The Dodo Bird, The Edsel, And Customer Service. Name Three Three Things That Are Extinct ?

What has happened to customer service in America?

I run a computer repair business and I do okay. Part of the reason I have a steady clientele and get quite a bit of referral business is my customer service skills.

It is a lot easier for my clients to drive up the block to Geek Squad than to drive across town to me. I realize I'm not the only guy in town that can fix a computer. The reason my customers continue to use me is I treat them like gold. I realize all my computer knowledge isn’t worth the price of a cup of coffee without my customers.
Too bad more companies don’t take this attitude.

Any more it seems like major companies in the US act like they are doing you a favor by taking your money and it disgusts me.

A good example is what happened to me this week with my cell phone company. I have one of those unlimited pre pay plans. I pay a set amount every month for unlimited local and long distance calling and a few more features. My bill should never be one penny more that that set amount. I get a text message from them telling my bill is seven dollars more than it should be. So I call into their customer service dept. and they can’t give me a straight answer as to why; but if that’s what it says than it must be that way. After asking the woman if I have a set rate how can it be one penny more than that she gets annoyed with the question and tries to rush me off the phone by telling me to go into a retail store.
Rather than get try to assist me she just wanted to pawn me off on the next poor slob.

At that point I ask to speak to her supervisor and she has the audacity to ask why? So I tell her because you aren’t doing anything to assist me. Her answer? My supervisor is just going to tell you the same thing. I didn’t ask her what her supervisor would tell me I asked her to speak to them. Long story short after about ten more requests and 20 to 30 minutes of hold time the supervisor comes to phone with an attitude of do I really need to be bothered with this. The guy was rude, arrogant, and snotty, he never dealt with my issue and told me if I didn’t like his answer I was free to write a letter to their corporate office.

At this point I am steaming. To add insult to injury, my service which was paid in full in advance was disconnected the next day and I didn’t find out about it for about 8 hours. That is 8 hours that the life blood of existence, my customers could not reach me. I had to call in on a land line and go through a whole rig amoral to get my paid for in advance service back on.

Did I receive an apology? No way, no how.

I won’t even go into the conversation I had with their cooperate escalation department.

This type of treatment of paying customers is an all too common occurrence in our society today.

Maybe it would be one small step to restore our economy if major corporations acted like they were lucky to have your business as opposed to thinking your money belonged to them by divine right.