The real price of bad customer service
October 27, 2004 at 09:05 AM
This post is going to come as a surprise to very few of you. But for my own cathartic purposes, I'm going to remind myself and you publicly why giving good customer service remains the single most important thing a company can do.
So I was robbed a couple days ago. Nothing scary, they broke into my car in the night. And stole my cell phone. They left the CDs, the radio, the money in the ash tray, but they took my cell phone. Left the car charger, but took my cell phone. As soon as I awoke and discovered it, I cancelled the service. And the phone, batteries already near dead, stopped functioning for the dolts that took it.
So... this seemed like as good time as any to shop cell phone providers again. I'm currently with Qwest, and they are all right. Nothing too special, but nothing hideous either. I'm annoyed however because if I'm a new Qwest customer I can get a free phone with activation. Now that I've been a loyal customer for over 5 years, if I want a new cell phone, I have to buy one at full retail. AKA - not cheap. Which is stupid for a dozen reasons I won't go into now. Suffice it to say, I'm shopping providers in earnest for one simple reason. As a new customer to one of them, I'm going to be treated very well. Including the free, or nearly free phone.
So last night I did a little shopping. Talked to two non-commissioned retail sales folks that sell T-Mobile, Sprint, Cingular, Verizon.
Here's the very interesting story I got from both of them.
"Sprint's customer service is terrible, don't even think about them unless you simply must have a phone that does everything from TV to video games. The phones are great, the service is spotty and worse of all, the customer service is terrible."
I have to admit that I stood there a bit stunned at what was happening. It's one thing when Uncle Bob carries on about how much Sprint "sucks" (which is a big deal too) but it's quite another, when a salesperson who will be directly responsible for how well your product does in the market is talking buyers out of buying it.
Well I was skeptical. I asked one guy "do you get a higher commission for selling Cingular than Sprint?" He reminded me that he got no commission whatsoever. Then pulled his own cell phone from his pocket -- it was a Sprint phone. He said "I'm speaking from experience, Sprint is terrible."
Wow.
So what is the cost to Sprint for their crappy customer service? They've certainly lost my business. And there's no way that I'm the only guy hearing this when shopping for a cell phone.
For what it's worth - Cingular appear to be the hungriest. The sales guys talked me out of everyone else. Great deals on phones, rollover minutes, decent coverage, and good price plans. I called my brother who uses Cingular to ask about customer service. He spent 20 mintues telling me warm and fuzzy stories. What's the value to the bottom line of good customer service? In a near commodity market, this is a no brainer. If I can't guilt-trip Qwest into giving me a break on a phone, I'll be a Cingular customer soon.
Thanks for the post. I am in a similar situation looking to move away from Verizon - did you move to Cingular ?
Posted by: Austin White | November 01, 2004 at 06:18 PM
I've had Cingular for over 3 years now. They're pretty good, but not the cheapest. I have a base model phone (the freebie/$9.99 phone) and a plan with more minutes than I can ever use for only $50/mo. It's a lot, but it's my main phone. It has VM and your basic features, a SIM card that stores your contacts so you don't have to add them in when you upgrade the phone (as long as they're both Nokia) and it's great stuff. Cingular has a few plans that are awesome.
My plan is about 500 anytime/3500 night/wknd minutes, and I've never gone over. The benefit of my plan is that there is NO ROAMING and NO Long Distance anywhere ever. If you're on an ATT site in Hermiston or a Verizon tower in San Francisco, make a call and it's just the same as downtown Spokane. Really.
So I sacrifice rollover and various other features, but my phone bill has been the same for about 3 years and will be the same for the contract term (one benefit of a long contract term).
The customer service is difficult, as they don't really want you to use a human, but they do (after some difficulty) clear up any billing cycle problems (I had a bumpy road to a renewal of my contract but they got it right after some work).
Posted by: SpoVegas | November 02, 2004 at 07:16 AM
I want to express my grief in that I was offered a choice package for 30 days free trial. However when it showed up on my bill and called in, the representative repeatedly told me to listen to her when she was not listening to me. I also explained to her that I have turned in several Life Link applications and have not benefited from the service. I am currently employed with AmeriCorps through the City of Des Moines and make minimum wage. The project is a federally funded community service project. I will recieve an educational scholarship at the end of my term.
