Customer Service Nightmare
By tessah
@tessah (6617)
United States
March 17, 2008 10:28am CST
been a couple of posts here n there about bad customer service so i decided to share the one at the top of the list of nightmarish dealings with a companies representtive.
i was in the market for a new wireless provider. being as ocd as i am, and not wanting to spend more money than necessary, i hunt and search and obsess until i find what i THINK is exactly what im looking for. so not an impulse buyer cept for that blasted candy rack at the checkout.. anyway.. i finally settled on sprint pcs, picked out the phone with the best features, coolest design, etc etc and made my purchase. waited in anticipation for my new phones to arrive, and then proceeded to attempt ( heavy stress on that word ) to activate them so i could get busy with the programming of ringtones and contacts list blahblahblah. i calls the number provided.. pushed 1 for english ;scoff; and was put on hold for 5 minutes. someone finally gets on the phone, and i proceed to tell them that the area code given to me wasnt a local code for my area, and i was calling to change it ( which is standard ) and activate my new shiny gadget. an argument ensues, that spans a good 15 minutes where im told yes it is local.. and i continue to say, dude.. i live in massachusetts, this area code is for CALIFORNIA. he finally listens, and then puts me on hold.. 15 minutes of the moosaque version of muskrat love later, he returns. " how may i help you? " as if he hasnt spoken to me at ALL. ready to tear my hair out already, i request yet again to have my phone activated. " sure, please hold " /scream 7 minutes later and a rousing classical music rendition of a van halen tune, he returns, asks again how he may help me. now i request a supervisor, so of course im placed on hold again after another argument about how i dont need a supervisor, he will help me.. someone picks up the line, says " yes, this is a supervisor how may i help you? " ;heavy sigh; its the same guy, disguising his voice. i so wish i was making his crap up.. i called him on his attempted deceptions and he LAUGHS at me " oh yeah you caught me!" ha ha ha i went ballistic at this point and demanded a supervisor or id have his job. he laughs some more and says please hold.. only this time, he sets the phone down, and turns on a radio or something with this gods awful music and starts.. barking. yes, thats right BARKING!! like a dog into the phone!! by now its been 3 hours of trying to activate my phone, and im beginning to think im asleep and cant wake up so i pinched my arm real hard to no avail.. hes now growling and snarling and screaching like a banshee into the receiver. i hung up. called back the regular customer service number ( theres a different one for activations ) and immediately request a supervisor. spent another 10 minutes on hold, FINALLY get a person, FINALLY get the phone activated. so im thinkin, ok, just one halfwit in their company, im all set now. but, no.. my cell rings. its sprint, calling to welcome me to their service, BUT, theyve got to put me on hold for juuust a second. 11 minutes later ( yes, im timing them now ) the woman comes back on and tells me she cannot welcome me right now beacuse their computer systems are down, and hangs UP on me!! /SCREAMS i called back to their customer service yet again, and flipped out canceling my account. heres where it should end.. isnt it? the nightmare should be over.. sadly, no.. another hour of trying to cancel what just took me 4 hours to activate and as the woman repeats back my phone number as she is finally canceling my account.. she reads back the wrong number. she was two shakes away from canceling someone elses account! thanking her for giving me another example of WHY i didnt want sprint after making her repeat the number three times to make sure she had it right this time.. i hung up. i now have verizon =oP
whats YOUR worse customer service nightmare ?
2 people like this
5 responses
@Freddixx (13)
• Germany
18 Mar 08
My worst customer nightmare?
I'm in heavy struggle with amazon right now.. These guys are owing me 100€ for more than 4 months now.. Everytime I call them another employee says that things will be cleared up asap and that I'll see the money soon..
But there's something nice to it.. It has become kind of a ritual to phone them once a week and to pour out all the anger inside me =)
@Freddixx (13)
• Germany
18 Mar 08
Oh, sure they took my calls into account but these guys there are to dumb to send my money to my bank account. They transfered it to my Amazon-credits... A letter would do nothing. What I need is the helping hand of God sending my inquiry to a employee who actually understands WHAT he does ;)
@tessah (6617)
• United States
18 Mar 08
i suggest the same thing filmbuff did. write a letter to the corporate offices. customer service people alot of the times, are home workers, without supervisions at all. your calls may not have even been entered into their systems at all, ive known of it happening. youve dealt with this long enough, go over their heads =o)
@filmbuff (2909)
• United States
18 Mar 08
Wow what an awful experience! I have sprint, and they have the absolute worst customer service ever. The phone service is great, but but getting the phone set up and working is a nightmare. I pray I never have to call them. When my contract is up, I'm sure I'll switch companies.
