Tuesday, August 15, 2006
what is happening to customer service? yesterday evening i had a manicure and pedicure to reward myself for working extra long hours the past month. everything was higher at this place, but it is worth it because they seem to clean and sterilise the equipment that they use. you get what you pay for i guess. it was $1 extra to use a card, but i am doing that until i get my (delayed) paycheck. then they asked me if i wanted to put the tip on the card or pay it in cash. you *ask* for tips now? well, the job was only half done, (they do your fingernails after you pay, so you don't mess them up) so this time i was tipping out of fear and obligation, which isn't as rewarding. imagine if waitresses asked for their tips before they brought the food and fast food places asked for tips before handing you your food. anyway, i expected quality as a result. but somehow, between then and this morning, all of the paint had chipped off my fingernails, though my toenails were fine. i can't think of anything i did that could have caused that.last night i also tried to make a mobile payment online 4 times, and 4 times it said my zip code was wrong and declined the payment. i called the credit card customer service and explained that this has happened before and the zip code that i give them matches the one they have for me...so it must be a problem with the phone company? i decided to deal with it in the morning when the offices would be open. then i called to cancel magazine subscriptions that some company started sending me before i start getting charged. it was automated, and i had to listen to all of the deals that i might be missing then find my way through this series of puzzles, "i want to make sure that i cancel this correctly, would you like us to cancel but send you all of your remaining subscriptions and then start the new term?" i somehow managed to JUST cancel 2 subscriptions successfully, so when it got to the third one, i kept saying the name of the magazine and the system "didn't recognise it"...according to this card that i got in the mail and according to this system, i only had 2 subscriptions, but i am receiving 3 unwanted subscriptions with my name misspelled the same way on all of them! finally, i got to talk to a real person and explained that there should be a third magazine, but it is showing no more to cancel. she said sometimes they just forward you to someone after cancelling 2 to "make sure you do it right," (by that does she mean to keep you from successfully cancelling the last one?) i actually wasn't forwarded to a real person until after the system told me 3 times that i had cancelled all of the subscriptions. she wouldn't tell me why it was telling me that, but she found the last subscription and cancelled it (only after repeating what the system had already said twice about all of the deals and the puzzle you have to get through to cancel the subscription). by now it was 4 a.m., and i felt like i had wasted most of the day accomplishing very little.
this morning, i went to have my nails fixed, then to a meeting about my future teaching job, then back to my office where i have a land line, since i can't afford the 900 peak minute plan that i need to call customer service numbers between 9-5. i spent about 30 minutes cancelling something else, then an hour calling the mobile company and the credit card. the credit card assured me that they had authorized 4 payments (for $1) last night, and i said that isn't the amount *i* authorised when making the payments! i finally got someone to explain that authorisations are always for $1, and you are charged whatever amount the company sends when they receive authorisation from the credit card. if the company somehow charges you a wrong amount, you can dispute it. this is about the most ineffective system that could possibly exist! why not just take whatever amount you authorise to begin with? so i called the mobile company to see if they would "accept the authorisation" with a payment by phone. they must have tried about 3 or 4 times and said "it isn't authorized." but when i called the credit card again, it *was* (now 7 times!) this went on for an hour before the credit card advised that i go to one of the mobile stories in person and have *them* call and get an authorization from them. they also suggested that i contact my post office to see if this is my real zip code??? going to the mobile store seemed to be the only thing left that made sense. at this point, i didn't know if i would be charged $7 and a late fee for not making a payment or over $500? for several payments that have been authorized. i had asked the credit card if i would be charged all of these payments, which would ruin my available credit, and they said only if the mobile company sends that to them. is this how all credit cards work? i usually just run it or type in my number, and i think that amount goes directly to the card. anyway, the store wouldn't call the credit card customer service. they called their own customer service people??? those people eventually called the credit card for me and we were on the phone for 2 hours between them and e-services? they figured out that the problem is in the mobile company's website, and they are going to "run a ticket" to find out the problem. i can check back in a couple weeks to see what they find. in the meantime, they asked me to try to pay in the store. if i had known i could do that, i would have 2 hours ago!!!!!
it is now 8 p.m., and in the last 2 days, i have only managed to accomplish this : cancel things i never asked for in the first place and make one online payment. i would like to become an engineer and fix problems like these, but then i realised they must be the ones hired to cause these problems so that companies can brag about their customer service people? i never had problems like this when i mailed in my payments. i think i will go back to doing that (and as much else as possible) the way i did things 15 years ago. i really would like to live like it's 2006 and like it, i just don't understand it, people seem greedy, careless, and dishonest, i can't seem to buy anything without some unwanted disaster attached, and things considered to be improved seem worse. things are "faster" but take more of my time, people work longer hours, are stressed, and have less time to raise their families, and nothing seems to be safe. i'm looking for a bright side, but i can't find one.
madame le professeur at 6:57 PM
