Now I'm usually a mild mannered laid back sort of guy. I'm patient and give people the benefit of the doubt.
This week I had an opportunity to complain vigorously.
Let me back up a bit. It's income tax time. I do my own income tax. I had gone through all tax slips and decided that I was ready to roll. Well the day's mail brought one more tax slip. Now the slip was a week late but more than that a very important figure was missing on the slip.
The micro manager phoned the company responsible for the slip. She hung up on the first person she tried to talk to. Well, I told her to hang up and she hung up gracefully like, "Thank you very much but we're not accomplishing anything!"
The next guy was awesome and told us the company had not put the figure on the slips for the last two years. He also told us to contact the local bank and they could print the statement and it would include the missing number.
Okay , all we have to do is phone the local branch. So first call we get an answering machine. .Well, try one of the extension numbers. Leave a message, Another extension number and still no answer. Leave a message. My third and last extension number and you guessed it. Leave a message. On top of this their message said they would get back to us within 24 hours. Now for some strange reason the Micro Manager thinks that if you phone back and leave another message there might be a reply. So she went through all the numbers again and left messages again.
So after this run around we're a little testy.
The next morning the manager phoned. To put it mildly, she was a jerk. She had no idea how to print out the statement we wanted. Further more she was perturbed that we were telling her what to do. She said she'd have to phone to find out what to do and would do it later and that next week she was on holidays so we wouldn't get an answer for a week. The Micro Manager pressed harder for the statement to be printed that day. The manager actually grew testy. There was no other way to do the process according to her.
Well the Micro Manager went down to the bank at 2:00 Pm as she had told the manager she'd be there and the statement better be ready.
As the MM was standing in the bank an employee asked her if she could help. The MM explained what she wanted. The employee said , I'll see what I can do. Five minutes later the statement was printed.
So what was the problem with the snooty bank manager. The manager could have solved the problem in less than half the time she spent talking to us. She only had to look for five minutes!
Customer service? First: Answer your damn phone. Second: learn some manners on how to deal with people.
I was a little bent out of shape after this incident.
Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Friday, March 9, 2018
Thursday, October 6, 2016
BIZARRE EVENT
Sometimes things happen that are very hard to believe. Such an event happened to us this week.
10:00 AM Tues. morning I answered a call from a furniture store. Call display said name unavailable. They said they had something at the store for us. I said just a minute you can talk to my wife. I wondered if she might have asked about something in the store.
Well, it turned out that they had a table waiting for us to pick up!!! We hadn't been to the store for years. They were insistent that we bought a table 3 days ago. No we didn't. They asked if maybe we had forgotten! My wife told them that she remembered that she definitely had not been in the store.They had all our information and that we had used a debit card. Now this story was really starting to stink. They were pushy and insisted we pick up the table. We were confused. We thought maybe someone was pranking us like sending a pizza order to the house.These people were aggressive. They told us to check our account and see if anything had been taken out of it. One person said the table had been paid for and the other one said the table had not been paid for. Neither one of them backed down and said there might be a mistake. The call ended with my wife saying she would contact the police. They did not hesitate.
Now we knew some things were wrong. We don't have a debit card? That really raised our level of suspicion and anxiety.
My wife did call the police and talked to a very helpful officer. She suggested contacting the manager before going further. We had been reluctant to call the manager for if he had been in on the scam.
We did contact the manager and he said he would check it and get back to us. Several hours later he called back . He had solved the problem. A telephone number is used to call up all your information like address, names and more. The table was paid for. So what the manager found was that the phone number the sales man entered had one incorrect digit which of course, made it our phone number. The manager was much better than his staff. He explained the problem and apologized and we were much relieved. Then he had to trace down the people who had bought and paid for the table.
If the first clowns had taken a deep breath and thought for one second that they might be wrong they may have prevented the situation from escalating. They really made us suspicious. We didn't know if it was a scam.
After two days it was a relief to have things solved.
10:00 AM Tues. morning I answered a call from a furniture store. Call display said name unavailable. They said they had something at the store for us. I said just a minute you can talk to my wife. I wondered if she might have asked about something in the store.
