"In the Greco-Roman world during the height of the Roman empire, individual nation-states were weak, and large cities (Rome, Corinth, Ephesus) operated virtually as independent city-states. Cities, not national governments, ruled the world. Today, technology and mobility are again weakening the control nation states have on their own territory. It is becoming impossible to control the flow of information or capital in and out of countries. Multi-national corporations operate out of major cities but do not submit to or serve the interests of any country."
--Tim Keller, "Advancing the Gospel into the 21st Century"
It baffles my mind how ridiculous some corporations and companies really are. The bigger they get, the harder they are to manage. And one thing always suffers: customer service. Of course I will name names, but I will not recount our story in detail because it would take too long. Suffice it say: "Oh yes we will have your stuff set up for you on Sat March 1--they day you move, no problem" (Feb 8); "Oh no, I am sorry, people do not work on Sat.'s. We can get you someone next Wednesday" (Feb 28);
"A manager, no sorry you can't talk to a manager, but they can't do anything anyway...(10 mins later) Oh yes I guess my manager can do something for you, his name is Frank here is his personal line, someone can come out today and get it done for you" (March 3);
"I am sorry you sat around all day waiting for someone to come and hook your stuff up...no one came you say?" (March 3) "Yeah I don't know why Frank didn't call you back...but we can book a person to come...the first available time is Saturday" (Oh so people do work Saturday's now! So when were you lying last week or now?);
"Well sir..." No I am asking a direct question that has two options: do people work Saturdays or not? "Well, we only have one guy who does your area, and he can't come until Saturday." But you said he doesn't work on Saturdays before. Okay, let me just talk to a manager. "We can't do that sir."
What do you mean you can't do that? You mean you won't do that! You are a multi-billion dollar telecommunications company of which I am a customer and you are saying I cannot talk to a manager, nor can you send someone out to hook up the very service you exist provide! You exist for no other reason than to do this one thing--and you have one guy who does it for my area?
"Well we would have to send someone out to you all the way from Vancouver sir."
All the way from Vancouver? Can I ask you a question? Where are sitting right now?
"Calgary."
Calgary! Well that is helpful. Do you know how far my town is from Vancouver? Do you know how long it would take a Telus guy to drive to my town?
"No sir, I do not."
Twenty minutes.
"Twenty minutes?"
Yes.
"Oh. Well I don't see why that shouldn't be able to happen."
But it won't will it?
"...........probably not."
So, one month after letting this massive telecommunications corporation know that we are moving to a new house and we will need telephone, internet and television in our new home by March 1 we are without it, and without it until Saturday (the day no one supposedly works!),
They told us even yesterday they would be coming (never happened), calling (never happened) and consulting (yeah right!). These people are paid to never let us talk to a manager, never let us off contracts we have signed even if they are negligent, and never to just provide a basic service to their customers--they are too removed from reality, they don't understand life. That we don't have time to sit on the phone with them, sit at home and wait for them, and when we do commit that time they show us great disrespect for not showing up or even calling.
This is a company that made $400 million dollars in profit just in the fourth quarter of 2007! And guess what city they are based out of...Guess. Vancouver.
First off, care about your customers more. Don't talk to them as if they are at fault when the fault clearly lies with the company--it is the oldest play in the book: reverse psychology and manipulation. Talk with enough angst in your voice and confuse the situation until the customer thinks its their fault to take the heat off the company. The only way this useless, disaster of a company got off the hot-seat yesterday was (frustratingly!) because when they had put my wife on hold for the tenth time to "check something" our phone rain out of batteries. If it hadn't she would still be on the phone with them trying to get an allusive manager.
All of this confusion, this chaos these big companies create for the little guy, the red tape, the made-up confusing explanations of reasons for problems for things that have simply solutions (not enough guys in the area, useless people booking moving dates, breakdown in communication), is reason for me to ask: why? Why can't they just be helpful, provide their customers with basic services? Why does everything need to be a big friggin' mess all the time with these people? Have you ever had a normal quick conversation with telecommunications companies?
I understand more and more why the argument against big corporations is quality of service. The guy at Walmart does not know how to fix your car, know what kind of cat food your new kitty needs, how to fit you in a pair of jeans, buy you new snow tires and help counsel your family while, not matter how they market themselves. The guy at Best Buy sometimes has no idea what he is talking about! (Believe me I used to work in retail and I would lie all the time when I didn't know the answer to something, which was every day).
The human element disappears in the big lights of corporate mergers, and we, the customer always get the short end of the stick when it comes to customer service. I know there are great advantages to these massive companies and they services they are able to provide as well, but customer service is not one of them.
"We can't send someone out from Vancouver." What a joke.
5 comments:
Holy crap that would be frustrating.
I've hated them for years. I had pretty much the same problems when moving from Tsawwassen to Vancouver and trying to get set up. Corporate policies are often not well-thought out, and sometimes downright stupid. That's frustrating, although I feel bad sometimes for the people on the phone who have to follow the company's policies just to keep their jobs yet take all the criticism and complaints from the customers and are scared to admit how dumb they really think they are. Oi, I hope people in the church that work for Telus don't have much company loyalty/don't read this blog.
I very much pitty your plight with Telus. But know that you are not alone in this area of immense frustration. In the past 6 months of being a loyal subscriber to Fido I have tried many times to get on-line billing set up so I don't have to wait sometimes over a month to get my invoices delivered to me (the invoice printing is probably outsourced to Iran for all I know). So yea after about 6 phone calls with all different people, explaining a massive story of how the Fido.ca website is majorly flawed and I am unable to make an account and get online billing started I began to grow tired and realized that there are more important things in life so I've left it on the backburner... This is the problem though, these companies all want us to do this, and they know that most of us will... after we try and try and devote hours of our precious time into sorting out what should take a 15 minute phone call MAXIMUM we begin to realize our priorities and start to live with our shoddy service and forget about it.
Your post has reinstilled some fire in me to talk to Fido... and probably more than just talk... voices may well be raised and unpleasant tones of voice used to convey my disgust with big business and particularly the way they treat their numbers... wait i mean customers.. no wait i dont because to Fido and Telus we arent customers anymore... we are just a number.. a statistic... a demographic... oh this kid is 21 years old therefore he probably uses text messaging therefore we should bombard him with calls from our 877 number to coerce him into signing up for some ridiculous value pack that will save him 6 dollars but also cost him about 6 hours of his life in calling us back to cancel for these services that he will never use!!! If i work a minumum wage job, and on a training wage that 6 hours is 6x6 = 36 dollars.... 6 times the amount i would save by signing up for this awesome value pack....
have you spoken to blue cross lately? they're loads of fun too. :) i can't imagine the elderly navigating through their phone system. and don't even get me started on social assistance in france, i get a letter every month asking me to send in my birth certificate, which apparantly can be found on the french government website - except that i'm not french - AND i already sent it in MONTHS ago. i thought i finally sorted it out when i went in personally, but today i got a letter asking me for the canadian equivalent of a french birth certificate (it's a step up but they're kidding right?), and a baptismal certificate? i'm leaving in a month and i'm starting to wonder if i'll ever get this much needed money, and, i still don't even have health insurance. have you seen "the corporation?" why do we put up with this? revolution i say. :p
way too bad!!!
you can watch surviver lost over here if you need too:0)
Leah
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