AT&T
The following video was brought to my attention. When you have picked yourself up off the floor, read on.
I have been an AT&T customer for years. There a long-ish absence due to issues I had with their rates on long distance (at the time), and the piss-poor customer service I had received. I am a customer again however, but that is because they bought up our local provider. Since this time, things have been better than they were in the past. I have been happy.
Then I saw this video. I was beside myself. I was furious for this poor couple! Is that going to happen to me if there is ever a natural disaster here? They things that ran through my head, and the words that were coming out of my mouth...I was horrified! This couple has been through enough! Have we forgotten that the person on the other end of the line is human too? How would we feel if we were in their place? I honestly sat here for a few minutes and thought about how I could go about letting AT&T know that I wasn't going to wait for a natural disaster to find out if this would be how they treated me.
The good news in all of this is the statement AT&T released shortly after this video hit circulation. Here it is:"This customer initially called AT&T to discuss other communications services. After she was transferred to Dish, the disaster policy Dish has in place was not followed. This customer will not be charged for service cancellation or equipment fees----that is our policy, and the policy of Dish, in times of natural disasters. We have spoken with this customer to clarify our policy, and we are committed to taking care of all customers affected by the fires."
I have to say, that I am skeptical regarding the reasons they issued this statement, as we all know the power the internet holds, but I am glad they have said this, and done so publicly. I also wish this couple the best, and am keeping them, and all of the other fire victims in my prayers.
On a side note, all customers service representatives should be required to watch this video as training. Not only that, but maybe they need to realize that customer service means service, and service means helping with a smile, not upsetting a person further with an attitude. If the people who offered this couple "customer service" that day were children of mine, there would have been some major smack down occurring, and I wouldn't have cared a bit about how old they were. How shameful...they better watch out for Karma. It has a way of coming back around.
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4 comments:
Yeah they figure they can screw enough people, without any repercussions, that when finally something like this comes out they may lose a little money but they'll still be way ahead.
All this reminds me of the manager of a Starbucks near ground zero who was charging fire fighters something like $300 for a case of water. And Starbucks only made good with the firefighters months later after the firefighters went to the media and the story got out. I haven't been to a Starbucks since.
AT&T, and everyone else for that matter, really do need to get their act together in the customer service arena. Too many companies just seem to not care. Or don't drill it deep enough into their employees heads that the customers are the ones who really sign the paychecks.
Update on the story - AT&T say the couple were transfered to DISH who didn't follow the 'disaster policy'.
Now I'm a cynical guy and it sounds to me like they were trying it on to make money, the couple went to the media so AT&T tried to put a spin on it by blaming their operators. Lots of companies seem to do this - try to charge you full price to see if you will back down. If you don't they almost always immediately fold.
As an employee of AT&T, formerly Cingular, formerly AT&T Wireless, formerly AT&T, formerly McCaw Communications.....did I fit all of that in one sentence??
Well anyway, I have worked in the sales, customer service, tech support and now fraud. I have seen many an employee do the wrong thing. It happens. We do try to amke it right--when it is brought to management's attention. We do have policies in place for people suffering from diasters. During the aftermath of hurricanes like Rita and Katrina, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes (the Oklahoma May 3, 1999 tornado comes to mind)I have seen my company do the right thing more often that not.
But on the flip side, I have seen many customer try to get one over on us too. Like I said, I work in the fraud dept. We would not have a fraud dept without fraud happening.
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