As for my worst customer service experience, I wouldn't know where to begin. Really, it's that bad. Especially with so much customer service (via phone) being done overseas. It's hard enough to get someone who speaks english you can understand, let alone someone who understands enough of the culture to be polite, pretend to care enough that I will believe them, or give good customer service.
I've done a lot of customer service work. I got away from the phone stuff and do more in person, face to face customer interaction. I pride myself on the service I give others, so when I don't get it, I take the appropriate steps to enlighten these individuals, or their supervisors, or fire off a letter to the corporate headquarters.
BTW Letters get results. Print em, mail em, and watch them come to attention...
@tessah (6617)
• United States
18 Mar 08
oh i just hate when they give you the choice to press 1 for english or 2 for whatever, and you push 1 and wind up with someone with such a thick accent and talks so fast you cannot understand them at all. usually i ask to speak to someone more adept at my language since it is what i requested LOL i did actually write a letter to corporate at sprint. it didnt really fix anything because id already canceled my contract, but i did get an applogy nonetheless.
1 person likes this
@filmbuff (2909)
• United States
18 Mar 08
I know that drives me nuts too. Moving jobs to India and South America is great for their economy, but it really hurts ours, and impacts the business in a negative way. Sure they are saving money now, but in the long run customers will migrate.
Letters usually help. Most of the time you will see the company take somekind of action, it may not be the one you are looking for but they at least take notice, and may make changes and do things internally that you don't see.
@KrauseHome (36448)
• United States
6 Apr 08
This is absolutely rediculous, and I hope you took time to file a Complaint against this person, and let people know how useless they were. To me, this is 100% uncalled for, and if I was the Boss I would fire them for Poor Customer Service, or at least warn them that this will be the last time with something like this. I recently had an experience where someone would not listen to me either, and I did call and report them to a Supervisor, and hope something was done about it. When in Customer Service your customer is always right, or if not, you need to be polite and try to help them and not act as if you know everything, and they are the one at fault.
@tessah (6617)
• United States
6 Apr 08
i did write a letter to corporate and complain. it didnt go anywhere tho.. in fact, sprint continually tried to collect someone elses past due account from me, and were calling me nonstop everyday for weeks rying to get me to cough up money on an account for times during when i didnt even have their service. its been about a year now, and theyve finally left me the hell alone.
@above31rubies (1863)
• United States
17 Mar 08
I don't have a cs nightmare story to share right now, however I have dealt with Sprint in the past and they were the WORST cs ever. When I lived in the city, we had occasion to use every single cell provider at one point or another and Sprint took the prize hands down for poor cs. Overall Verizon was the best company we dealt with- oh, yes, little quirks here and there, but I would go back to them in a heartbeat if they were available where I live now. Good choice! :)
@focjop20 (232)
• Puerto Rico
21 Mar 08
I had almost the same problem, but with Claro of PR.
They used to be Verizon, I had an account with them for over 8yrs, and excellent service. Until my Cel; broke down, by this time they became Claro. Took it to Claro and they said, cant'n be repaired, with 5 months left from a contract of 2 yrs. A new contract was made for 2yrs plus 5 months, from the old one. Like always bought a Motorola, after 1 month use, it became a lemon, it was taken back to the store for service and they told me, we don't have service in store no more, you most take it to the manufacturer or our service store in Cataño, PR. So I took the damm thing to Motorola service center near by; On seven ocasions, and it never worked properly after. By the time my pacient was running thin, seven days of work wasted, an no pay for it, ¿Who will pay my gasoline? ¿ who will pay the monthly bill? ¿ who will paid my salary? That I asked them, when returned to store, and they said to me, now take it to service store. No one answer to it; so I got to the point of no return, and told them, there you go, here's your contract and the cel; deal with it. After 3 months, and nothing but bills, calling and sending letters to them, to no avail, just more bills. I obtained ATT service, and a week after, a collection agency, acting for Claro, wrote to me asking for payment of the bills, plus the reporting to Credit buro. At that I reply, ¿What about the old contract, which stated service provided at store? ¿Why no body said, no service at store, when I brougt the old cel to them? ¿Why no body answered my calls or mail? ¿Who will pay for time of work, gasoline, return the money paid for the new cel, and everyting else? !To this day, no one has answered one of then, or send any more mail¡
