Customer Service in Corporate America
Lately I’ve been getting more and more fed up with customer service. I recently had to make several calls related to student loans and other financial matters (and don’t get me started on student loans!). I imagine it’s difficult enough to make these kinds of calls when you’re hearing, but when you’re deaf, there’s the added layer of navigating which systems are permitted by the corporations. While VP is useful in a lot of cases, some businesses are rather insistent you use one method or another.
For example, while calling Sallie Mae, I called repeatedly, trying to get through. When I finally reached a Live Person, I was told (in what the operator told me was an annoyed, irritated tone) that I needed to use their TTY number. Ok, fine. I’ll use the TTY. After dusting off the machine and setting the printer, I dialed the number I’d been given. Of course, if you’ve ever used a TTY, you know what happened next.
Nothing. No one on the other end bothered to pick up the phone. So I went from an automated system to Annoyed and Irritated to absolutely nothing. Ooookay… on to the next phone number.
The next creditor took an hour to reach, after repeatedly navigating the obstacle known as the Phone Menu. Generally considered one of the worst 20th century inventions known to man, the Phone Menu is a hassle for the average person. As we deaf know, though, it takes even more patience. Now with VP, it’s slightly easier, but there’s still the time lag between what the agent hears and what is relayed. For a system that is programmed to disconnect in the fastest amount of time possible, it can sometimes tax the patience of any human.
Ok, check. Going down the list, I continue to waste my entire day in customer service hell. Every company, business, or agency I tried calling gave me the runaround. Fortunately, my record isn’t quite so negative once I get through to a Real Live Person. Of course, it’s rather amusing trying to determine if the person I’m talking to is actually in the United States or not. Dell gets points for honesty: their representatives aren’t named “Molly” and “Dexter,” but instead identify themselves as Sanjay or Parvati.
The one surprising exception to the “we must not, under any circumstances, answer the TTY” rule is Chase. As some of you may remember, the NAD filed complaints with the DOJ against Chase Bank for refusing to take relay calls. I don’t know if it was a result of this action, but I got through on their TTY line with no problem, and the representative was the most helpful of all the phone reps I reached that day. Let’s hope this goodwill extends to relay calls sometime soon.
Customer service not only sucks when it comes to contacting companies through the phone. Lousy customer service extends to the products themselves. A prime example for me of late is Microsoft’s handling of Hotmail. I signed up for Hotmail way back when, at the dawn of the era of free online e-mail services. I was still in school at the time, but knew I’d like an address that would outlast my tenure as a student. It seemed like everyone around me either had a Hotmail account or was signing up for one. Being the lemming I am, I joined up too.
For a long time, I was satisfied. No, it wasn’t the best, and after Microsoft stepped in and bought Hotmail, there were times where the service, design, and format wasn’t as good as it had been. But for a long time, I had no major complaints. I checked out Yahoo!, and liked what I saw. Other services came and went, such as Lycos.
Recently, Google jumped in with Gmail, and I was intrigued enough to test it out and play around with it. But at this point, I’d been with Hotmail for ten years, and saw no reason to switch. Until this year, that is.
Recently, Microsoft (which was once a fairly decent company with some good products) did to Hotmail what they did to Word and WordPerfect: they completely botched it. They took something that worked decently the majority of the time and twisted it into a faint shadow of itself: “Windows Live Hotmail.” One of the most annoying changes was taking out the ability to cut and paste. Now doing so requires using such old-fashioned techniques as Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C, and Ctrl-V (which don’t work most of the time for me as it is…). Where previously I’d had the ability to adjust how many messages I wanted displayed on a page, now no option exists– my Inbox went from two pages to more than a dozen. The nicknames in the contacts list were thrown out, everyone is now alphabetized by their first name, and inserting alternate e-mail addresses was never fully explained.
Where once the “options” tab gave you a healthy number of choices, the current “Help” and “Options” sections are a Kafkaesque blur, and navigating back to the Inbox wasn’t as easy as it used to be. I could go on and on…
Suffice it to say I’m not thrilled with the current incarnation of Hotmail. I’m not the only one– most users who bother to comment have migrated to the pages of various Microsoft developers and left comments. See here, here, and here. There’s also this.
This example is just one of several I can think of, where companies manipulate or change their products in attempts to be up-to-date and to bring something “new” and “innovative” to the marketplace. My advice to the designers, ad executives, and project managers in Corporate America: heed the adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
My advice to the customer service reps? Remember that other adage, “The customer is always right.” Stop relying on phone menus, on outdated communications systems.
My advice to the corporate powers-that-be? Stop outsourcing jobs. Brush up on customer relations. Remember that an unsatisfactory experience is not positive PR.
Customer service in Corporate America will continue to suck until the managers and heads of all companies do a little homework. It wouldn’t hurt for each manager in every division to be required to work in customer service periodically, or to do blind testing of the representatives. Often, the public face of a company is one of the most important aspects in business, just as the final product is ultimately important.
But we consumers have a responsibility too, I think: any time we get a GOOD representative or salesperson, we should thank them. Writing a letter of positive feedback to the company wouldn’t hurt either. We can’t expect the best people to remain if we don’t say something. Many of us are used to complaining, but how many of us spend any time giving positive feedback?
Until things change though, I’ll be stuck on the phone for hours, and I’ll be window shopping for a new e-mail service. Any recommendations, folks?
um, why did you hang up with Sallie Mae and use the tty? To utilize a self-advocating chore, you’d be the one telling the rep how you wanted to communicate, not the other way around. Rule #1, The customer is always right. Rule # 2, learn rule #1. Through these rules, companies notice what needs to be done, and hopefully they’re smart enough to catch up.