Posted by: Deb Aguilar | December 01, 2004 at 11:25 AM
Cingular is bad, bad, bad. I had used it for about 2 years with no real problems, until now! I added my son to a family plan last Christmas for another $10 per month. Of course there are many hidden fees and unless you have a lot of extra time on your hand, it is not worth trying to understand it. Then we added my daughter this October, 2004 for her birthday. We had a 500 anytime minutes plan and although we always banked minutes before my daughter; we went way over costing over $200. Ouch! So my wife called to investigate and during the investigation had our plan changed to a 2000 anytime. So I was surprised when we got a bill for over $1000. Apparently they have no record of our changing over. The manager was very rude to my wife and the best he could offer was a payment plan. Of course we aren't going to pay. Then the manager added insult to injury=y and threatened her with another $450 fee if she cancelled. Of course we cancelled and will never, ever, pay their usury and punitive pay scale. If you are thinking of Cingular, BEWARE!
Posted by: Paul | January 05, 2005 at 05:22 AM
Okay folks! I am a Cingular Sales person. I work for an agent NOT a corporate store. I am also a Cingular customer as are most of my family members. There is some incorrect information above and some truths! If you get a good sales person you should not find any hidden fees. Also read your contract before you sign up. You have 30 days to exit your contract w/o a contract cancellation fee. Each phone carries it's own contract that is why someone may have been quoted a $450 cancellation fee. In our market it's $150 per line, but this does vary (from what I have heard). The SIM cards are not phone brand specific as someone else mentioned. I can take my SIM out of my Moto. V400 and put it into my husbands Samsung X427 and his phone will work as if it mine. In our market we mostly offer Nationwide plans starting at 250 minutes. These plans have no roaming or long distance. On plans $59.99 and higher you can family tie for an add. $9.99 per line and offers 850 Rollover minutes this includes Unlimted Mobile to Mobile to all Cingular and AT&T customers, Unlimeted nights and weekends, basic voice mail, caller id and much more. Your local agent should have a broucher with all of the details. The GSM coverage is great. Altough in some areas the TDMA coverage is still very prominent. The GSM phones can work worldwide (depending on model) so if you travel internationally it could benifit you. We have all kinds of phones from your basic to your hightech camera phone. Also get information from independent sources such as www.phonescoop.com. As for customer service...it can be interesting sometimes. We as agents call Customer Service many times a day. We sometimes get long holdtimes (especially since the meger, I expect this will improve with time). Sometimes we get rude and unhelpful people (as with any place). The key here is to know what you want, know what you are asking, take notes and find out who you are speaking to. Try going into the store where you bought the phone and see if they will call on your behalf. I call many times for customers to correct billing issues and get refunds. Most of MY customers never even call into Cingular themselves. I belive that customer service continues after the sale and since I make commission off of my sales, this is only fair. Your sales person can make a huge diffrence in your service experiance. You can get phones cheap of the internet and some stores offer great deals. But beware because altough our agent store charges a few extra $$ for our phones, we back it up with excellent customer service and our customers happily pay $20 extra for a phone, because they know we are a reliable agent location and that we WILL take care of thier needs. Please note I can only speak for the store I work for and can not vouch for every agent in the nation. Find out how long they have been in business and what they can do for you. As with all relationships it is give and take.
Posted by: Rachel Sheehan | January 06, 2005 at 09:00 AM
Well let me tell you about Cingular. I have put off getting a cell phone because of the horror stories. Well my son is in the air force and his mother wanted to keep in touch with him. Well I buckled under and got the 850 anytime nationwide plan. Did it online through my FEDEX employee discount, I have spent more time on the phone with cutomer service than I have on the cell phone. They sent the wrong phone numbers with the two phones,then they sent the wrong code with the phones. Still had no service. So after customer rep number 8 they found out the wrong sim cards were installed. All taken care of right ? Wrong. Got the phone bill for 3 weeks . $433.00. Well guess what, they charged me 300 bucks for cancelling the wrong phone numbers they provided. As of now when I log in online. I have three bills . One for 46 bucks, one for 92 dollars and one for $433.00 . I'm not supprised. I knew it was going to be like this.
Posted by: Mark | March 30, 2005 at 08:08 PM
OK....you want to here just how bad Sprint is, first hand?
