Customer service is lacking. We all have either heard this or experienced it ourselves. It seems, however, that even when there is customer service the humanity in it is completely lost and that is sadder than having no customer service at all.
Today’s typical consumer to business relationship is nothing like it once was long ago where you knew who owned the business and spoke to him or her directly when there was a problem. Nowadays businesses are large and supply service to millions of customers which can tend to make the individual customer feel like simply a number.
Looking at customer service from the company’s point of view we have to realize that consumers are not always reliable. We all have had times where we fall behind on one bill or another for our legitimate reasons. Unfortunately, there are also consumers who fall behind for reasons that are not so justifiable and, as is the case with many thing in modern society, the minority decides the fate of the majority. This means that when the company decides to initiate new policies to prevent the “bad consumer” from taking advantage of the system, it can adversely affect the “good consumer” who does their best to stay caught up.
When the” good consumer” suddenly finds themselves in a bind and try to communicate with the business, they realize they are running into the roadblocks that were setup to deter the “bad consumer”. These can include things like:
– Automated phone systems that do not allow you to ever reach a human representative
– Human representatives that do not appear knowledgeable and simply repeat the same scripts over and over.
– Customer service representatives that may be knowledgeable and/or understanding but have absolutely no power to bypass the system or to make exceptions
Add all that on top of the fact that the good consumer already feels like only a number in a list of millions, creates a huge amount of frustration and difficulties for the good consumer.
For example, I give you my own experience. I was 1 month behind on my TV service bills and shutoff was to occur on the 1st of the upcoming month. (As with many services these days, they don’t let you get more than 2 months behind before shutting you off.) On the last week of the current month I called to get an extension as I already knew that the company did offer a small extension. The automated system, in fact, made it quite easy to get the extension which gave me until Tuesday to pay. That sounded perfect because I knew I’d get my check on Saturday.
Unfortunately for me, I did not realize that Monday was a holiday. This meant that I could not cash my check until Tuesday morning but since the system had given me until Tuesday I did not worry. Little did I realize that the system meant early in the morning Tuesday, before any banks are open. When I turned on the TV that morning the service had already been cancelled.
Well that really ticked me off. I’d been a customer with this company for over a decade and they can’t give me until after the banks open to pay? After I cashed my check I called the TV Service. First I used the regular number, lo and behold, because the account was now considered past due the automated phone prompts would not let me get anywhere without paying the bill first.
I then called another number I had on file and managed to get to a real live customer service representative. She, however, was unable to do anything for me without paying the bill first and that now meant paying the total balance due (2 months worth) rather than just the past due amount. It is the company’s policy that if your service is shut off, you have to pay the full balance due to get it reinstated.
I protested, explaining my situation – check received on Saturday, banks closed on Monday, etc. Her response, “We were open on Monday.” Little good that did me, when it was the banks that were closed on Monday! She had no power however, to bypass the policy and I ended up having to buckle down and pay the full amount due (which meant that the other bill I was going to pay with that allotted money was now going to have to wait a little longer.)
I am sure the company decided upon the “full payment to reinstate service” policy to avoid having bad customers fall behind, get shutoff, pay the past due amount, and get services turned back on again over and over in a never-ending cycle. It is extremely frustrating however, to the consumer who has a well-established long-term relationship with the business and feels that the policy is unfair.
It also saves the company money when their representatives don’t have to take extra time to study an account, examine the situation, and make a decision according to the circumstances. When there is a single policy that applies to everyone, with no exceptions, it makes things easy for the representative in that they don’t have to think. They just repeat their message and either take a payment from the consumer or disconnect them.
In the end, everyone is disconnected one way or another.
(P.S. I don’t want to hear about how I should have blown off the TV service since it is a non-essential item. As I said – we were with this company for over a 10 years and I’m not about to drop that long-term relationship now. In the past it has actually counted for some things on our behalf.)