MSNBCmustbiteme.com

[10001110101.livejournal.com]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23283402/

For those without the time to check it: An MSNBC article lauding consumers 'fighting back' against horrible customer service. Would anyone care to place a friendly wager how many of these "horror stories" BEGAN with the customer calling and cursing out the evil, nefarious helldesk ape simply because they had no better way to deal with their feelings of frustration? One story talks about a gentleman who got all butthurt because Apple wouldn't provide warranty service for a recently purchased Macbook with evidence of "damage from spilled liquid". Another talks about the "brave" and "heroic" tale of a 76-year old woman going into a Comcast branch office armed with a hammer and destroying equipment in the reception area because, according to the article, they "failed to install her service properly".

Maybe we should start a blog. Say "Asshole_technophobe_lusers_who_mistreat_support_workers_must_die.com"

NOTE: I don't work for any of the companies listed in the article. Hell, I don't even LIKE most of the companies mentioned in the article. That doesn't mean the poor saps who work there don't deserve to be treated with the same respect the customers are so stridently BAWWWing about.

x-posted to my personal journal.

Comments

[taleya.livejournal.com]

In early July, he wrote on his blog that Apple had replaced his laptop. "I'm very happy now," he wrote. "Apple has regained my loyalty."

read: I've found an easy mark that will pay for my mistakes, and plan to rape them even more in the future.

Maybe we should start a blog. Say "Asshole_technophobe_lusers_who_mistreat_support_workers_must_die.com"

:D already exists. Customerssuck.com. There's also www.techcomedy.com for those of us who love to make the idiocy publically known, and of course the LJ comms...

I say we take the wankwar to a fuckin' GLOBAL LEVEL. Like customers_suck vs bad_service, only dialed up to 11 :D

[tadiera.livejournal.com]

I hate that kind of thing. People have no fucking clue, do they?
I have a friend who began bitching out a customer service rep for no reason and I tore into him. For at least an hour. He came away with a new respect.

So many people see customer service as people 'below' them, because they're 'too good' for that kind of job and the people in those jobs must be pathetic losers that don't deserve respect.


Which is why I kinda wish there could be a day in which NO ONE in customer service, PERIOD, works. Just one day a year. No stores open. No restaurants. No fast-food. No call-centers. Nada. Let's see these fuckers survive then.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

Which is why I kinda wish there could be a day in which NO ONE in customer service, PERIOD, works. Just one day a year. No stores open. No restaurants. No fast-food. No call-centers. Nada. Let's see these fuckers survive then.

I second that.

[bitterfun.livejournal.com]

Be careful what you wish for. A day with no customer service might make people self reliant and then a lot of customer service people will be unemployed people.

Being respectful of every job is the requirement, proving that your job is not necessary is retarded.

[the-reda.livejournal.com]

One day is not enough. Unless you turn the TV and the net off too. ANd electricity. Otherwise you just get Thanksgiving.

How about a 'we can cuss people out without getting fired' day.

NO SPAM FILTERING DAY

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

I want a day in which every mailserver admin on the planet just - fucking - drops all the filters. ALL OF THEM. If I hear another fucking moron talking about how spam "really isn't such a big deal" I swear to fucking god I will ... well, I'll seethe in anger and make them look at server logs whether they want to see them or not. Assholes.

[glitteringlynx.livejournal.com]

I understand there are sucky customers and I understand there are legitimately bad service reps. Heck, I've bitched about co-workers who were bad service reps. LOL

But there is NOTHING "brave" or "heroic" about vandalising a Comcast office simply because ONE PERSON didn't install her service properly. How is that the fault of everyone in the Comcast office?

Or the guy who voided his warranty by spilling a liquid on it? That's not Apple's fault. It's not a warranty repair.

Fucktards.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

I wish apple and other companies besides dell offered spill warranties.

[tmesser.livejournal.com]

But there is NOTHING "brave" or "heroic" about vandalising a Comcast office simply because ONE PERSON didn't install her service properly.

