I talked about my ever so exciting problems with my cell phone provider a while back. Well, today I shall conclude the tale.
Taking careful notes, I called T-mobile up and went through the process of getting in touch with costumer service. The nice person I talked to explained that since a supervisor had already made a decision that only another supervisor could reverse it. So I was put on hold to wait for a supervisor.
After being on hold for about twenty minutes I was abruptly disconnected.
Having spent nearly half an hour dealing with this already, I took a deep breath and tried again, hoping to pick up where I left off. Unfortunately T-mobile’s ever-so-helpful routing service sent me to some other call center where no one had ever heard of the people I had just talked to. Further, they were either unable or simply unwilling to transfer me to a whichever center I had been connected to before.
Thus I explain the entire situation again because the call-taker would not transfer me to a supervisor without an explanation (and she was not nice about it). In fact, she came across, perhaps unintentionally, as accusatory. There was a very strong “It’s all your fault and I feel absolutely no desire in helping you resolve this situation so please stop wasting my time” vibe.
Eventually she put me on hold to talk to her supervisor. I was on hold for a while, and then abruptly disconnected.
I began to sense a pattern.
Discouraged and mentally exhausted, I stopped for the day.
A while later I call back. I am forced, once again, to explain my situation before anyone will transfer me to a supervisor. Once again I am placed on hold until I am forcibly disconnected. It is at this point that I decide there must be some standard policy used to make people go away, and it involves not talking to them over and over and over until they get fed up and go home. I recognize that this is probably highly effective (especially since they can blame it on system errors rather than intent), but it really pisses me off.
I called again. This time I actually reached someone I believed cared about me. After all the previous calls it was quite refreshing and made me grin. Instead of just asking my situation he read my file and talked through the salient points with me. Then he asked me to hold while he put his supervisor on.
She was also extremely nice and helpful. We talked about options for a bit. She was pretty firm that she wasn’t going to reverse the decision made earlier, and that she doubted anyone would, but she actually sounded like she cared about the situation while staying professional. Then she asked me if I would like her to see what sort of credit she could get me. She was the absolute first person to offer this.
I suspect that I A) didn’t hold out for a larger credit, and B) didn’t keep harassing her precisely because she was calming to talk to. I did get a credit, knocking down the bill to something a bit more manageable. That was nice.
But other than that last call the entire experience soured me. See, I’ve very much loved my time wth T-mobile. The coverage is good and I like their service plans. They’ve also been invariably helpful in the past. I’m upset enough at this point that I’m seriously contemplating switching carriers and sending corporate a letter (assuming I can figure out how to make sure they get one).
So with that in mind: is anyone going to treat me better than this? I’d like to think the answer is yes, but part of me fears that this is all industry best-practice stuff. If you’ve got suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
Thomas