Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with companies and their severe lack of acceptable customer service these days? I generally don’t like to use such strong language but it’s just sickening the hoops us customers have to jump through to get anything done satisfactorily. I could probably go on for days about my recent trails and tribulations so I’ll try and keep it short (and I likely won’t).
Domain – IPower & OnlineNIC
You probably noticed this site went down for a few days due to domain expiration. My domain was free and renewed automatically as long as my host had registrar duties… so I had no reason to even think about a potential expiration. Basically my site host, who I’d transfered registrar powers of my domain to, moved to another registrar and left mine behind. Since they didn’t tell me they moved and didn’t give the old registrar any of my contact info, my domain was out in limbo.
Freaked out that someone was in the process of sniping a domain I’ve had for the last 7 years, I start out on a phone campaign. I spent 45 minutes on hold to get IPower’s support only to find out they couldn’t help me and I needed to contact the old registrar. A dozen (no exaggeration) emails, some scanning and faxing (yes, faxing) and I’ve set up a reseller account with the old registrar. They “welcomed” me for contacting them every email I sent (I couldn’t make this shit up) and eventually renewed the domain for a year at the tune of $26. (ouch!)
The end result wass no site, which isn’t that big of a deal except we just sent out a link to our Japan pictures, and no email for 4 of us using the domain… which is a much bigger deal for various reasons. My host should have informed me of the change and the registrar shouldn’t require me to send 14 emails and two faxes just to renew my damned domain name. Two days to renew a domain is really pretty unacceptable.
Watch – Jared
You already know about the Jared debacle so I’m not going to go into that again. I can update that situation to say I got a call from Jared’s home office saying they were sorry. “If you’d like to discuss this matter further please feel free to call me back.” Call you back? I took the time to write you a freaking letter, the least you can do is take more than 30 seconds to leave a message on my machine. Make me feel like you want my business if you actually care, which you probably don’t.
Credit Card – Chase VISA
If you’ve been paying attention, you know our credit card was compromised the night before we left for Japan. Now I should preface this by saying they refunded the $600 in purchases and blocked another $1100 from going through so I have no complaints there. Since “emergency card replacement” is one of our supposed benefits, I called Chase and explained we were leaving for Japan the next day and were depending on it to travel with.
They offered to overnight the card but since we were leaving at 9 am to catch a plane, it wasn’t going to get to us in time. They then said they could send it ahead to our hotel in Japan, they just needed the address. “Wow, that’s pretty cool” I think, impressed they can pull something like that off. Actually, they said I had to “call back in a few hours because the system is updating” and couldn’t enter any information into my account. I called back, had to explain the entire story over again to someone else and gave address of the hotel in Tokyo.
I was then informed customs could take up to five days and asked if I would still be at that address around then. Since we were scheduled to spend 4 days in Tokyo, I decided to change the address to our hotel in Kyoto… where we would be until the morning of day 9. Chase doesn’t control customs and we can wait a week so no big deal, right? Fast forward six days, we’re in Kyoto and there’s no card. I call them, collect, and ask for a status. I’m told the card was sent a mere two days ago, via regular mail and they didn’t know when it would arrive. Needless to say, we left Kyoto three days later without the credit card that was headed there with our names on it.
I ended up calling them a few days later (not collect because our ryokan didn’t offer it) to cancel the replacement and get another sent to our house. Of course this took two calls because the first person I spoke to just forwarded me to a voice message system saying their offices were currently closed. The card would show up the Wednesday after we got back so not only did it cost us money in phone calls to make straight, we didn’t earn any miles for our purchases. Pretty efficient card replacement!
FiOS – Verizon
I’ve been trying to order FiOS since the beginning of February (minus 2 weeks in Japan). I know we’re eligible but every time I tried to order it online, I got an error message after picking the package I wanted. I used their IM support twice and the end result of both very drawn out conversations were that there was likely a technical issue. Well, one of them did tell me to try using Internet Exploder [sic] after I told them I was “unable to order in both IE and Firefox from three different machines in two different locations.” I searched for Internet Exploder on the internet but that must be some fancy browser that’s only available for secret download, ’cause it’s nowhere to be found.