Agreed. I'm sure many of us have had difficulties with companies like Comcast (it took them weeks to get me non-defective CableCARDs for my TiVo and they wouldn't let me do anything myself, for fuck's sake). But not once did I yell at someone on the phone or go to my local office and break shit.

[wyldthyng.livejournal.com]

vandalism and an implied threat to the well-being of the employees. I saw the video itself on a news show and if I were sitting behind the desk that she came to - well, I'd kinda be wishing I had a weapon for self-defense.

[notthebuddha.livejournal.com]

The old lady At ComCast was repeatedly given the runaround about her service on the phone by numerous people, then when she came in to the office, they sent her 76-yr-old self outside to sit on a bench in the heat of summer to wait for the CS manager, then at the end of the day they told her the manager had left for the day, come back tomorrow. She came back the next day with the hammer to get some action.

To play the Devil's Advocate...

[rose-welch.livejournal.com]

Our local DSL is through AT&T, the company who turned me off of an SBC telephone, and then a Cingular cell phone for thier double-billing, insane wait times, rude customer service reps, and having to escalate an average of twice before getting to a sane person who generally said something like, 'Oh, sorry! Computer glitch. I've got those charges taken off, won't happen again.'. Until next month, that is.

So we swtiched to the local wireless company, who said they could provide us with minimum dial-up maximum DSL speed Internet. We purchased the required 100 modem and stayed with them even after they refused to give us the promised 50 dollar rebate, and then it turned out that thier tower signal rarely reaches our home at all. Even with the outside antennae that they want to charge you an extra 80 bucks for. That you have to drill a hole in your house for. In thier favor, thier tech support was sane and reasonable and explained right off that we simply weren't getting a signal most of the time because of where we were located, and that was not going to change.

But when we tried to cancel our account, we were told we were on a implied contract and we would have to pay for additional months even though we had never actually gotten the Internet service that we were sold at all (even though their company advertises Internet with no strings attached because they have no contracts!). When we asked for a supervisor, we were told that they have to take your number and they will call back in 5-7 business days and some unknown time. Huh?

I explained that I work for a living and would not be able to answer the telephone just whenever a sup felt like it was time to call back, so I needed to be transferred to someonewho could help me, or be given a better time to call back, please. She hung up on me. When we called back, we got the same girl, who refused to give us her name. So we headed to the local sales office and talked to the manager there who said he was just sales and he could not help me with anything except additional purchases. Couldn't even handle our cancellation.

So then we went home and tried to look up a different number on-line, only to find out that not only had our service been cancelled, but the whole 3 months extra they claimed that we owed them had already been put in as a draft on our account. It hadn't come through yet but it was scheduled the next day. WTF?????

So I went called back to the local guy and said he could get me someone with some authority or I could sue. The charge was reversed over the next few days but my God, what my hubby and I had to go through to cancel the payment for the service that they never actually provided.

So we finally tried our local cable company, who told us it would take about half an hour to hook us up, knowing that our home was not even remotely cable ready. It took five hours, including the lineman coming out to work on the line. I had to take off work because they can't work at all without someone there.

Then I was billed wrong by them because my 'unlimited' Internet telephone was billing me for everything over 500 minutes. That was hell to fix also. The upside is that the Internet works exactly as advertised.

Alot of these people probably do get abused by customers. But that's doesn't mean that they never abuse customers. The main difference is that customers treating reps like crap is never going to make the news, until the companies that the reps work for stop taking thier shit, like Sprint did.

Re: To play the Devil's Advocate...

[tmesser.livejournal.com]

customers treating reps like crap is never going to make the news, until the companies that the reps work for stop taking thier shit, like Sprint did.

As someone who's had Sprint service for nearly seven years, I applauded them for firing customers. They switched me to the $30 SERO plan just for asking, and I think that shows they do care about keeping "the right kind of customer"--that is, one who has shown loyalty and doesn't call to yell at them constantly. If that means the company treats me better than Joe Jackass who calls them up thinking the world owes him everything... well, it's clear who wins.

