Customer what?

Before I started my own business I was in the corporate world. I worked for big companies , one of the biggest was Caterpillar. I have to say unlike what the "Occupy" people would have you think, they were awesome. I was paid well, had excellent benefits, holidays, and training. My union mechanics even had their birthdays off. Maybe if the "occupy" people had jobs with these big companies they would see that they aren't all bad.

But , I digress, I work mainly through a website that provides call connections to people all over the world. They were recently taken over by AT&T. There were always tech issues, and it seemed like no one cared when we complained. When AT&T took over, I thought , hey maybe this will be a good thing. Boy was I wrong. It got better for a New York Minute, then went downhill.

There were two times recently that I wanted to shake someone. The first was when I posted on the bulletin board that callers were complaining that they couldn't get through to us and that when I tried to call to reset my line, there was dead air. Nothing. The repsonse on the bulletin board was....Did you call in to leave a message for a tech?

I felt like saying "Here's your sign!". Duh, no, gee I didn't even think of trying to call you on the dead lines. That was a dream I had that I was just talking about, where I tried to call in and got dead air, gee I will call ya right now!

Really?  And that was just a few days ago.

Last night, I called customer service to tell them my customer records were all kinds of messed up ,one issue was that an old caller who called many times was listed as "new". We get credit for repeat callers, so I wanted my list fixed, and to let them know there is a database issue. This was one of SIX issues I found, most likely all tied to the same problem somewhere. When I said, this is a caller of mine, he isn't showing....they said (and remember this is customer service), "Prove it.".

WHAT!? Are you freaking kidding me? How the hell do I prove something disappeared that was there?  I said, go into his records and see if it is still there on his end. They said "We can't tell you what is in his records". I said...I don't want to know what is in his records, I just want you to see there is an issue. Response: Sorry, prove it.

This is bad, very bad, so I wrote to their manager, we will see if I get a response. The next step is writing to corporate at AT&T, I am not even going to bother wasting my time on the phone with them. The good news is that there are other options on the horizon, and there are also other avenues for me to go down, I don't have to bang my head in the wall anymore. They are all opening up next year, and hopefully I will be able to jump on board. Since the company that processes my calls right now gets 40% of my earnings, they will have to fire a person or two, I hope they start with the man who told me "prove it".

I have worked in customer service much in my life. It sucks. It really does. You deal with at least one idiot a day who is rude and makes themselves feel bigger, and better by belittling the poor CS person, but they have created monsters, and the service has left customer service high and dry.

Meanwhile , to the marketing genius who told me to call in my problem on the dead line.....Here's your sign!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ZkdHImCuQ&ob=av3n


Peshaui Wequashimese


(C) 2011 Dr. R M Wolf. May not be used, copied or reproduced without prior written permission