Megan Hart

45250 / 100000 words. 45% done!

line of the day: There’s nothing potentially embarrassing about Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

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What is UP with customer service these days? Or rather, the lack thereof?

It’s very easy to keep my business. I’m lazy. I don’t like to change providers or credit cards or whatever. If you make it easy for me, I’ll stay even if somewhere else I could be getting a better deal. But make it difficult for me and I will not only cancel my service with you, but I will NEVER NEVER NEVER again buy your product.

Yesterday I — no joke– spent HOURS on a livechat trying to figure out how to get my battery backup surge protector to work. It worked before. Then I had to replace the battery, which I did at no small cost. Then it wouldn’t work. Would.Not.Work. Spent a couple days emailing tech support and finally got into livechat where the supposedly tech-savvy support proceeded to tell me what the problem was. (Which is what I’d just said — it doesn’t work. It used to work. It doesn’t work now. No, I never had it hooked up to the computer via a USB cable before, nor did I have to use special software which –what’s that you say? The latest software download doesn’t support my OS? Well, no wonder the battery backup isn’t working - except oh, I don’t know, what about the fact it WORKED FINE LAST WEEK.)

Yeah.

He argued with me on live chat. ARGUED. About what the problem was. I know what the problem is, m’kay? It doesn’t work, and I never had to jump through hoops before to make it work, why should I now? Oh, and by the way? Offering me a refund on your product that doesn’t WORK but charging me to return it AND a 15% restocking fee? UNACCEPTABLE.

I told him I’d be taking my business elsewhere, emailed the tech support the same thing. Guess what? Since then I’ve had, no joke, FOUR emails from tech support giving me advice. It’s pretty much the same advice over and over, solving the problem that’s NOT The problem — and sorry, I don’t have a piece of crap Windows computer to hook it up to, buddy, that’s the POINT. When you tell me it doesn’t SUPPORT MY OS (though funnily enough, it did last week) that tells me it’s not going to work, and I’m out almost fifty bucks. So the livechat dude emails me to tell me that “I understand your decision is primarily due to lack of proper guidance of features and compatibility and use of acssociries in the Box.” (sic)

Look, fine, whip yourself with the rushes, IT’s TOO LATE. I already bought another product, which I already told you AND the other dude from tech support. TOO LATE. You couldn’t fix my problem, but that’s not why I went with someone else. I took my business to another company because you couldn’t offer me the simple common courtesy of “we’re sorry this product doesn’t work. Please return it and we’ll refund your money” WITHOUT a restocking fee.

So today I get on the horn to cancel my American Express card. I have two, you see, since Costco seduced me into getting a business card to get a better gas rebate or whatever. I tried to cancel the other one months ago and was advised to at least wait for my rebate check, which just came. Makes sense, right? So no problem, I just haven’t used the card these past months. So I call to cancel it.

I SHIT YOU NOT, the customer service person ARGUED WITH ME. ARGUED.

I don’t think I can adequately express my slow-simmering fury without the use of cuss words.

What.The.Fuck.

She tries telling me I can *only* use the business card for business expenses and I still have personal expenses so therefore, need a personal card. What are they, the credit card gestapo? Excuse me? I have a home business, okay? Anything I buy is “business.” WHATEVER.

She argued with me. Ten minutes on the phone trying to cancel the goddamned credit card in which I kept saying “I don’t need two. I do not need two. Cancel the personal one.”

At one point I actually had to say “I’m totally not following your logic.” (She was rambling about business and personal and they’re both free cards, so what’s the harm in having two?) I said, “I do not need two American Express cards. Please cancel this one.”

THEN…THEN!!!!! THEN! (and oh, the fury is rising) she says “It’s already canceled. Have a good day. Good bye.”

Where is the simple “thanks for your business, yes, I can completely understand why you don’t need two identical credit cards from the same company. Thank you so much for choosing to keep at least one of our cards.” Or whatever.

And that was my morning so far.

M

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