Shop Talk
Customer Etiquette, or how to get what you want
This is an open letter to the miserable SOB who almost made one of my reps cry tonight, and may serve as a suggestion to any customer who is upset and wants resolution to their issue. First of all, when you call us, we are in a professional environment, so uttering a string of profanities and calling us stupid will not accomplish anything other than making you look and sound foolish. Second, we can hear you just fine when you speak in a calm or conversational tone, yelling just results in us turning down our headset volume, it upsets some of our newer agents, and will not result in a speedier resolution, if anything, it may serve to prolong and frustrate the process. Third, saying you're a doctor is extraneous information and not pertinent t...
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As a quick follow up, sometimes, what you want is not possible for us to do. For example, if you want something for free, especially a phone, we aren't just going to hand you one with no questions asked. If you made the decision to buy an LG phone, out of over 20 different make and model phones, and it doesn't work properly, it is buyer beware. Sites like this are fantastic resources, before you plunk down your hard earned cash, research. If you bought a crappy phone, we are not obligated to replace it. You are not entitled to free product because you made an unfortunate decision. We buy these phones from the manufacturer, and we are buying them in good faith with an expectation they will perform adequately. If the phones are horrible, we lo...
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So what did the "doctor" say/do/want exactly, to cause you to write the "8 Simple Rules For Communicating With My Teenage Agent". 😁 😉
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Blessed are the uneducated consumer, for they shall inherit the crappy phones.....
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the customer accepted a free phone offer from SBC to go on a combined bill with his landline service, since the customer was currently with AWS, this involved migration. well, once he gets his phone, he decides he wants a treo 650 instead, and he wants to just walk into any Cingular store to return a phone he got through SBC. He hadn't yet activated his new phone, so the migration was still pending. He had no idea if his new phone came with a set of return labels because he didn't think to check when he got it and couldn't be bothered now that he has been so "inconvenienced". We suggested he activate the new phone so that it populates in Cingular's billing system, request a RMA label, then order the phone he wants through telesales, with pri...
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See? It's all Wal-Mart's fault.
Maybe you should refer the customer to Wal-Mart.
Maybe you should refer the customer to Wal-Mart.
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When you have a situation like mine below - i don't understand how you can expect a customer to remain patient and pleasant. This is what my first experience with Cingular has been like.
Ordered LG’s online. Waited about 4 days. Checked the status – my order was “stuck” in the system. New order placed. Got the phones, couldn’t get service in my home. Called in to request different phones. Order was made to send me Samsung’s. Called in on a daily basis that week and got excuse after excuse. One day the order got cancelled, one day the order was lost, one day they had no clue why it wasn’t being processed. One day, the phones were on backorder (but the next day they weren’t). Also requested an RMA label to ship LG’s back.
Finall...
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Ordered LG’s online. Waited about 4 days. Checked the status – my order was “stuck” in the system. New order placed. Got the phones, couldn’t get service in my home. Called in to request different phones. Order was made to send me Samsung’s. Called in on a daily basis that week and got excuse after excuse. One day the order got cancelled, one day the order was lost, one day they had no clue why it wasn’t being processed. One day, the phones were on backorder (but the next day they weren’t). Also requested an RMA label to ship LG’s back.
Finall...
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Just dispute the charges through your credit card provider. You'll get better results.
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I shouldn't have to go to those lengths though. And i'm not sure that my credit card provider would dispute it. The credit was the difference between the non contract and contract price of the Nokia's. But the credit was to be issued once the Samsung's were returned. The dispute is between myself and Cingular and their promise to credit my card in regards to phones that weren't purchased by the credit card.
Thanks for the suggestion though! 🙂
Thanks for the suggestion though! 🙂
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Yes you can protest the charges. Credit Cards offer significant buyer protection under state and federal law. Because of their ability to "charge-back" the merchant they can get your money back (and provide you a credit in the meantime while the issue is resolved) if the purchase is not kosher.
You seem to have your ducks in a row so if I was betting you should be just fine. If Cingular promised something and did not deliver that is essentially a purchase agreement by law. You purchased based on their offer, doesn't matter if they couldn't have or shouldn't have, they did. You will have to return everything, but it looks like you already did or are going to anyways.
Yes, you should not have to go through this, but you have and you...
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You seem to have your ducks in a row so if I was betting you should be just fine. If Cingular promised something and did not deliver that is essentially a purchase agreement by law. You purchased based on their offer, doesn't matter if they couldn't have or shouldn't have, they did. You will have to return everything, but it looks like you already did or are going to anyways.
Yes, you should not have to go through this, but you have and you...
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I always expect everyone to be patient and pleasant. If I have to be then the person I'm dealing with does also.
