Customer “service”
Tired of politics? Let’s talk about a much more pleasant topic: customer service.
And yes, that’s sarcasm – although, come to think of it, as frustrating as customer service can be these days, it actually is more pleasant than politics.
I had ordered something from Amazon that was difficult if not impossible to obtain elsewhere, and I needed it by this coming Monday. I had ordered it nearly three weeks prior to that, and the Amazon algorithm had assured me it would get here in time.
I waited patiently. But each time I tracked my order it hadn’t shipped yet. So today I decided to give Amazon a call.
The experience I had with customer service is hardly unique to Amazon; I find that it’s fairly typical these days. First I got some sort of computerized voice telling me I had to verify my account – even though I was on the cellphone that is connected to the account. They sent me a text, I did what the text said – but not fast enough for Amazon, apparently accustomed to the more nimble-figured young. Even though I’d done it quickly (as far as I was concerned), and a text message from Amazon said “Thanks for verifying your account,” the bot on the telephone thought otherwise: “We’re sorry, but you did not verify your account.”
Another phone call, another wait, and this time I knew enough to be lightning quick and successfully verified the account. But this time I got someone on the phone – an actual person – who insisted that my phone number should be something else.
I tried again. This time the verification worked. The person I was talking to had an accent, like all the others, but I could understand what she was saying without much difficulty. She told me that my order had gotten “stuck.” That was the exact word she used. When I asked where it had gotten stuck – at Amazon, or in the shipping process – she reluctantly admitted it seemed to have been sitting at Amazon all that time. But now, now it was unstuck and would be on its way.
I expressed concern that it might not get to me by Monday. All she would say was that I’d get an email in a day or two confirming the shipment. She could not or would not tell me another thing. So I said I didn’t want an email, I wanted the package. She stonewalled. I asked to speak to someone who might know more and would be empowered to help with this. She said everyone there had the same authority as she.
I’ve discovered with customer service these days, in the information duel in which they are determined to give out the least possible amount of information and the customer is determined to extract more information, that there are magic words that act like keys to open locked doors. One of those keys is, of course, the word “agent.” Another is the word “retention” (that’s for Comcast, for example). In this case I realized I’d not said the word “supervisor;” I’d merely asked to talk to a person above her who was empowered to do more. That is a supervisor, of course. But now I uttered the magic words, “I want to speak with a supervisor,” and she immediately answered “Okay” and put me on hold.
Awful muzak and a wait, during which I pondered whether there actually would be a supervisor, or whether this was a cruel practical joke by my customer service representative and I would wait and wait and wait for the supervisor who never came.
Fortunately, after maybe a ten-minute wait, a bona fide supervisor came on the line. I went through my tale of woe again. He told me that the previous person had released my package for shipment and that it “should” be here by Monday. I expressed doubt. He repeated Monday. Then I asked him how the package would be shipped, and whether, since this had been Amazon’s mistake, the shipping could be expedited by Amazon.
This question seemed to function as another magic word. “Okay, I’ll check!” he said brightly. When he came back he said it would cost me an extra $11.50. “Do you mean to tell me,” I said, “that Amazon – which was at fault here – would not cover the mailing at this point?” He assured me that, although he wasn’t able to do that at this moment, Amazon would ultimately reimburse me.
Do I believe this? Perhaps. But I okayed the payment and the thing should come to me tomorrow.
And it only took about an hour and a half.
I’ve come to accept that Amazon’s delivery dates are more “guidelines” than an actual fact. But still, three weeks is an awfully long length of time.
junior:
The “tell” was that it hadn’t even gotten shipped. And I hadn’t heard a word from Amazon about the delay. That’s unusual.
Interesting story.
I had an encounter with Amazon customer service when they messed up a bit some months ago.
I had signed up for a free 1-month trial subscription. Luckily, I noticed one night that the trial period was about to end in several hours, and I cancelled it. Oh, but they had already charged me for a 1-month paid subscription.
So, I went around in circles on the website a while trying to remedy this, including trying their chat system. The first time with the chat indicated that it was automated and not very relevant at that, and I gave up. After trying a few more website options, I came back to the chat system, wondering what would happen if I was more persistent.
Surprisingly, after plowing through some automated higher level selection process questions, it took me to a capable human. They gave me a refund rather quickly.
I guess it is important to remember that just because these things start out automated, doesn’t mean they are totally automated, all the time.
