I know that there is nothing worse than listening to people who weren't born in the States moan about the fact that the US isn't aware that anything exists outside its own borders.
Well, I admit that this is a slight exaggeration, but when it comes to getting international service from a cell phone company, it might as well be true.
I am going to Europe for a couple of weeks - bon voyage everyone! - and I wanted to get international email service on my Blackberry. Personally, I think it should be automatically available, but that is just me.
So I went to the customer service center - a nightmare in itself - only to be told that they couldn't add the feature for me, I had to go to the special 'INTERNATIONAL' division. So having waited a lifetime to get to customer service, I had to wait another lifetime - I am practicing to be a cat with nine lives - to reach someone in the international division.
When I finally got through, I told them what I wanted and they said that they couldn't start the service on my departure date - why not for goodness sake? - they had to start it immediately, charging me almost double for the days that I was still going to be in the States.
When I asked what I had to do to only pay for the days I was away, the customer service rep. told me to call back when I was about to leave.
So.......I was about to hang up in frustration, when the woman I was talking to asked me if she had resolved my problem. Huh? "Well....no" I replied.
This seemed to catch her off guard because she had obviously been told to ask that question no matter what the circumstances and to expect a standard 'yes' as a response.
I guess I threw her off kilter, but she certainly ruined my day so I guess we are even!
1 comment:
How frustrating! (And alas, not so uncommon.) It's sadly ironic that companies spend so much money marketing to prospects to bring them in the door, only to do this sort of thing to them after they're customers. Even sadder is the likelihood that the marketing department and the C-suite are completely unaware that these things are occurring in their company.
The silver lining, I suppose, is that this sort of thing makes small businesses look pretty attractive. If you're talking to just one or two people, it's a lot more likely the left hand knows what the right hand is doing, so to speak. (Of course, that's not to say all small businesses is stellar, but many *are* outstanding at client service, and this sort of customer experience gives them a fighting chance.)
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