Scammed by Cheesy Customer Service Reps of Major Company

More than once in the past week I have come off the phone griping and complaining that "People who don't listen!!" or "Customer service sucks!" Customer service agents can actually cost a company money when they have poor listening skills and drive away business from the company by being argumentative and rude to the customer when they are trying to solve a problem or cancel an account. Take this scenario, for example:

A Company Will Get a Worse Reputation by Refusing to Listen and Refusing to Cancel an Account

A person wants to cancel their account and the customer service representative has to run them through a whole bunch of rigamarole. 20 minutes later, and 3 representatives later, two callbacks because the phone line "all of a sudden" disconnected, the customer is still convinced that he needs to cancel his account. He finally reaches a supervisor and then re-explains the situation to the supervisor, going back and forth, and then the supervisor finally gets it. It has wasted the time of 3 customer service representatives, the time of the caller (who actually is someone's valuable customer, but not theirs anymore), and the time of the supervisor.

After the "all of a sudden disconnects" and having to speak to multiple people to try to solve a problem, the person is so convinced that the company has nothing to offer them that they will go to the ends of the earth not to buy from them. Not only that, but they will make certain that everyone they know knows that X company took advantage of them and gave them the run-around on the phone. A superb company would say "I'm sorry you want to cancel. I will pull up a screen and the cancellation will be effective in 10 minutes if you stay on the line with me." They would ask questions at the time to make their services better in the future. What are they afraid of, that their services are so bad, that they have to force the customer to take them?

Customer Complaints Falling on Deaf Ears

You would think that companies wouldn't stay in business if they did this very often. But it seems like more and more, each person who deals with a customer service representatives runs into a brick wall and deaf ears. "Can you cancel my account? Will you cancel my account? I said, I need this account cancelled now, as in today. Do you speak English? Cancel my account. I do not want to be autobilled. Cancel my account."

Giving Customers the Run-Around Creates Stress for Both Customer and Customer Service Representative

To be fair, I did work at a customer service center, so yes, it can be stressful, but it becomes more stressful when the companies force the customer service representatives to give the poor customers the run-around. Maybe this isn't the only thing the customer had to do that day but if he didn't cancel the account, his bank account would do a domino bounce and cost him over $200.00. If the company and its service representatives would put themselves in the shoes of the poor customer, trying to eek out an existence, they would realize that it is important not to stand in the way of the person trying to cancel a service.

This company's name will not be mentioned, but so long as I live, I will get my Internet from someone else if it is possible.

The following happened to me:

Double-Billing Fiasco, Impending Autodebit, and the Ability to Conveniently Cancel is Nonexistent

I signed up for high speed Internet with a well known company and was double-billed and they refused to cancel my account. It in fact ended up in the name of the person I was staying with. Two weekends of calling customer service did nothing. I spoke with customer service representatives from India, multiples of them, got disconnected multiple times. After all that, they still would not cancel the account. Even though the company was local to the USA, the call center that dealt with cancellations was not. It ruined the relationship, created billing charges between the person I was staying with that would never have been there (double billing). It also was going to autobill indefinitely, but not to my account to be billable to me, but to the account of the person I was staying with, because I reinstalled the CD when my hard drive crashed.

If the customer service representatives had listened to anything all three of us had said for two weekends in a row they would have realized to make it right, and to simply cancel the account. The customer service representatives were unprofessional, rude, condescending, and asked personal questions of the couple I was staying with, asking them if they were even married, evidentally insinuating that it was not a legitimate cancellation. And then they couldn't, or wouldn't cancel it.

If I can sign up for an account and it cannot be cancelled, I am not signing up with them. I would have been the company's poster child for fast Internet. Not now. The moral of the story is not to alienate the customers making the way that they can cancel services they signed up for, convoluted and next to impossible, if not impossible to cancel. Because if you do, every time they open their mouth, they will promote another company, not yours.

Get Agent Name and Agent ID Number When You Speak with Customer Service Representatives

The customer service representative saga lives on. I signed up for web hosting with a well known company, and paid 1 year up front and then there was a reason why I needed to switch hosting. At the beginning they had told me that in case of cancellation, no fees would be billed. When I did cancel, it came out that they kept $17.26 out of my order when I could barely afford it. In this case, one should be definitely keeping the names and agent numbers of anyone they deal with. I had, but it was not organized. I was not able to effectively pin them down on their shenanigans. Get the agent name and agent ID number early in the phone call before you forget. Write down any promises they made. Don't think that because they are a reputable, well-known company that you will automatically fare well.

Regarding the double-billing, When it was all said and done, I ended up owing the people I stayed with for two months of double billing in a time I could least afford it and was legally threatened for civil claims court over this on top of other unexpected expenses. This was all over customer service representatives that did not possess listening skills nor the ability to do anything on a computer to help me out since they were outsourced to a foreign country.

Normally a person should complain to the Better Business Bureau www.bbb.org when such an incident occurs. Because it created a small claims court threat (a letter when I could least afford it stating I would be taken to small claims if it wasn't paid in 30 days) and the account was no longer in my name due to some freak accident and we were no longer on speaking terms, I was not able to exert my legal rights of complaining in the proper manner. Generally speaking, people taken advantage of by popular companies who think that they can stomp on the customer and get away with it should report the customer. Always keep any paperwork that the company sends and be prepared for deaf ears.

How can customer service representatives do better? It seems like they are all trained to be rude, inattentive, and to beat around the bush. Every customer who has a story ought to ante up with it and demand better training for customer service representatives. People talk about soft skills for women or even corporate training for women? Well, that is one. Give a woman customer service training, on how to be diplomatic to customers. It doesn't involve giving away the company's CEO desk to the client or customer, but it does involve being thoughtful, kind, and considerate of their time and financial resources. It seems like customer service reps have no time management training, no effective communication skills training. They definitely could do better. Then again, I don't know anything. I'm just a peon customer and my money doesn't matter. If that's the case, I will take it somewhere else where someone appreciates it.