My husband is expecting a package a friend mailed via USPS on 6/12. It’s gone back and forth SIX times between the regional facility and the other regional facility. My husband called the USPS (which hasn’t off-shored its customer service. Yet.) and he unhelpfully told him he could open up an investigation. He seemed to indicate that there was no way for the USPS to END the loop; it just had to end itself.
It’s still in the doom loop. I check out everyday.
Amazon’s customer service has gone downhill.
Next day from usps is hopefully it gets there on time. If not they will refund shipping.
Which is of little relief if you really needed it by a certain date.
The automated voice system at amazon is very annoying. It’s reduced my perception of them tremendously.
Funny you post this today, Neo. I’ve been dealing with bill refunds that were sent back to me as prepaid debit cards.
As I spent this morning on the phone, on websites, and googling how to navigate these prepaid card websites, I thought to myself “Grunt, this would be a fun story for an open thread”.
And here we are.
I’m of the personal opinion that the prepaid cards you get for any sort of refund or rebate are a way for the company issuing the refund and the card servicer to make money off of cards that go un-used.
A penny here, a dollar there, pretty soon you’re into “Office Space” territory.
Anyways. It took about an hour on the phone, half an hour poking around on a website, and a helpful Reddit post that explained that you must enter a valid cell number to initiate a bank transfer from the card servicer. See, the website won’t tell you that. It just sits there. Just like the website won’t tell you that you can’t use special characters in your password. It just sits there.
I have a background in IT, and I deal with bureaucracies as part of my daily work, so for me this was just another exercise in figuring my way through the cracks in the wall to get to what I want. Annoying, but within my capabilities.
I feel bad for the folks that don’t have that know how, or patience, and the card companies get their money back from those customers in the form of “maintenance fees”.
I’ve never figured out what to say after the machine says “Okay, you want to speak to a representative. Please tell me what you are calling about so I can direct your call.” And whatever I say next, either it doesn’t understand me, or else it says (falsely) “I can help you with that” and proceeds to tell me stuff I already know or don’t need to know. After several iterations I start to yell and swear at the machine, and sometimes that works. Does anybody know a magic word to get by this barrier?
I’m reminded of a song. Not sure I agree with it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbtf6mBkbCE
A couple of years ago, I started recording ALL calls to companies. They record me for “quality purposes” so I record them now.
I live in a one-party state so I rarely inform them that I am recording. I don’t trash any recordings since the files aren’t large and I have dozens of hard drives.
I’ve played back many recordings when speaking with an agent about a problem. It is proof that someone told me something different from what the current agent is saying. This is especially true when dealing with doctor’s offices.
Amazon has gone downhill in service. Almost every order to me has some issue. I mostly rant to the people at the Whole Foods Amazon counter. They know me by sight and to a person are always nice and patient. No outscouring the pickup counter to India.
Amazon messed up my last order. I cancelled it and ordered the same items again. It should be here tomorrow.
What I can’t figure is why the first order took a week to arrive but the identical second order will be shipped for free in two days. I never order anything from Amazon unless I am getting free shipping and I don’t have a prime account.
Don’t even get me started working in tech and trying to reach someone for help at times.
I’ve worked on both sides of the phone in these instances and I really do feel sorry for the call takers because they are given so little ability to actually do anything it makes you wonder why not replace them with A.I.? A robot will be able to accomplish just as much as the person you have hamstrung.
And of course it’s the problem customers who ruin it for the rest of us. I almost have a script nowadays I recite: “Look I know what you guys go through, I promise I’m not one of those assholes, but this is going to be tricky – I wouldn’t be calling you if it wasn’t.”
Bof
I never say or enter any info when prompted. I simply start pressing “0” over and over and eventually the automated system says “okay, we’ll connect you to an agent.”
It has never failed to route me to a person.
Lololololololol!
Mr Whatsit and I have separate Amazon accounts, both Prime. (This started so we could buy each other birthday gifts without Amazon giving the secret away, but it has other uses.) We live in the same house, in the same town, have been married to each other for almost 43 years, and have the same credit rating. We both buy many things from Amazon, because we live in the middle of nowhere and don’t much enjoy brick-and-mortar shopping even if there was any nearby. I doubt either of us spends much more or less than the other, and we use the same credit card for all of our Amazon purchases. This has been true for decades. But, starting a few years ago, our accounts don’t work the same way at all. There’s a persistent, inexplicable discrepancy in our delivery times.