Two stories: About two months after I first started my service with Sprint I lost my job of 9 years which cause a spike in my cel phone useage, mostly (90%) calls to a close friend of mine who is also on Sprint service. I thought that Sprint to Spint calling was an included feature so I thought there would be no real increase in my useage....boy was I ever wrong. I received my bill and had almost $100 overage charges which would not have been there had I known Spint to Spint was not included because I simply would have paid the $5 charge for the service and would not have gone over in my minutes. So I call Customer service and am on hold for an ungodly amount of time. I speak to a rep who procedes to tell me that since I did not have Sprint to Spint I went over in my minutes and they would be happy to add Sprint to Spint for me. This is fine except it cannot be retroactive, and for no other reason then they don't have to because they have me in a 2 year contract so why worry about giving good service? So anyway, I am trying to be nice at this point and try to make the point that I am a good cusomer that is not asking for anything free, simply some consideration for an honest mistake. Well, I'm sure it will be no suprise to other Sprint customers that the Rep was unwilling to budge on the issue. I asked to speak with a supervisor to discuss the issue further at which point I was put on hold for longer than I had time to wait. (had to get to my new job) So I had to hang up. (The above [hone call took place while int he Sprint store on their phone) When I called back and spoke to a supervisor finally, they basically would not feild any additional concerns of mine stating that the Rep told me there was nothing they could do and the supervisors support all Rep decisions. After some additional complaining and debating I was finally able to squeeze out 2 whole months of sprint to sprint calling service for a grand total of $10.00. Now I have to practically beg for them to do anything and it was never suggested in the begining that this was even an option, it was basically no we won't help you because we don't have to.
Stay tuned to part to of this continuing saga.
Posted by: Stacey | March 31, 2005 at 05:10 PM
ONE of my problems with Cingular is explained in the following letter that I have had to write to them. Personal information has been removed.
Dear: Cingular Customer Service,
PLEASE HELP ME!
I am writing this letter to try and resolve an issue that I have been trying to settle for the past two and a half months.
First of all my husband and I were AT&T customers for several years. Then Cingular and AT&T merged. In the past we have always been on separate phone plans. We decided that we would like to join a family talk plan together and add a line for my Mother. Which should be no problem. Right? Well that’s where it all began.
I called Cingular to set everything up. (This was in mid February) We ordered a phone for my Mother and asked to have my husband’s number and my number all added to one family talk plan. They set everything up but sent me TWO phones instead of just one. I called Cingular the day I received the duplicate order and reported the problem. The representative apologized and told me that she would send me a return-mailing label for the extra phone that was not needed. The label came (about ten days later) in an envelope containing nothing other than the label itself. No instructions or any other correspondences were included. I attached the return address label to the box and mailed it as requested.
We received two bills in March. One of the bills was for an account # ****-001-31. On the bill the following numbers were listed. My phone , the phone I ordered for my Mother , and the phone that was sent back .
The second bill was for an account # ****-001-31. (THIS IS THE CORRECT ACCOUNT.) On that account billing, the following phone numbers were listed. My husband’s phone number (***-***-****), my phone number (***-***-****), and my Mother’s phone number (***-***-****).
Once more I called Cingular. I was once again apologized to and told to disregard the account # ****-001-31 and that once Cingular received the extra phone back they would close this account.
In April, I received another bill for account # ****-001-31. This time the only phone number listed was (***-***-****) along with my name. Once more I called Cingular and they told me that the phone had not been received yet and that they wouldn’t delete that account until they did. I said ok, figuring it just takes Cingular time to go through their mail. After I received an email about this account, I called Cingular once more. I was told that still they had not received the extra phone back. The representative asked me for tracking number. I cannot give you something that I was not provided with. The return-mailing label was for the United States Postal Department. If you made the arrangements for returning the phone then why don’t YOU provide a tracking number? I find it very unprofessional to send a return-mailing label alone with no cover letter, instructions, tracking number or anything. If you send phones to customers via FEDEX, then why don’t you retrieve them in the same manner? This would save everyone involve a lot of time, trouble and aggravation. If the phone were misdirected, it certainly wouldn’t have come back to me. The label was addressed to and from the same address. I believe that the phone has arrived at Cingular, but has been overlooked or pushed aside.
I DO NOT have the Nokia 6010 (***-***-****) in my possession. In fact when that number is dialed I receive a recording that states it is not a working number.
I have made a total of FIVE phone calls to Cingular trying to resolve this issue. Nothing has been done. We are still getting a bill each month for this account that should not even exist. Now totaling over $544.00. We are VERY frustrated and are considering leaving Cingular all together, even if it takes paying a penalty! Please help to resolve this issue
Sincerely Frustrated, Tina
Posted by: Tina | May 14, 2005 at 08:31 PM
Cingular's service is very bad. They must have over 10 different customer service numbers, each time you call you'll be asked to call a different one, then you'll be put on hold, hung up on, go thru automated computer voice hell, and finally you'll be angry and feel cheated.
I don't know if the other carriers are any good, but cingular is frustrating all around.
Some of the customer service reps sound uninterested, they just go thru the motions, and ask to call some other number.
