that have to handle me in a customer service capacity because I have so little patience for bad service. To summarize a rather ridiculous phone call that I had make, I can only say that I hope companies are listening:
- After waiting on hold for about 5 minutes, I get a very heavy-accented person, I’m forced to repeat myself over and over just to get through the call. India maybe? I can’t tell, but all indications are this service center is off-shore. For some things this works, for this, it doesn’t.
- He can’t help me, can’t explain why their only correspondence is a collection letter, he can only take my money.
- To conclude, what do I like about their service, what makes me use them? After telling him there are several pockets where reception is very poor, he counters with, “That’s great!” I have some deals to tell you about!
- What? I’ve just told you your service is not ideal and you want to sell me a new subscription, 3 year contract and a new radio for my home? Are you kidding?
- After declining 4 different offers for 4 completely different “new and improved” plans, I tell him we’re done with the call, I’m hanging up. I kid you not, he starts in with another offer of another kind and I finally have to hang up, probably leaving him scratching his head.
To say I was dumbfounded by this experience is to say there’s snow on the Rockies. Duh. Is this experience his fault? Not at all. This poor sap is being paid by someone who has yet to figure out that a sales person and an A/R person should not be one and the same dealing with a mad customer. He’s been told “get through that script!” This company had a chance to shine, but instead, well, you get the point.
