TheBanyanTree: A customer service story

[Monique Colver]

Just clearing my head today. Also here:
http://open.salon.com/blog/moniquec/2009/09/30/astounding_customer_service

There are more pressing issues, but we'll go into those at a later
time. Today we'll focus on a recent experience that has all the
hallmarks of being perpetrated by Satan, if one were to believe in
such a guy, which I don't, at least not in the traditional method.

In my household, we are heavily reliant upon the wonders of
technology, to include Internet. Without Internet, my charming husband
cannot work, and if he cannot work, he has two choices: he can drive
three hours, one way, to show up at his office, where he can work, or
he can call in and not get paid. Since we tend to rely upon modern
necessities like food and shelter, we find the second option to be
generally unworkable, and the first option to be rather time
consuming. Three hours doesn't sound like much, does it? At least not
until he gets done working and has to drive home again. And me? I love
me my Internet. It makes it possible to rarely leave my house and
still get massive amounts of work done, for which I am also
compensated, thereby helping to feed our shelter and sustenance
habits.

A couple of months ago, more or less, our Internet went bad. There was
much throwing up of hands in despair (on my part) and muttered
grumblings of curses upon the heads of our Internet provider (his
part). (The dogs, for the record, didn't care one way or another.)
After several calls to the Internet provider and tests of the system,
as they so aptly called it, they decided our modem was bad.

And so they sent us another modem.

This would seem to solve the problem, if it weren't for the fact that
they sent the wrong one.

When we called, again, they realized their error and sent another.

Several days later we were up and running like normal people again, if
by normal one means slightly crazed and disorganized.

Life continued in this fine fashion for approximately two months. And
then our Internet started acting up. It wouldn't work. It would work
intermittently. It would work on mine but not his, or on his but not
mine, or on a laptop but not on the ones we're actually doing most of
our work on. It was not a good situation.

The provider (and I use the term loosely) was called. There was,
again, much testing.

“Oh,” they said with all the attitude of someone who doesn't care in
the least, “Your modem's bad. We'll have to send another one.”

This was not welcome news. We could tell it was bad, it wasn't as if
it was any kind of secret. So charming husband asked the most obvious
question: “How do we know this one will work? We've had two bad ones,
and one that was just the wrong one altogether. So three bad ones so
far?”

“Oh,” they said, reading from their patented script, “We won't know
until you get it and plug it in.”

Now this, while honest in a way that set my cold little heart beating
rapidly, was not a good answer. It was, honestly, stupid. Stupid and
honest.

They also honestly told us that they'd have to charge us $10 or $20
for shipping each modem, whether it was good or bad, whether it was
the right modem or the wrong modem, and that it would, again, take a
couple of days to arrive.

It's okay, it's not like we work EVERY DAY, right?

But we'd had enough, and we'd thought of switching to cable anyway, so
as soon as charming husband got off the phone he called the cable
people. This turned out to be a rather amazing phone call. It was
morning still, and the cable people said they'd have someone out that
very afternoon to take care of it. How astounding! Same day service!

Sure enough, the cable guy showed up and set it up, and we had
reliable Internet, just like that.

The next day charming husband called the original provider to cancel
service. They asked why we were cancelling. Uhm, because your modems
don't work?

Then they told us they had this new fabulous Internet service
available in selected areas. Husband asked, “Is it available in my
area?”

“Well, no,” the incompetent agent responded.

“Then what good will it do me?”

There was no response for a moment, and then this: “I notice you don't
have long distance service, we have great rates on long distance . .
.”

We don't use long distance. We only have the phone since charming
husband's work requires it, but it only goes through his place of
employment, so it's not as if we NEED long distance. When that was
pointed out, the fabulous agent responded with, “But you might want it
someday.”

Yes, and I might also want to, someday, visit Antarctica, but it's not
something I need to start paying for now, is it, given the likelihood
that I won't want to at all?

Then there was the conversation about the shipping charges. When
charming husband balked on paying shipping for the modems that didn't
work, the agent responded with, “But we did ship them to you.”

“Well, yes, but one was the wrong one altogether, and then you shipped
one that didn't work.”

“But we DID ship them to you, didn't we?”

I think I see a fabulous new business opportunity. I'm going to bundle
up my trash and ship it to my former Internet provider, then send them
a bill. When they question it, I'll respond, “But I did ship it to
you, didn't I?”

There's no arguing with logic like that, is there?




-- 
Monique Colver