I've had to work Christmas Day for VZW for the last 2 years. It's amazing the kind of things that people want you to do. I had a guy last year who was pissed that we could not send out a phone on Christmas day and have it overnighted to him to have it next day... some people never cease to amaze me! :-)

lets be honest here for most people who work 9 to 5 monday through friday being open on the weekends is very important as this is the only time you can solve any wireless problems. So for cingular to close on sun days to me is absolutely ridiculous!! Does cingular really think they are that good that they can afford to close on sunday GIVE ME A BREAK!! Sounds like another piss poor decision made by cingular, once again proving just how retarded the company is!!!!

maverick96 said:
lets be honest here for most people who work 9 to 5 monday through friday being open on the weekends is very important as this is the only time you can solve any wireless problems. So for cingular to close on sun days to me is absolutely ridiculous!! Does cingular really think they are that good that they can afford to close on sunday GIVE ME A BREAK!! Sounds like another piss poor decision made by cingular, once again proving just how retarded the company is!!!!

are you kidding me? you are so self-centered that you think a store should be open for just YOU? there ARE many stores around the country that ARE open on sundays - mine included. a lot of stores get SO LITTLE traffic in their sto...
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we are open until 8PM, which means that anyone can stop in after their 9-5 job and still have time to make it home for primetime TV.

O.K. but the only thing I see as silly is that verizon sprint and even smaller regional carriers are open on sunday and I'm not talking about the stores I'm talking about the call centers when you call cingular customer service on sunday it's CLOSED when you call verizon customer service on sunday it's OPEN. It just goes to show and prove why everyone bitches about there customer service they are not customer service oriented like verizon and most the other carriers are. Don't you find it to be weird that cingualrs call centers are closed on sunday but all the other major carriers call centers are not???

They do have an after hours call center. And it works fine 🙂

All carriers have an "after hours call center." Or, if they don't have that, they have "after hours CSR's." What these other carriers do, however, is just route all calls to the "after hours call center" so that people don't know that they are actually closed. If Cingular would do this, it could alleviate alot of bitching.

Are you talking about Cingular call center for sales or cs. 'cause i work in a cingular call center and I Know that the 500 employes here work sundays. Tlakin to whinny @$$ people that can't figure out how to Down load a ring tone. Or better yet turn on thier phone. We here at cingular don't have cruddy csr's we have cruddy customers

G-rad said:
Are you talking about Cingular call center for sales or cs. 'cause i work in a cingular call center and I Know that the 500 employes here work sundays. Tlakin to whinny @$$ people that can't figure out how to Down load a ring tone. Or better yet turn on thier phone. We here at cingular don't have cruddy csr's we have cruddy customers

Great....another reason Cingular's customer service is rated the worst in the industry. 🙄

I'm not a csr Im a sales rep. 😛

CSR, Sales rep, manager, or janitor, anyone that comes in any type of contact with customers should never be caught calling customers "cruddy" as that just shows me, as a consumer, that the entire company has a bad attitude toward customers, thus causing me to take my business elsewhere.

You must remember that customers fund your pay check - the more customers Cingular has, the more money you have the possibility to make (any employee of the company). Calling them "cruddy" will not create more customers thus not creating any more money for you. So how smart is it to call customers "cruddy" ?????

when you deal with totsl idiots all day that are completley stupid or trying to commit fraud then you too will have the same attitude. When some one wants me to change the policy just for them or the rate plans(which i have no control over) Those are the cruddy customers. You wouldn't go to your local grocrey store and tell them that you won't pay the 2.49 for that gallon of milk but you will pay 1.50. you'll get laughed at.

I have spent 9 years of my working life in retail, and I do know the type of customer that you are speaking of. But I wouldn't be caught dead referring to them in any way other than an upstanding person. If I refer to them as anything other than that, they will take their business elsewhere causing my business to not make any money off of them.

Not smart to downtalk the source of your paycheck.

Some of you guys have to remember that posting comments like cruddy on a public forum only adds fuel to the fire.
Whether you are frustrated or not is totally not relevant to the very public perception that is out there that Cingular has no concern for the client.
Calling a client or customer "stupid" or "cruddy" on a public forum allows Sprint and Verizon people to use that against you and trust me they do.
Some of the so-called "Cingular" employees that post on here aren't even Cingular employees, just people that use the old bait and switch tactic to stir up stuff and then stand back and laugh while others fly off the handle...

😁 I COULD be messing with you what if i work for another carrier? I don't but just sayin. This is a secondary job. The "customer" doesn't provide my pay check. They provide me with a cell phone. I work here not for the money due to the fact I have my own auto shop where i rebuild cars and paint cars for other individuals. Your the ones that cause the stress that leads to the cruddy customer service. Not me. I sell the phones, Not cause people to use all of thier minutes and get overage charges, because they were too cheap to get the rate plan i suggested to begin with.
If I were to take thier phones and use up thier minutes then I would be to blame But i'm not.

I am more than smart enough to research and figure out my own solutions, so I don't think that I am one of your "cruddy" customers. I only contact CS to update the rate plan or to find when a new product is being released, I also recognize that some customers are argumentive from the word go. They call in with an attitude because of other issues and the CS person that answers the phone gets unloaded on by proxy.
Regardless of that, the public perception is enforced by making statements such as yours.
If all you get from the job is a free cell phone, then I am sure that you can get your primary source of income to provide the same to you for a low cost and then those "cruddy" customers are no longer a problem.

not all customers are cruddy i should have emphizied that i talk to alot of knowlegdeable people and have no problem with 98% of them. Its the 2% that irks me

Customers cannot be generalized. Some are idiots, and some are smart. I am a customer of a wireless company. Does that make me an idiot? Possibly, but thats only because I choose to get ripped off by having a cell phone.