Well, it turned out that they had a table waiting for us to pick up!!! We hadn't been to the store for years. They were insistent that we bought a table 3 days ago. No we didn't. They asked if maybe we had forgotten! My wife told them that she remembered that she definitely had not been in the store.They had all our information and that we had used a debit card. Now this story was really starting to stink. They were pushy and insisted we pick up the table. We were confused. We thought maybe someone was pranking us like sending a pizza order to the house.These people were aggressive. They told us to check our account and see if anything had been taken out of it. One person said the table had been paid for and the other one said the table had not been paid for. Neither one of them backed down and said there might be a mistake. The call ended with my wife saying she would contact the police. They did not hesitate.
Now we knew some things were wrong. We don't have a debit card? That really raised our level of suspicion and anxiety.
My wife did call the police and talked to a very helpful officer. She suggested contacting the manager before going further. We had been reluctant to call the manager for if he had been in on the scam.
We did contact the manager and he said he would check it and get back to us. Several hours later he called back . He had solved the problem. A telephone number is used to call up all your information like address, names and more. The table was paid for. So what the manager found was that the phone number the sales man entered had one incorrect digit which of course, made it our phone number. The manager was much better than his staff. He explained the problem and apologized and we were much relieved. Then he had to trace down the people who had bought and paid for the table.
If the first clowns had taken a deep breath and thought for one second that they might be wrong they may have prevented the situation from escalating. They really made us suspicious. We didn't know if it was a scam.
After two days it was a relief to have things solved.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
The Runaround
Like many people I have had a security light at my front door for a few years. For the last two years it would come on often ans stay on for for five or ten minutes. So I turned the light off. A few nights ago when it was Halloween, I wanted a light on so the kids could see where they're going. The light wouldn't come on.
So it's time to get a new light.
There was a ten year warranty on this light. My manager keeps all receipts and product information. So the next day she phoned the outlet we bought the light from. For most products, like lights, you take them back to the store and get a new one.
Now starts the runaround. She phoned the store. After a few false starts she finally got to customer service. The Bozo told her the store didn't exchange these lights and she would have to deal with the company. So he gave her a phone number that was wrong. We looked on the product booklet and found a number. Again runaround. You get one person and get put on hold and the line goes dead. Phone back again and somebody acts really dumb. Phone back again and get warranty. They say they don't look after this and you have to go to the technicians. Okay , the technicians say yes they look after warranty. The technician wanted us to put black tape over some eye and try it for a week and if it worked he would send us a gizmo for a permanent fix. If it didn't work, he'd give us a new one.
Then my manager looked at the warranty again and it said , "Take the product back to the store for an exchange." So phone back to the store with the lousy phone system. This time customer service put her through to electrical. The person in electrical said, "Sure, they'd exchange. Just bring it in."
So after a couple of 8 hour days work we finally got our security light exchanged.
The product had a nice fat ten year warranty. I really think the companies work on the theory that the customer will not look at the warranty and when the product quits the customer will go out and buy a new one.
What a runaround!
Have you had similar problems with stores, phone systems or warranties?
So it's time to get a new light.
There was a ten year warranty on this light. My manager keeps all receipts and product information. So the next day she phoned the outlet we bought the light from. For most products, like lights, you take them back to the store and get a new one.
Now starts the runaround. She phoned the store. After a few false starts she finally got to customer service. The Bozo told her the store didn't exchange these lights and she would have to deal with the company. So he gave her a phone number that was wrong. We looked on the product booklet and found a number. Again runaround. You get one person and get put on hold and the line goes dead. Phone back again and somebody acts really dumb. Phone back again and get warranty. They say they don't look after this and you have to go to the technicians. Okay , the technicians say yes they look after warranty. The technician wanted us to put black tape over some eye and try it for a week and if it worked he would send us a gizmo for a permanent fix. If it didn't work, he'd give us a new one.
Then my manager looked at the warranty again and it said , "Take the product back to the store for an exchange." So phone back to the store with the lousy phone system. This time customer service put her through to electrical. The person in electrical said, "Sure, they'd exchange. Just bring it in."
So after a couple of 8 hour days work we finally got our security light exchanged.
The product had a nice fat ten year warranty. I really think the companies work on the theory that the customer will not look at the warranty and when the product quits the customer will go out and buy a new one.
What a runaround!
Have you had similar problems with stores, phone systems or warranties?
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