.FLYINGHEAD BUYER BEWARE
.TITLE Customer disservice
.AUTHOR James Booth
.SUMMARY News Editor James Booth is pissed off, and he’s not afraid to tell you about it. Have you had crappy customer service? Then you’ll definitely understand this article.
.OTHER
What has become of customer service? I remember a time when "the customer was always right." Has consumerism in this country gotten to the point that retailers have so many customers lined up waiting for us to throw our money at them that they can be downright abusive? I don’t think so. The bankruptcy of the Kmart chain is but one example that the consumer’s dollar is at a premium. American society is no longer driven by products like it once was, but by service. What kind of service? Customer service.
.CALLOUT This is ludicrous. It’s like pulling teeth.
Let’s face it; just about everyone is filled with an over-inflated sense of his or her own importance. Not only do we enjoy being catered to, we demand it. Given this, how is it that companies, whether at a physical retail location, or an online retailer, think they can treat their customers like so much fodder for the corporate shredder?
A prime example is the patronization that Denise Watkins received at a retail electronics location. You can read more about her experience in the article "Are you being technopatronized?" (see http://www.computingunplugged.com/issues/issue200401/00001211001.html) in the January issue of Computing Unplugged.
It seems to me that what some businesses don’t realize is that without their customers, there would be no business. I cannot believe how some companies’ customer service or tech support divisions can be so deliberately obtuse and circuitous.
One well-known company (who shall remain unnamed) I called recently told me, by a recording, mind you, that their tech support staff was too busy to talk to me, that I should call back later, and that I was invited to use their email support option. I suppose that’s better than letting me sit on hold for hours on end, but neither situation should ever present itself. I believe this company needs to hire more support staff if this circumstance arises often enough to have a recorded message.
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It has been over a week and I’m still waiting for their email response. At this point, I don’t care if they ever respond. Do you want to know why? Because I solved the problem I was having with their product by replacing it with one from their largest competitor. These are the consequences of poor customer service. It took them in the neighborhood of two and a half weeks to respond, and I told them exactly how I solved the problem.
.CALLOUT That was the single shining light in a transaction that has sunk to the depths of Hades.
The occasion that prompted this article though, was the recent experience I had with a portable keyboard maker. I ordered one of their IR wireless keyboards for my Palm Tungsten T2, selecting Next Day shipping. And believe it or not, even though the order was placed at 8:30 PM, that keyboard still made it here by 10:30 AM the next morning. That was the single shining light in a transaction that has sunk to the depths of Hades.
I very rapidly determined that the keyboard did not meet my needs and requested return information from the maker via email. After 2-3 business days, I still had not received a response, so I called. I finally reached a real person after wading through the voicemail system and was given a return authorization and the email confirmation with return instructions came within minutes.
From the names and accent of the technicians, and knowing what I do of this company’s support structure, it is most likely that company’s tech support is routed to South Western Asia, probably India. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with this, but outsourcing is a topic unto itself.
I don’t care who handles my service, or where they’re located, so long as I receive service. But it sounded as though the entire support staff was working out of someone’s garage, as I could hear the staff dealing with other customers in the background. Couple this with an agent that speaks with a very difficult to understand accent, and it can make communication difficult.
I sent the package back, following all the instructions provided by the company. It was delivered, and accepted, four days later. According to this company’s return policy, returns are processed within 48 hours of receipt and credited within 5-7 business days. Well it has been two weeks and I still do not have my money back. I did eventually receive a response to my initial email requests, after the product had already been returned. Giving the system another chance, I attempted to inquire about my refund via email. I still haven’t had a response to that.
.CALLOUT It has now been another week and I still have not received my refund.
I finally called them again and spoke with another representative. Fortunately, all of the information they had regarding my transaction jived with mine. I was initially informed that refunds could take up to two complete billing cycles before the money is credited to an account. I quoted the refund policy to the operator and was put on hold while she apparently consulted with a supervisor.
She returned and told me that I should receive the refund on the next billing cycle. I inquired as to whose billing cycle she was referring to, the company’s or mine and was told that it was my billing cycle to which she referred. When I informed her that the purchase was made with a Visa Check Card, so therefore I had no billing cycle and that I had real-time access to my account, I was again placed on hold.
Upon her return, she asked that I give it another 3-4 business days to appear on my account. I thanked her for her help and concluded the call.
It has now been another week and I still have not received my refund. I think tomorrow I’ll go to my financial institution and initiate proceedings from that end to get my refund. I got my money back faster when I was the victim of fraud on eBay. This is ludicrous. It’s like pulling teeth. In the end, I had to file a reverse-charge complaint with my bank in order to get a refund.
I think this situation illustrates a rather common problem with support in general. With so many companies farming out their support divisions to other countries, service companies, or to penal institutions (yes, this does happen), the customer suffers because the support representatives really have no knowledge of the products and policies beyond what’s written in their script book, not to mention any language barriers that may exist.
I have encountered too many companies, large and small, retail and online, that just plain don’t care at all about their customers. They seem to think that we are an endless supply of dollars, ripe for the picking. And managers wonder why their revenues are down from one year to the next. Hopefully, one day soon, companies will wise up, realize that they are there to serve their customers, and go back to treating us the way we were treated by merchants forty or fifty years ago.
Back then, companies were glad to have our business because they knew there was another store right up the road selling the same thing. Those in the customer service industry, and the executives in charge of those people take note. You never know whom it is you’re dealing with on the other end of that line. You may find yourself the subject of an article similar to this one if you don’t start treating your customers like what they are, your livelihood.
.BIO James Booth is the News Editor for ZATZ Publishing. In addition to being a Contributing Editor for Computing Unplugged and Connected Photographer Magazines, he is the author of Do-It-Yourself Wedding Photography. A self-taught photographer, James also dabbles in digital graphics and has learned to be a PC and Palm specialist through personal trial and error. James can be reached at jbooth@zatz.com.