Posted by: C. Hughes | May 14, 2005 at 11:43 PM
I have never experienced deceptive sales practices from a national company like those practiced by Cingular. I was told at the store that they would waive the activation fee, so to pay no attention to it on the contract and IVR. When I got home and called the number that the salesperson gave me, they said that they NEVER waive the fee. They conferenced the manager of the store and she agreed that the offer was made and offered me some accessories I didn't need. I said that I wanted what was promised. I have heard from two other Cingular reps since them and neither will budge. One told me that "as a rule of thumb, have it written in the contract before signing." I told her that the sales rep contituted a verbal contract. She said that the written one supercede that one.
I thought bait and switch was illegal. I was told that I could come back and switch back but I was leaving town and didn't have time. (That was the first thing I told them when I walked in the store -- I'm leaving town and need to switch my phone service before I go.) By the way, you DON'T have 30 days to leave without paying a penalty, you have 3. (I had several Cingular people make that clear to me.) Since I got my phone on Memorial Day weekend, the store wasn't even open during that time. If they meant 3 business days, they made sure they never said it.
As I said earlier, this is the first time that a national company hasn't stood behind the word of its salesperson even if they said something wrong. I have read other reviews where the same offer was made -- that of waiving the activation fee. Is this a common sales practice for Cingular? I am curious.
Posted by: Graett | June 10, 2005 at 10:39 AM
Cingular has provided my wife and I with the ABSOLUTE WORST customer service either of us has ever experienced in our lives (we're both in our 30s). When our contract ends in a few months, we're leaving and never going back.
We moved a couple of months ago, so I called to change our service area and assumed we'd need new numbers. The customer service rep said we would NOT need to change numbers, much to my surprise. I reiterated that we were moving over 200 miles away, but he said he confirmed that we would not need to change.
We got our first bill after the move and it was well over $400. EVERY CALL WAS BILLED AS ROAM! At, I believe, 35 cents per minute. Now, anyone can make a mistake, and I don't begrudge the person I originally talked to. I used to work in customer service and I know I made mistakes.
However, when my wife called about straightening up the bill, the trouble started. First they checked our account and thankfully they even admitted that there was a note on our account stating they'd told us we didn't need to change the number. Seems pretty simple to me--we called to make a change, they incorrectly told us we didn't need to, and as a result of their error they billed us nearly 8 times our usual monthly bill. The simple answer is for them to bill us as though the calls weren't roam calls but made from local numbers, as we had attempted to do in the first place.
Their "generous offer" was to give us a 50% break on the bill. Meaning our usual $60 bill would only be somewhere over $200. My wife asked for an explanation as to why we were going to be charged for their error, an error they readily admit, and the customer "service" rep just stated that that was "the policy." When my wife asked to talk to someone with more authority, he threatened her with charging us the whole amount if she was going to be difficult. She then asked to speak with his manager/supervisor, and he wouldn't put her through. I would not have believed this story if I wasn't sitting right there the whole time.
We are fair, reasonable people. We're happy to pay the bill that we should have received, had Cingular rightfully told us we needed to change our numbers. We're not done with this little episode yet but I guarantee we won't be paying the $400+ amount.
Posted by: zambi | June 22, 2005 at 11:08 AM
I have to agree with anyone who says sprint has the worst customer service. I have found that you will never reach a manager and no one will solve your problem. It you have an issues they will keep transferring you until you just give up. But the true kicker is that they will change your plan with out you asking, of course they put you on a more expensive plan with less minutes, and when you call to get it fixed they say it does not exists anymore. Then you have to call the fraud department and they only work unit 6 pm. I would say don't use sprint unless you want to get ____.
Posted by: paul | August 15, 2005 at 08:03 PM
Wow. You Cingular customers have interesting stories. Stories (as a Cingular Cust Svc Rep) I hear every day. Some reps are probably useless tits, granted (I've sat beside some). Getting a good rep is a matter of chance. You call in and you could get a rep who doesn't care about anything but lunch break OR you could get one who will actuall empathize with you and go further than most (raise the bar) to help you out (shameless self promotion);-). Does this scare you? You could very well be speaking with someone on their first day on the floor! This goes out to Agent Paul [can I get your agent code, market, and location? ;-) ]. I actually prefer speaking with agents. It's certainly easier when it comes to techinical problems. If I give them the correct message center #, they know how to reprogram it and I don't have to walk through steps. Some recommendations to customers.
1)Please try whenever possible to call from a landline ESPECIALLY when there's a technical problem.
2) Call from a quiet place when you have spare time. Some things take longer than you might expect.
