Customer support: lessons from IT (1) - the telecom

                           

It is the same thing happening when one calls a government office, an appliance vendor, a bank or a telecom. Name it Customer Support, Client Care, Help Line or any other appealing and appeasing name the outfit cares to give to their call centre, you are at the mercy of  whoever picks up the call (supposing that it is being picked up, which in most cases it still is). You called because you either could not figure something out despite consulting google and company FAQ, or your issue is one of a kind, out of this world and well over the power of a chatbot to decipher, or because you are too old to figure it out with these means and you need old-fashion support. But you have to be lucky, incredulous and persistent. Having worked in IT built the resilience and understanding necessary to sustain one's inquiring effort to its successful resolution.

Lucky - so that someone picks up the call in a reasonable amount of time. Incredulous - because you should not take as gospel whatever the person at the other end of the line is telling you; he or she or whatever may not know or care to give you the correct answer. So it pays to call again - persistence. Here are some recent examples.

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When perchance I opened my 88 years-old mother's telephone bill from Bell, my eyes popped up and horror stories from CBC's GoPublic and MarketPlace rushed to my mind: it was in black letters on white paper that she was owing some nine-hundred dollars plus tax for three overseas calls she swore she had placed via the local provider with a 647 number we programmed for her. Let the games begin! 

On their website, the local provider only provided a log call for the current month. I had to see if those three calls had been registered with that provider, so I had to call the company. First time, the support person directed me to the website and I had to explain it to him that only the current month's log was available. I was told they will email a PDF with the requested log asap. But two days later it had not arrived so I made another call, had to explain the story again - but this time I was lucky and the PDF arrived next day, confirming my worst fears: the calls went indeed through the Bell network.

So I called Bell asking for technical enlightenment and mercy. The customer service rep assured me that in fact the calls did go through Bell, that was that, and I had to pay up. Mercy could be applied only to a limit of $150. I was incredulous. I asked to talk to a supervisor. I was told one will call. It happened faster than I thought, but I wasn't home (I still prefer to use the so-called land line for longish talks). So I called back. Another superviser picked up. I explained what happened, insisted that the 647 number was used and the calls were never intended to be placed with Bell, and tried to make the case that just maybe, somehow, the calls did not go through the dialed, cheap network. I glossed over Bell's ridiculously high rates for overseas, and the lack of a plan for seniors on fixed income, so as not to distract or aggravate my potential benefactress. Lucky me, she was sympathetic to my plea, did not waste any time admonishing or with technicalities, and told me to be patient and keep the line while she would talk to Accounting. After almost one hour, she was back on line telling me a credit will be applied to the account, and as the payment was pre-authorized, I needed do nothing more. I was ecstatic and wanted to know her name. She said Nice! Not sure of the spelling but, this was how she pronounced it. Thank you, Nice! She also sent the confirmation of the credit via email. Nice!

But even my saviour Nice did not know or omitted a 'detail'. When I checked my mother's account a few days later the humongous Bell bill had gone through her bank account (and luckily it did not go into NSF)! Why have I trusted Nice and haven't I put a stop payment, just in case? I took a deep breath and called Bell again. Ah, the customer support guy said, it's good that you called us; in such situations, he explained, we apply the credit to the account and send a cheque only if the customer asks for one. Little did I know, much have I found out. 

Another email was sent confirming my request. The promised cheque arrived in mail within the prescribed time frame. All's well with Bell!

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July 13, 2021

More to come...


 Photo credit: https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/happy-customer-feedback-business-quality-picture-id1043458924?                                                    k=6&m=1043458924&s=612x612&w=0&h=YyCjilaKeIiwZpKi6TLRb7TG1n6dFgsWjx4BE6HFlzE=

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