Re: To play the Devil's Advocate...

[10001110101.livejournal.com]

I've personally had similarly horrid experience with a certain cell phone company... and I too felt the frustration welling up in my throat as the 4th rep I'd talked to that day couldn't figure out why they'd shut my service off any more than s/he could do anything about said shut off. Seriously, if I paid my bill on time, they shut me off. It was retarded, and it happened at least two or three times.

That said, most of us in this community have worked in the IT support/service field long enough to have that special gut feeling that tells us if someone ends a service incident by assaulting a field office's equipment, they probably started it out with equal 'finesse'.

The general thrust of the article was that corporations were making misleading claims... sort of "what the large print giveth, the small print taketh away". My point is that for every person to whom that quote applies, there are generally ten who never bothered to read the large print, and now they're butthurt because they refuse to take responsibility for their oversight.

[rose-welch.livejournal.com]

On a side note, my SBC home phone and Cingular telephone were relatively fine before they merged or whatever with AT&T. I'm just quaking and waiting to see what crappiness they bring to Yahoo!, whom I purchase web hosting from.

[zzyzx.livejournal.com]

SBC is still in charge. In fact, SBC bought AT&T for their name; it's still the same exact company.

[gotica.livejournal.com]

I pride myself on my level of customer service. It means a majority (if not all) of 'my' customers are happy and that I get the thank you and the compliment emails from our CEO and high ups (I like those emails).

It means I also get bitched at from said customers about my colleagues who don't come up to par, who do something wrong. I really don't like that so I try to play the person who knows nothing about whats going on with xyz person.

So because of the above, I read all three pages of that article. It looks to be standard journalism using the sensationalism items to get people in and leaving the juicier bits which are worth reading to the end.

Where is the line that customers cross before they start escalating? I do tech support for an airline so the last page that deals with the chap on the flight that was delayed for 4 hours over all was worth reading. They were delayed, on the tarmac in a sardine can where depending on regulations you're not allowed to move from your seat.

Chasing down CEOs, COOs, et al is all well and good and in that situation I would expect nothing less and kudos to them if they found the contact details on their own merit however the abusing of staff is despicable and only provides ammunition for the customer service staff who do have a nasty streak to let it out and run rampant.

I'm very lucky where I am, the CEO wants XP on his laptop and he's happy to wait until I get around to doing it.

On a lighter note, I just got a hot breakfast that was left over from one of our flights (we do full service flights).. I guess another perk of the job.

[erunamiryene.livejournal.com]

Here's what caught my eye:
a growing disconnect between the experience companies promise and customers' perceptions of what they actually get.

Aaaaand ... it's the call center person's fault, right? You should call and immediately start YELLING at that person ... or go smash up their !@#$#$^ call center (*boggle*) ... when the higher ups in the company are the ones not delivering what they promised. It's like these people just refuse to believe that the customer service rep really doesn't have anything to do with policy. I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that being a complete douchecanoe to the CSR is going to help anything. I'd refuse to help the ass that destroyed his Apple, on general principle, because he acted like a three year old that wanted attention. But that's just me, and that's why I'll never own a company, most likely. *shrug*

[jimbojones.livejournal.com]

To an extent yes, to an extent no. A lot of the reason call center reps bear the brunt of customers' wrath is because they are the only people the company will expose to customers' wrath.

The shitheads who make the decisions know perfectly well they don't have to deal with the customers who get shafted by them, which is why they're so willing to make those decisions in the first place. Do you really think a guy who ever had to look customers eye-to-eye on a regular basis would decide to shave $0.05 off the cost of a power supply, knowing perfectly well what he was doing to the lifecycle and reliability of the unit? FUCK no, he'd actually have to face the shitstorm when deluges of angry customers with broken [x] came in. Same thing for cell phone / cable / DSL policies, you name it, right down the line.

