Bad Customer Service
Now I’m going to be using Verizon in this particular argument, fair warning, but that doesn’t mean it only applies to them. In my experience, it applies to almost all companies equally.
Yesterday, we were out for 4-5 hours but when we got back, I tried to log on to my blog and couldn’t connect. In fact, I couldn’t connect to anything, the entire Internet was inaccessible. The same from my wife’s computer and the kid’s computers and the other wireless devices that accessed our central house network. Great. So I went around and rebooted computers, rebooted the FIOS router, tried to do network repair locally, etc. before I placed the call to Verizon tech support. I hate dealing with that stupid automated voice you have to talk to before they’ll allow you to get to tech support. So I call and I’m informed by that annoying voice that there is indeed an outage in my area that may be affecting my Internet. They apologize and assure me that my service will be back up by midnight on Monday.
Midnight on Monday?!?!?!? Yes, I know shit happens. Things break. Software goes kablooey. That’s fine. The problem isn’t that these unforseen misadventures inconvenience their customers, it’s that they fully expect their customers to keep paying for service they’re not receiving.
If, just for the sake of argument, I’m paying $30 a month for Internet service and something goes wrong and I’m without service, through no fault of my own, for 3 days out of the month, I shouldn’t be expected to pay $3 out of my bill. It ought to be automatic. I shouldn’t have to fight with Verizon over my bill. I’m paying for service, they’re not providing service, I shouldn’t have to pay for what they are not providing. You wouldn’t expect to go to a restaurant, order a meal, be told they’re out of it today and be charged anyhow, would you?
Unfortunately, that’s how most companies operate. You pay and if, for some reason, they can’t provide, you have to fight them to get your money back. With Verizon, they’ll set deadlines 2-3 days out to get a problem resolved. Usually, they’re really good about getting it fixed faster, but so long as your service comes up any time in that time period, they won’t give you any kind of credit whatsoever, period. They just don’t care.
The worst problem I ever had with them was after a big storm and my phone service was out entirely because they refused to adequately fix our old copper lines. We called for repair, we were told that their earliest possible appointment was 8 days. 8 days! And when I told them I expected to be compensated for loss of service for so long, I was told that no, I had accepted the repair appointment so there would be no credit to my bill. I raised hell over that one, went all the way to Presidential Appeals and finally got my credit. Apparently they expect me to be without the service I’m paying them to provide for more than 1/4 of the month and still pay full price. I think not.
Sure, I understand why they do it, they figure the consumer is stupid and lazy and if people don’t fight it, why give it to them? Unfortunately, that’s really awful customer service but… these are American companies who don’t comprehend customer service anymore anyhow, why bother? There are a couple of local restaurants we’ll never eat in again because they provide consistent horrible service. The closest Denny’s to our house leaves you sitting there forever before they bother taking your order and when they do, you’re looking at 45 minutes or more to get it. A local Coco’s does the same thing. Last time we were there, everyone else got their food, 30 minutes later I was still waiting for mine. Despite repeatedly asking where my food was, it took dragging the manager out to actually get it and he didn’t want to do anything for me for my inconvenience except give me a free dessert. Sure pal, that works…
There was a time when companies went out of their way to make sure you always had a great experience and kept coming back for more. Now, everyone is part of a monopoly and since you can’t go anywhere else, they couldn’t care less how happy you are, you’re stuck. And they wonder why people hate them? I don’t.
Luckily, in this case, the system came back up about 6 hours after I called and has worked fine ever since. I’m not going to bother them for credit for 6 hours, that would be silly. The one thing I will complain about is that I got a call this morning at 7:30am from Verizon telling me my Internet was back up. Gee thanks, never would have figured that out for myself.
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