3) Please read your contract. I know it's long and wordy but it's important. We charge reconnect fees as a penalty for breaking your promise to pay on time. Personally, I would lower the fee, but I'm just a lowly CSR. Also, if you're a new customer TEST THE SERVICE. You have 30 days to back out without getting hammered with termination fees. If you get shitty signal in your area, CANCEL! Don't call up 2 months down the road and BITCH at me (us)! NO WIRELESS PROVIDER CAN GUARANTEE SERVICE. WE ARE NOT BREAKING OUR "END OF THE BARGAIN" IF SERVICE SUCKS IN YOUR AREA. That's why you get a month to evaluate.
If you get a really good rep, they may bend rules for you. And if you expect a rep to tell you what they REALLY think, not gonna happen. That's what quality assurance (the people who record phone calls) are for. There are some times we aren't concerned about them. Here's a pointer. INCOMING calls MAY be monitored. If we call YOU back on a landline to troubleshoot, it's not recorded and we all know it. THAT'S when we'll be honest if you want it. I could write a short book, but the proprietary information would get me arrested. Was there anything else I could assist you with? Well, thank you for calling Cingular Wireless. Have a great evening. ;-)
Posted by: John | August 27, 2005 at 12:23 AM
I mean agent Rachel, not Paul. Oops. Name of the poster's at the bottom, not the top.
Posted by: John | August 27, 2005 at 12:31 AM
Cingular Rollover minutes are Great! Unless you want to burn up your rollover minutes. My company recently changed from company phones to personal phones (IRS thing). (Good News for me)Unbeknownst to me my cell number had accumulated several thousand minutes of rollover minutes. (Good news for me as of month and a half ago)When I made the change, the Cingular sales rep said that I could change plans up or down at will to burn up those minutes. (Here's the bad news) Cingular NEW policy is that you can only transfer over as many minutes as the monthly plan. (i.e. 700 minute plan can only rollover 700 minutes). So in effect if I lower my monthly program to take advantage of those minutes I never used (true-gained on company bill), I will now lose several thousand rollover minutes. The solution from the Resolution department at Cingular? "Use the phone more." Really "Great" solution considering I'm on the phone all the time now! Just be aware. Don't let your rollover minutes accumulate too much before making some change to your plan.
Posted by: Dan | October 03, 2005 at 11:18 AM
well im customer service in spanish, yes, for sprint. and the guys at the stores are just............ well, just to say they dont even have a training, we train for 6 weeks. now, spanish and english are different things, try calling spanish cust care some day, you will take a surprise........... we who are not in the u.s., are the #1 customer satisfaction call center of ALL sprint call centers.
Posted by: alex | October 29, 2005 at 09:15 PM
Finally I was able to switch over to a different carrier after two years of miserable contract at Sprint. I am with T-mobile now and I am so glad not to have to deal with Sprint's customer service any more. If I have known this before I would save me tons of money, time and headache over the last two years.
Posted by: Kevin | April 04, 2006 at 11:53 AM
I changed my telephone service afer I found out they refused to wipe my ass for me, talk about bad service. But this new company refuses to send someone to my home to kiss my ass and lick my balls for me so I walked into that local telephone company's store and told the sales clerk "if you want my business to continue with your company you will give a blowjob and lick my ass crack". To my suprise they called ther cops! what is customer service coming to!
Posted by: James Bradley | July 31, 2006 at 01:48 PM
I walked into the local Wal-mart recently hoping to get a free set of patio furniture, free by meaning to break it on purpose to get a discount. But them damn savvy sales clerks saw me with my Louisville slugger busting up the glass table and called the police. Oh well I guess I will try the Best Buy and break myself a free TV!
Posted by: Le Roy | July 31, 2006 at 01:56 PM
Sales clerks should be hung by their necks! the nerve of them wanting a day off. I drove to my local LCBO (which is chain of government owned liquor shops here in Ontario, Canada) and to my suprise they were closed ON A NATIONAL HOLIDAY!!!! I tell you I don't know what the world is coming to when sales clerks get one day off. You Americans are lucky to be able to buy your liquor from underaged poorly paid sales clerks with shotguns under the counter.
Posted by: Judy Clark | July 31, 2006 at 02:08 PM
It was pouring down rain all day and finally cleared only to find flat tire during lunch brake! The vehicle had a TOTAL flat and needed replaced. I was asked if I wanted additional services and after confirming to have it done, I was told the car could not be touched since it was MY HUSBAND's car! I had to get HIS permission to get the requested items done and could even get the tire fixed without his permission. As I paid, a smart remark was made "Do I need to write you an excuse for being late back to work?" I'm not a little kid, I'm 49, and didn't appreciate the snide remark! I noticed there was no problem taking my money. I can assure you, I will not be back, and several customer were not very impressed either.
Posted by: Debbie | October 17, 2006 at 05:21 PM