What ever happened to Customer Service?

By trade, I am a travel agent. Not the "come on in to the storefront location and I'll book you a cruise" kind of travel agent most of us think of. I am a corporate travel agent, who usually handles all clients in more of a call center environment. In addition to that experience, I have many years of customer service telephone experience. I gave a Cliff's Notes resume of my experience to say that I take customer service VERY SERIOUSLY. I totally get that my performance as a frontline to whatever company I am working for will DIRECTLY affect my pay! That's the way I think of it, and so that is one of the reasons I excel in my CS skills.

When is CS a bad thing? When it is in the hands of utility companies. Of course I am including the cable and telephone companies in that lineup. I have never encountered a bigger group of self-absorbed and insensitive people with headsets stuck to their faces in my life!! It's like they know that we're stuck with them, so they can treat us however. We'll keep complaining and paying our bill, 'cause there's really no alternative. AND THEY KNOW IT!! Plus, on top of that, they don't treat their employees very well so why would they sound happy on the phone? They HATE their job because they know their employer treats them like a commodity instead of a person. There are far too many companies out there that are more busy focusing on the "bottom line" (ie profits) rather than their most valuable resource -- their people.

Because of those facts, I spent a total of 4-and-a-half hours on the phone with the cable company last week. The score? Them 1, me 0. I will admit, I am kind of a slacker so it was my fault I hadn't paid attention to the bill since I moved 3 months ago. What? What? Much to surprise when I sat down online to pay it and saw over $600! How does a $99 bundle deal for all three services (phone, digital cable, internet) translate into $600 in 3 months time? I got a million-jillion "I'm sorry ma'am"s but still no real definitive answer. So after 5 phone calls, about 25-30 transfers and a 1hour conversation with a "supervisor", I thought the issue was resolved. We got everything squared away, I made a payment on the phone, we were good. So I thought! Thursday evening I couldn't figure out why my phone was so quiet, which is unusual. It was dead! I was to start work in an hour! Needless to say, that didn't happen --or on Friday or Saturday night either. They reconnected the main line, but noone bothered with the second line.

Get this: I called to complain about it Friday and request something be done immediately to restore my second line as I had missed enough work as it was. This "heffa" decided she was done talking to me, so she ever so politely HUNG UP ON ME!!! I couldn't call back because I was completely livid! I called this morning on my way to work and was told that the order was placed and the phone would be on today. It was on before I left work at 6P.

So, thanks to their complete lack of care for the customer, I lost 10 hours out of a 20hour workweek. Yeah cuz you know me being a single mom and all, I just have money rolling in everywhere. Riiiiiiight! You move on and you move past. I just finished my first shift for this week. I'm so grateful to God for this opportunity, and not even Charter is gonna stand in the way of that!!!