I feel your pain regarding Sallie Mae. It took me 24 calls through the Relay services to get a live representative to actually help me consolidate my student loans. Took me 4 months, too.
Everything on the phone is nearly automated these days, it seems. The Relay doesn’t help much, although I don’t know if I should blame them or not: they’re expected to act like robots and at times, we expect them to use a little common sense to expediate the damn call, but maddenly, they don’t.
And, I actually went to by make and demanded to speak to a live person to make the phone calls for me. We sat in this man’s office for the better part of 3 hours, trying to first convince everyone that we were not profiteers and that I was, indeed, deaf and unable to use a telephone. At the end of the 3 hours, the man who had helped me THANKED ME for my patience. I thanked him for his humility.
Where there’s a will, there is always a way.
*smiles innocently and shrugs*
:o)
Paotie
Umm …
Not “make” .. “bank” .. I’m hungry and making a sandwich. Sorry.
Oh, and I went to the bank to resolve a financial aid issue with my school - that’s why we were in the man’s office.
Tummy’s growling. Sorry, again.
:o)
Paotie
i had a problem to get the company to fix internet connection to my home. I had hell time with their customer service. they kept saying that was my computer problem. finally i told them i wanted to cancel the service. sure enough they sent repairmen to my home next day. it has been fixed. that was some wire problem in the connection box to my house, not my computer. i know this wont work for every situation. i must agree with sandman saying that some customer services are horrible. some are not too bad. it depends on companies. sometimes reps have bad attitude or are clueless. i am always dread to make calls to customer service. it can make or ruin my day. you have my sympathies.
Customer service has definitely gone downhill and it isn’t just the phone. Even face to face customer service. The only way to fight it is to take your business elsewhere and leave a letter to the president or owner giving the reason why.
Theoretically that may bring prompt and courteous action to correct the problem, but of late that has also changed.
Two stores have lost my business in this way: a warehouse club kept the balance in my gift card when I decided not to renew my membership…a popular grocery chain refused to take my photo employee ID card for a check as my drivers license had been left at home, despite my having shopped there for 20 years.
These mystified me because they should know that word gets around, but in today’s world it is not important. Buyer beware.
Todos, I decided to use the TTY for two reasons: 1) the attitude I was getting was obnoxious (and I did comment before I hung up that I didn’t appreciate the snotty tone) and I didn’t feel like “educating” anyone at the moment (am I required to be an ambassador of deafness 24/7?), I just wanted my problem solved, and 2) if a TTY number is available, I use it at least once or twice so that if I call and I am referred to the TTY number (as I was with Sallie Mae!), I can then state that no one was answering. This forces them to confront the reality that maybe their preferred “solution” isn’t a solution at all.
I *do* agree that how we choose to communicate should be higher priority than what the company wants, but until the corporations get the message, it isn’t always going to happen that they’ll readily accept that relay call, or deal with you on your own terms. Just ask all the people who have tried calling Chase Bank via VP…
Paotie, YOU’RE the one who’s got my sympathies– 24 calls and 4 months?!? That’s outrageous. I agree with you about the automated actions of some relay agents. Some don’t seem to realize that when I say I want to stay on the line til I get a “live person,” that means *stay on the line*, not give up and admit defeat after the first round with the phone menu.
H… we had a similar problem recently. My walking partner had to deal with one VP company in getting her VP fixed. She was told that the problem was on HER end. After months of back-and-forth, the installer finally realized it was THEIR fault. It was pretty hard for my permanent spouse not to blurt out, “I told you so.” Poor customer service, unfortunately, isn’t limited to hearing companies only.
Dianrez, I agree: the power of the purse belongs to *us* consumers, and the more we wield it, the better results we get.
As for the Warehouse Club keeping your gift card balance, that seems like it’s illegal to me. After all, that’s your money, not a donation to the store. Here in California, the governor just signed a bill that would require gift cards to be redeemed for cash if the balance is under $10. I’m glad the bill was passed and signed, but a shame it required legislation to make it happen.
Sandman,
I, too, was very disappointed with the new “windows live” product. I’ve just signed up for a Gmail acct. While I know my privacy isn’t guaranteed, Gmail appears to be a nifty utility. It takes time to get used to its features and methods. I just dont like the advertisements on the right side of my screen.
If you do jump ship, note that you can download your hotmail contacts into an Excel CSV file, edit and save the file on hard disk, and sign into Gmail, Contacts, Import, specify the CSV file and you’re done.
But truth be told, I liked the pre-Microsoft Hotmail very much.
Getting a live person: try looking the company up at
http://www.gethuman.com
They have the magic numbers to get you out of the phone menu (even hearing people hate those things).
Companies that don’t answer TTYs or won’t communicate with you in any reasonable way: Go to your library and look up the executives in Dun and Bradstreet (or google the company). Then write letters to them, with copies, if necessary, to the FTC and your state attorney general. Results not guaranteed - but it should get someone’s attention.
Artichoke, I’m seriously considering Gmail myself. I already have a couple accounts there, but they’re for business/side purposes. If I switch completely, I admit I’ll miss being able to group e-mails into folders, like you can on Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. We’ll see what happens.
THANKS for the tip on transferring the contacts! You’re my new best friend of the moment. That will be so much more easier than sitting there and transferring bit by bit.
PJ, knew about that website before, but I really should’ve mentioned it and linked it. Thanks for sharing it with all of us!
That’s not a bad idea about contacting the top brass. Has anyone done this before, and gotten anything other than a form letter (or nothing)?