For instance: suppose that I decide to order something from Amazon, maybe a canoe paddle. (That happens to be the most recent thing I’ve ordered, just last night, after the handle of the ancient wooden one I’ve been using forever broke off in my hand mid-paddle.) I sign myself into my laptop, look up the canoe paddle in my Amazon account, and find the one I want. Amazon Prime will typically tell me it will be delivered in two or three days. (We’re too rural for the one-day deliveries that our suburb-dwelling kids can regularly expect.) But if Mr Whatsit looks up the very same item in his Prime account, at the very same time, from his laptop down there at his end of the very same couch, he’ll find the same canoe paddle, at the same price — and delivery for that item, to the same house, will almost always be a week or more away. Maybe only six days, if he’s lucky.
We tried, once, to solve this problem by contacting Amazon customer service. As you can imagine, this is not an easy problem to explain to a bot. Nor is it an easy problem to explain to a human being, it turns out, especially when there’s a language barrier and those hopeless staticky headsets that everybody in customer service uses these days, apparently designed to make sure nobody can hear each other. We spent a good hunk of a day on it, with “chats” and phone calls and supervisors and emails and transfers to Special Problem Departments and everything else anyone could think of. At various stages we even tried the yelling-and-swearing technique that “bof” sometimes finds successful. It didn’t help. We got nowhere. Even if whatever entity we were speaking with could understand what we were talking about, they couldn’t fix it or explain it. It’s basically just fate, we were told. Accept it and live in peace.
The best work-around we’ve been able to come up with is that when Mr Whatsit wants something in a hurry, he just signs in as me and orders it through my account. Then, if he forgets to tell me about it, I’ll get a surprising email telling me that something or other that I didn’t order is on its way, and he’ll get his order in two or three days rather than a week. Why? We’ll never know. And neither will Amazon customer service.
Brio:
I’ve done that quite a few times when it hasn’t worked
And in this case, I kept getting actual agents who weren’t able to do much.
– Kate Winchester said:
And of course it’s the problem customers who ruin it for the rest of us. I almost have a script nowadays I recite: “Look I know what you guys go through, I promise I’m not one of those assholes, but this is going to be tricky – I wouldn’t be calling you if it wasn’t.”
I had a recent experience with a customer support rep at FIOS. It was an exasperating exxperience for both of us, not the least because of the language barrier. But what struck me was that the service rep thanked me over and over again that I had treated her in a professional manner, because getting screamed at and cursed at all day was so difficult to deal with. It was heart-breaking, actually.
And I thought of the many assholes I know in my life who would be the jerk cursing and screaming on the other end of the line, because it is their opportunity to be a bully.
Look, the experience sucks, but I think that cuts both ways. A little patience, empathy, and kindness goes a long way.
If an item is sold or fulfilled by Amazon, it could be shipped from any Amazon fulfillment location. I have purchased quantity five of some item and had them come from four different places. I have had nothing but good results from Amazon on returns and refunds. One day delivery to my rural PO Box is the norm for locally sourced goods.
My local PO knows who were are. I got something off eBay from someone who won’t ship to a PO Box. Had him ship to my street address. PO delivered it to my PO Box anyway.
Also my wife always chats up the people on the phone. Where are you located, do you like it there, how is the weather there today. Stuff like that.
Cvs is anothet horror show they have an app but if you want actual communication good luck
Amazon does have some warehouse Black Holes that seem to create difficulties. I’ve had lost orders before, almost exactly as you have related. Inconsistent shipping information, erroneous tracking, etc. Chat windows are a nightmare – the Chat Representative is almost always playing a round-robin with a handful of customers at the same time, and you have to wait your turn on the carousel to get an answer to your input.
On the phone its worse. First you have to work your way past the automated genius system that really, really can solve every problem, really ! Then you get the foreign help desk.
With Amazon, ‘Supervisor’ is the magic word, but you’ll need to have at least 3 or 4 back-and-forths with the ‘English as second language’ person that you’re speaking with. Some of the companies have a formula: ‘Supervisors’ must be evoked 2 or 3 times before they’ll comply.
With Amazon(and others), persistence pays off. Refuse to go away. Refuse to accept non-answers. Challenge things put forward as statements of fact. If the ‘Supervisor’ is not moving the issue, demand to speak with the help desk in the USA. Sometimes it takes 2-3 times, demanding this. But I’ve been successful by pointing out that the material is moving within the US, and that Amazon is failing to provide satisfactory information by remote worker. I also bring up the words ‘Business Critical’. But when you finally get an American supervisor, most barriers and impairments seem to fall. They really do have superior access to the business software, and heightened levels of authority. The problem with foreign Help Desks is that they are foreign, and usually in places known for problematic corruption. They just are not given trusted authority status, and therefore they are not empowered to do much of anything.