After finally giving up I decided to call Verizon on the phone. I navigate through the menus and am informed there are 65 calls ahead of mine and my wait time was 19 minutes. I’m waiting 19 minutes to order their product? How can that be good business practice? Anyway, 32 minutes later I’m connected with someone who is eventually able to tell me my phone number is linked to an address that isn’t mine. He says he can place the order for FiOS for me but urges that I correct the address issue the following day when the local office is open.
Oh but wait, the web promotion isn’t available to people who call in and if I want FiOS I’m going to pay $48/month instead of $43 and I won’t get the first month free or the $10 off months 2 through 7. He then has the nerve to ask if he should go ahead and sign me up. I’m still confused about the part where I’d choose to pay more because of an account issue on their side. The following day I called the local office, which is located in WV (wtf?), and they didn’t see a single problem with my account. The address was right and they were able to set me up with a decent package that includes unlimited long distance and the FiOS 5/2.
Aren’t companies supposed to make barrier to entry as low as possible for their customers? Certainly the ones I get junk mail about every other day should be. They’re lucky I hate cable so much and have a superior product or they wouldn’t have gotten my business. I can’t imagine someone less obsessive going through all this just to get FiOS. I know the install is going to be a nightmare and I’ve already accepted that.
Good Service
Just to prove I’m not one of those people who are impossible to please, here are a few companies whose customer service is/was a pleasure to deal with.
- Blue Nile – They are simply the cream of the crop folks. They’re pleasant, competent and they seem to really care about satisfying their customers. I really have a hard time buying jewelry anywhere else.
- Microsoft – Seriously? Yes, seriously. I’ve dealt with them because of two separate issues; a wireless router and my XBox Live account. Both times they were courteous, helpful and able to provide a satisfactory resolution. The router was even out of warranty and they still helped me. That’s pretty amazing if you ask me.
- Netgear – Dealt with someone in India on Thanksgiving Day when my sister’s router wouldn’t set up properly. They helped me fix it without treating me like a total idiot and even wished me a happy Thanksgiving.
- Wachovia – Every single time I’ve dealt with this company I’m pleased. I’ve worked with both corporate customer support and local branch employees on a somewhat regular basis and their commitment to service is downright impressive. I expect a lot from my financial institution and they’ve always delivered. Ironically, I got a call from Gallup tonight following up on my most recent experience with the branch office and I had nothing but good things to say.
- Dell – Warranty re-image of a two year old laptop and calling back to make sure everything worked out okay… check. Ordering the wife a laptop at 5 pm last Friday and getting it Monday… check.
I feel like I should close this out with some eternal words of wisdom but I have nothing. Instead I’m just going to say thanks to reading if you made it this far and thanks for coming back after the DNS issues. Make sure you read Saturday’s post, you may not have before the domain crapped out.
“Internet Exploder” was the internal codename of the failed AOL browser circa 2003. Good thing I was there to prevent it from being released after pouring over many gigs of Talkback crash data. (so nerdy – only you’ll get it)
I’m saddened that you didn’t bother to link my recent post on customer service. I truly do not know how this all suddenly came to be… I think it has to do with the Internet age and people just losing touch of people. On the other hand, some people get it… As you stated, Blue Nile seems money (I just have a lot of trouble buying diamonds that I can’t see in person), a lot of ebayers are money… Example: Customer pays shipping on an item (that is a service), seller is delayed for whatever reason on shipping item out, seller feels obligated to refund all shipping charges. True story… I was the seller 😛 I’m a good person.
I’d actually forgotten about that post, or I woulda linked.
My email is just now starting to trickle back in. DNS propagation is annoying.