Refuse to Settle: Demand Excellence

~Where AT&T Failed Me~

Today’s post is compliments of #AT&T. I have included the transcript in the post in case anyone would prefer to read for themselves. Either way, here is a summary, but seriously, you might want to read it as it sounds like a script from #SNL or even better #ImpracticalJokers. It took me 3 agents, 1.5 hours, and a lot of frustration to find out the towers in my area were down.

I have been a customer for 26 years with the same phone number I have now. I can’t think of any service that I have used longer than AT&T in my life. This exchange has now made me decide it’s finally time to move on. Here are 4 key things that, as a consumer, you should recognize as being part of what is not just a bad experience but a sign that a company no longer values your business. If they value your business, then the customer experience should be at the forefront of everything they do and say.

1. When you are switched from Agent to Agent, do you have to repeat the problem and all of your personal information all over again? I get, in my scenario, they couldn’t validate I was who I was because they couldn’t send an OTP. However, in 1998, I didn’t have the option to provide an OTP and they could address my issues fine. They have every bit of my personal information, including SSN, DOB, & Address, along with a PIN. I wasn’t trying to change my account or do something that could compromise my service. I was asking for them to fix my issue. That’s why this wasn’t acceptable. Although not applicable to this situation, that would also apply when you are trying to make a payment. It makes no sense to me that a business can’t take a payment on an account. If someone else wants to pay my bill, please let them. But back to my issue…

2.When you explain the problem, and the solution is to do something that you can’t do because that is the problem. They aren’t listening to what you are saying and are merely following a (very bad) script. Sometimes there are new employees and it happens, but when you go through 3 employees and it takes you saying “Don’t you have something that tells you what the error code I am getting means” before they decide to actually be helpful, they have lost sight of their purpose at the company.

3.When an employee avoids transferring you to a supervisor. This is one of the BIGGEST customer service no-no’s in my book. You should be allowed to talk to a manager without an employee hanging up on you or trying to coerce you to not talk to the supervisor. If the company is being honest and above board, they should have no issue with you escalating your issue. As a manager, you should understand that by the time the customer is getting to you, they might be pretty mad. They shouldn’t be allowed to physically or verbally abuse you. But using a loud voice doesn’t mean they are abusing you. I will be the first to admit that when I have a 1-star experience such as this is, I am usually pretty upset by the time I get to a manager or supervisor. If they cannot handle a person using a loud voice, they are in the wrong job.

4.A company should respect your time. They should be as efficient as possible. Sometimes too efficient isn’t good either, but in this case, they had me wait for a few minutes just to come back and ask me the same questions they had already asked.

In this day and age, there is no reason to settle for a subpar experience with a company that you spend thousands of dollars with a year. Find one that values you as a customer. If you didn’t figure it out already, this was a 1-star experience, and actually if I had 0 stars on my personal scale, it would have fit right in. Mistakes happen, service gets interrupted, it’s all in how the company handles the problem.
Don’t settle, friends!