When I want an [x] and I have the choice to buy it from a big business or from a small business where the owner actually faces the public, the only time I'll ever choose the big business is when I am positive that I don't need or want ANY support WHATSOEVER on it. Because, y'know, that's pretty much what I expect to get. No fucking support, just a bunch of runaround bullshit aimed at "profit loss management."

It's not a healthy situation.

[wyldthyng.livejournal.com]

oh MAN how I ranted about that old lady (the Comcast one)... she only got a $345 fine? She should've paid to replace the equipment she broke and written a public apology letter to the FRONTLINE(!!) staff whose well-being she threatened with her little hammer escapade. We on the front lines don't deserve to be verbally (or physically!) assaulted for decisions the higher-ups make.

[kyidyl.livejournal.com]

What really got me was that idiot who called up a CEO and *harassed* him at home. Seriously, WTF?? Who DOES that? Christ, if you're going to call them, wait till Monday and call them at work. I'd hang up on some psycho who did that and tell them to take their $45 elsewhere. Fucknugget...and that poor area tech who now has this insane man w/ his phone number, probably treating this tech like his own personal support. I mean, he called up for a hiccup in service and a SCREEN problem? Uhm, your ISP didn't hose up your video, idiot, and they can't fix it.

Or that idiot with the broken speaker. Who listens to their speakers up all the way anyway? What's to say he didn't just blow out the speaker? Not to mention...Hey, AT&T doesn't manufacture the phone. Dumbass. He was irked that they didn't warn him about radio interference? I don't support phones, but I know that speakers buzz when certain phones are around. Not to mention, he looked it up one time...why couldn't he look it up BEFORE _HE_ damaged his speakers is beyond me. And he's suing. Ooooooof COURSE. Sure, let's just make them replace their *entire* network because you were a dumbass, and couldn't research how a specific technology worked before using it. No one's hiding the information from you, you're just too lazy to go out and look for it.

Grrr, stuff like this irritates me to NO END. ;P~~ (I have no problem with what I do for a living, but the one-sidedness of this article just ticks me off.)

[phrogg.livejournal.com]

"he called up for a hiccup in service and a SCREEN problem? Uhm, your ISP didn't hose up your video, idiot, and they can't fix it."

If his service provider is like mine and offers both Cable TV and internet access, it could well be. We have customers calling in all the time for screen static/artifacting and slow speeds on the same call.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Media prints what its major demographic wants to hear, film at 11.

[canray.livejournal.com]

Another talks about the "brave" and "heroic" tale of a 76-year old woman going into a Comcast branch office armed with a hammer and destroying equipment in the reception area because, according to the article, they "failed to install her service properly".

I had to deal with the Field Techs almost daily.

*I* wanted to do this!

[bamatone.livejournal.com]

All of you bitching about the old lady who took the hammer to Comcast: Being a Comcast customer myself, I have nothing but sympathy for her. And while reading this article about it (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359.html), I found myself cheering her on.

About the old lady...

[rose-welch.livejournal.com]

I'd like to point out that if it had been a twenty-ish black guy, they would call it 'felonious' as opposed to 'heroic' and a hell of a lot more would have happened than a 345 fine!

Re: About the old lady...

[10001110101.livejournal.com]

Good point... I was thinking about that today. Now I'm all for respecting your elders and whatnot, but it's not like managing not to die for a certain number of years somehow means normal rules of behavior don't apply to you. I mean, no one's saying she didn't have every right to be mad as hell about her experience, but come on, bringing a weapon into a public building and destroying property? I'm pretty sure they'd throw the book at someone younger, and worse if they were a minority.

[syberghost.livejournal.com]

Hopefully somebody reading this does MSNBC's technical support.

Positive reinforcement of bad ideas.

[phirefly.livejournal.com]

All crap like that does is show people that acting like assholes does, indeed, get them what they want.

Bad behavior should not be encouraged, but there it is all the same. The more these jerks are encouraged, the more people will think it's the right way to handle things. Ugh :(