It's obviously too late to say you should've done it in a store, but internet service orders are just asking for errors. Store employees aren't just there to sell you a phone, they're going to make sure everything is set up properly and correctly so that you stay happy and will keep your service.
Also, if your old ATT phones were TDMA, then it is highly plausable that your service isn't the same in your home as it was before.
It's obviously too late to say you should've done it in a store, but internet service orders are just asking for errors. Store employees aren't just there to sell you a phone, they're going to make sure everything is set up properly and correctly so that you stay happy and will keep your service.
Also, if your old ATT phones were TDMA, then it is highly plausable that your service isn't the same in your home as it was before.
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I agree! My biggest mistake was ordering via the internet/telephone.
They were the TDMA. AT&T was the only service provider to get a signal in my home. I have friends that have cingular, nextel, sprint and verizon - and none of them could get a signal in my home.
They were the TDMA. AT&T was the only service provider to get a signal in my home. I have friends that have cingular, nextel, sprint and verizon - and none of them could get a signal in my home.
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You could try buying a GAIT handset. There were two previously sold, the Nokia 6340i and Sony-Ericsson T62u. They provide both TDMA, GSM and analog signal reception. The stores may not have any but you might find them on ebay.
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I am getting one-sometimes two bars of service in my home with the Nokia. So it's sufficing.
Thanks for the suggestion though 🙂
Thanks for the suggestion though 🙂
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call the Troubleshooter (Tom Martino) and he will take care of you. 1 866 966 9696 during his radio show 9am -noon mountain time. he has a Cingular rep he deals with at the corporate level.
www.troubleshooter.com
alternativly I would contact the BBB and the executive offices in cingular corporate.
what a lousy experience and you have been extraordinarily patient.
www.troubleshooter.com
alternativly I would contact the BBB and the executive offices in cingular corporate.
what a lousy experience and you have been extraordinarily patient.
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Thanks! I'll give that a shot tomorrow! 🙂
I did send an email to the Vice President of Customer Sales (from the cingular.com website) - but i'm unsure if that would even get sent to her, or to someone that reads her email. Then there is the matter if they would do anything with it. 🙂
I did send an email to the Vice President of Customer Sales (from the cingular.com website) - but i'm unsure if that would even get sent to her, or to someone that reads her email. Then there is the matter if they would do anything with it. 🙂
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I have had wonderful success in talking with the President's office or the CEO's office of very large corporations. Of course I do not talk with them personally but their assistants do a great job of handling issues. sometimes I do get through to a senior executive. I get their names from the invester relations side of the internet or sometimes library resource staff or databases. I can then also learn the corporate telephone number that does not go to sales or customer service. I call the main switch board of the corporate office and ask for (name of executive). I get patched right through and the rest is smooth sailing. I also learn ahead of time as much as I can about the executive I will be dealing with (at least his/her office) and...
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Seriously though... These situations can be avoided by not buying from the Internet Sales or Telesales Department. No offense to anyone who works in these departments for any carrier, but the biggest issues like these described here all root back to having ordered the phoens from the Internet or Telesales. Internet and Telesales are usually staffed by 3rd party companies or subcontractors. When you walk into a store, 99.9% of the time you are going to walk out of the store with the phone already activated and working. Regardless of it being activation or upgrade. Unless there are major network or system problems that day (Hey, it does happen), your phone service should be active in less than 5 minutes, and in most cases 30 second...
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In a situation as you've described, I would be every bit as angry, frustrated and upset as you have to be right. The original point of my post here is that in situations that are as out of hand as this, there are productive and non productive escalations. As a customer care representative with the former AWS, I have been threatened with death, been called names, have been asked to acknowledge things that if I were to say them on a monitored call, would result in my immediate termination, I have been asked to break the law by customers ... I know that had this call been routed to me, I would be every bit as outraged as you, however, all I was asking for on behalf of the customer was a reminder that as agents, we work in a professional, someti...
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For the most part, we are! Customers tend not to even give us a chance to want to help them with esculated issues.
Customers tend to forget that we are people too!
My coworker was once told he had a "fat charlie brown head" when he asked to see an id before accessing the account. The customer then continued to call him Charlie Brown throughout her time in the store.
Customers tend to forget that we are people too!
My coworker was once told he had a "fat charlie brown head" when he asked to see an id before accessing the account. The customer then continued to call him Charlie Brown throughout her time in the store.
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People always try to get a cheaper price on-line and then complain when they have to talk to customer service for their problems. If they would just go into a store and let a knowledgeable sales rep help them they would have a much better experience. Thats why we're here, give customer service a break and talk to someone face to face. Ninety nine percent of the time you wont regret it, unlike buying on-line.
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hence the reason emerges to not buy online or through any outlet besides an agent store or a direct corporate store.