Cingulars After Hours Customer Service #
1-866-801-3600

They will be "more than happy to help you"

eep you're giving away the secret numbre 😳. I do agree that customers can't be generalized and its unfair to put them all in the same boat. But unfortunatly I find there are a number of people that do have unreasonable expectations of a wireless company. I really won't go into detals with that, I know lots of people have heard stories. And to the person who says by having more business with Cingular we have the potenial to earn more money, this is absolutely untrue for rep in customer service, our wage is FIXED, extra money goes to the client. weither you spend 300$ per month with us or 40$ csr still make the same wage per hour. unless there are some department that get incentives or commision (telesales)

True, you get the same wage....but if cingular has less customers, then they can't afford to (and don't need to) pay you to work 40 hours each week. So they can reduce *your* hours, which also reduces their cost, and makes you earn less. Or they can fire some people, so there are less employees. Again, may not directly affect you, but I guarantee you it affects the guy who got fired! If they lose enough customers, they may close your whole call center. Then you are affecting the jobs of everyone, including the supervisors and managers and so on.

On the other hand, if cingular gets more customers, then they need more reps, and hire more people (maybe your friends). Not only that, but then there are more people in your community with ...
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Hey I resemble that remark. I'm a "cruddy" Customer that left. One of millions. 4.5 new activations...897 net adds. Do the math.

ok then no wonder why cingular got there a$$ kicked in the last 3 quarters to verizon. Because of TERRIBLE salesman like you!!!!!!

call centers i agree should be open

The call centers should be open, that is one of the things that I miss about the ATT days along with the much, much, cheaper rate plans...

jinx7676 said:

maverick96 said:
lets be honest here for most people who work 9 to 5 monday through friday being open on the weekends is very important as this is the only time you can solve any wireless problems. So for cingular to close on sun days to me is absolutely ridiculous!! Does cingular really think they are that good that they can afford to close on sunday GIVE ME A BREAK!! Sounds like another piss poor decision made by cingular, once again proving just how retarded the company is!!!!

are you kidding me? you are so self-centered that you think a store should be open for just YOU? there ARE many stores around the country that ARE open on sundays - mine included. a lot of stores

...
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It is also worth noting that despite the complaints of retailers and their employees, the fact is that if nobody shopped on Sunday, they wouldn't open. The fact is, business do do enough business on Sundays to justify the cost of being open...even in a place like Utah. Sure, they do LESS business, especially compared to, say, Saturday, but they certainly do enough business to cover their expenses. If they didn't, they wouldn't be open. It's really as simple as that.

Now, when it comes to providing customer service, in today's environment, there really is not any excuse to NOT have 24 hour customer service. There are those, like me, who prefer working nights, or who are night owls, and stay up late, so they can get business done online...
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jinx7676 said:

maverick96 said:
lets be honest here for most people who work 9 to 5 monday through friday being open on the weekends is very important as this is the only time you can solve any wireless problems. So for cingular to close on sun days to me is absolutely ridiculous!! Does cingular really think they are that good that they can afford to close on sunday GIVE ME A BREAK!! Sounds like another piss poor decision made by cingular, once again proving just how retarded the company is!!!!

are you kidding me? you are so self-centered that you think a store should be open for just YOU? there ARE many stores around the country that ARE open on sundays - mine included. a lot of stores

...
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C'mon dude, you know that's not even close to a proper analogy. Chick-fil-a is a restaurant that has every right to close on Sunday if need be. There are other places that people can eat on Sundays. Cingular is in the cellular business, and if you are closed on Sundays, your customers DON'T have anywhere else to turn. Cingular not being open on Sunday's is essentially Cingular living under the false pretense that people don't have equipment, billing, or any other issues on Sundays. I'm sorry, but no wonder so many people complain about Cingular's CS.

The question isn't service here... it's economics. Most of cingulars workforce is union. Union contract requires a 10% bump in pay on sundays. That adds up. Especially when most people can go to a store and get a problem fixed. For those that can, wait until monday. My store is actually really busy on sundays (we usually have 4-5 reps any given sunday). For the holiday's we're added another person on sundays.

Who cares? VZW is NOT unionized and their employees recive a 15% increase in pay for working on Sunday's and I can assure you, there are alot of people that do work for VZW on Sundays. Sure Cingular may not want to pay that extra 10% (which is lower than what VZW pays on Sunday), but what they save in labor probably pales in comparison to what they lose in customer satisfaction.

Sorry, just realized I made an error. VZW reps get a 35% increase in pay for Sunday shifts, not the 15% I stated before, which makes the "economic" excuse for Cingular not being open on Sunday even that much more pointless.

don't get me wrong.. I think cingular should have 24 hr cust service support, even if it means they have to pay a shift differential. They said we have the goal of providing best in class customer support, service, etc. Well you can't do this if you don't have support around the clock for your customers. Take a small hit in the wallet if it means your going to be able to help more customers when they need it, not when it's convinient for you(cingular).

Exactly! Step one in lowering that churn rate.

Another step to lowing the churn rate is to offer better feature prices on text messaging, picture messaging and media net... they are really overpriced compared to other carriers... at least offer an unlimited plan... maybe replace the 2500 message plan with unlimited... that would be saying alot about the seriousness of being competitive.