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The ones I dislike are the ones who dislike our return policy and insist that I (as a TL) can make it all better and break policy. "I know you can do it, cause you're a supervisor." Tell me this, then. If you know what I can do in my line of work, then can I show you how to do yours? I'm sure it must be easy, cause you call in to Cingular and say the exact same thing 20 times when you can't get your way... And saying it again doesn't help either. We have brains, and actually do UNDERSTAND English. But policy is policy. We can't afford to bend over for you everytime you think your phone is defective!
Sorry if it got to be a rant, but working in Cingular telesales (SSG, to be exact) you hear a whole lotta this everyday. It happens, though....
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Sorry if it got to be a rant, but working in Cingular telesales (SSG, to be exact) you hear a whole lotta this everyday. It happens, though....
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video,
Accountability from the customer WOULD be nice however unlikely.
But to be honest ALOT of it IS the company. I work in a corporate store and 3 times a day I talk to a customer that care sent in to do something I CAN'T do.
If we could get everybody on the same page (common service experience) and tell the left hand what the right hand can and can't do, it would eliminate ALOT of cranky customers
Accountability from the customer WOULD be nice however unlikely.
But to be honest ALOT of it IS the company. I work in a corporate store and 3 times a day I talk to a customer that care sent in to do something I CAN'T do.
If we could get everybody on the same page (common service experience) and tell the left hand what the right hand can and can't do, it would eliminate ALOT of cranky customers
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cingcing, could NOT agree with you more, right now there is a serious communication issue with Cingular, what we are being told in blue customer care regarding migration policy and what the stores are being told are not the same thing, and this is leading to some VERY heated calls into customer care. I have spent the majority of my last three shifts getting screamed at by customers who are being referred to stores that Cingular has told us can do one thing, but which they are telling the stores they can't. In one situation, a co-worker of mine actually read the policy to a store manager from our database, and this was totally different from the communication he had received from Cingular. It is an extremely complicated and frustrating time r...
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I can take getting yelled and screamed at - it's not necessarily productive but it's become a large part of our job - but it's the threats, profanities, and sometimes the stubborn refusal to listen to plain english that frustrates me most. If you ask me a question, and refuse to listen to the answer, what's the point of calling in exactly? Customers complain about excuses we give ... we deal with computers and technology that is imperfect and prone to failure. We have a labyrinthe of policy and procedure that is sometimes very poorly communicated, is subject to unending change and modification and which isn't always easy to find. Our knowledge database has approximately 55,000 pages of material, try finding the exact thing you want by the ti...
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It is a challenge working here right now wich I guess is good because it keeps me on my toes. BUT I never know what kind of B.S. I'm gonna get next. I just talked to a gentleman that care sent in to my store to proccess an insurance claim. lol. Yesterday it was a 4 line return that took me 2 hours to deal with completely, and the customer had ordered the phones through telesales and then directed into my store to do the returns. By telesales.
I have no idea what kind of nightmare I'm going to get reffered to me today.
I have no idea what kind of nightmare I'm going to get reffered to me today.
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well wolfspider73 I agree with you 100%. People have been taught over the years that if you complain enough you get what you want. well wake up everyone, it's not like that anymore, this is 2005, the old ways of business are out the door. If you have a problem then call and calmly discuss it with one of us, we will give you the best possible solution to your problem, yelling,screaming,and using profantiy only pisses the people trying to help you off. we are people too and we have problems of our own, and we come to work everyday, and we have to leave our personal life and problems at home, but when someone is cursing us then it only make there situation worse.
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learninghome said:
And don't necropost, no matter how bored you are! 😳
Please, for the love of all that is good do not necropost. PLEASE.
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Wow.. Just realized when this post was from.. 🤭
The original post still applies today though!
The original post still applies today though!
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this is why I tell customers not to order phones online, the customer service for such purchases are lacking, what they are saving in cash online they pay for in customer service in the store. I'll frankly tell the customer.
"I cannot activate, return or exchange online purchases, you will have to send it back through the mail, its really a hassel for some people, is 20 dollars worth all that, hell I'll even price match the online deal but it will be after a mail in rebate just to keep you in the store."
Its amazing how many people dont understand they are going to get the same price after rebate and flip out because I wont send them out the door at 29.99 or whatever it may be. I also find it amazing how many of those people come bac...
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"I cannot activate, return or exchange online purchases, you will have to send it back through the mail, its really a hassel for some people, is 20 dollars worth all that, hell I'll even price match the online deal but it will be after a mail in rebate just to keep you in the store."
Its amazing how many people dont understand they are going to get the same price after rebate and flip out because I wont send them out the door at 29.99 or whatever it may be. I also find it amazing how many of those people come bac...
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