Reading all these Amazon problems makes me glad I do not have an Amazon account. Amazon used to have such good customer service. When I occasionally want a book for my Kindle (such as $4 for Haynes’s Venona), I inform my cousin and she buys it on her account, and as my Kindle is connected to her account, I then download it.
Several years ago, I ordered a toilet w installation from Lowes. I placed the order at a local store. Very bad customer service, talking to some guy in India. Took 6 weeks to install. Made me wonder if the plumber had to come from India. 🙂
Last year I used online Chat to resolve an issue with Spectrum, my ISP. I was very impressed with the service. I contacted them on Saturday, and the service technician came on Monday morning. These days, that’s warp speed.
Another thing to watch for when you are expecting a delivery is spam emails from “usps” or others, citing delivery problems or “the item is at our facility and we need info to get it out to you”, etc.
The one I received recently just did not look right: there was a “usps” in the URL, but the rest of it was hokey. I probably would have rejected it even more quickly but I was expecting an Amazon order to be filled and delivered, so I opened the email initially (but cautiously) before confirming there were problems. Thus I never clicked on any other links, etc. before deleting it.
I, and my Wife, really haven’t had problems with Amazon. We often get things same day or next. Of course CO has a large number of “fulfillment” centers.
I am not a patient man, and when I get someone in a country that will remain nameless (India), I often have a very hard time understanding them. Just happened last week. It was Xfinity Cellphone people. Wife got a new phone, did the instore bit, but had to come home and call to get transfer completed. Took her 2 hr, then find out the charged for something that they shouldn’t have, and raised our based rate 67%. So, I called and the person that I got wasn’t speaking loud enough, I ask several time for him to speak up. Eventually he did (he wasn’t happy) and then his voice distorted. The REAL ISSUE is that they have a speil and you can’t break into it. They DON’T LISTEN. I lost it totally, he did remain calm, he got off phone to do something, and came back on, I apologized. Did get a refund on the wrong charge, but was informed that the rates went up for everyone. Of course we did not get a notice.
Sometimes my Wife will hand the phone over to me to be the heavy (which I can do) and other times I hand her the phone so she can be the nice one.
Oh, and like mentioned, I almost always ask where they are, try to make some small talk.
Hate Hate Hate nonCustomer Service.
Regarding Amazon in particular, for the past year or so they have been using freelancers to deliver items in their own vehicles, and this has almost always been fine for us. As in every other line of work, however, there are people who steal. Amazon seems to know this and, no questons asked, promptly sends a replacement for an item that was not delivered. I assume that Amazon can figure our which freelancer was supposed to deliver which item and can then follow up appropriately.
Regarding customer service in general, the most annoying thing to me is having an “agent” simply read from a script, ignoring my questions and even talking over me until I have to shout Stop! just to get a word in. What’s even more annoying is that most of the time the script is about selling me something I haven’t asked for and do not want.
My story is a little different in that I am trying to connect to a medical service. My DR recommended that I go to a specialist in the “for profit” hospital in our town. Since becoming “for profit” the turn over of doctors and nurses has been about 300% and that’s only in six years! Yesterday, I used the number to connect to the specialist at that hospital. The young person who answered the phone did not have a list of names to check for their phone extension, so I explain the specialty. She did not know where that specialty was located. I looked on my prescription and it said Building #4. I told the phone answering nitwit that the person I was trying to locate was in Building #4. She picked some phone number in building #4 (not specializing in the particular area of the expert I am seeking), just a phone number in building #4 and passed me through. I got a recording saying that their specialty was something else. This young person in charge of directing phone traffic had no idea that you are supposed to search, to ask questions, to check with live voices to get information, etc.,etc.,etc. A true graduate of the American school system
MollyG, I occasionally order from Amazon and have recently noticed that their drivers take photographs (their scanners have cameras) of the package sitting on the porch. I asked one time and the driver told me it was required by Amazon; perhaps in response to the theft you mentioned.
One time I offered to hold the package and smile for the camera. The driver laughed but said no-can-do.
Oh, good lord – reminds me painfully of the epic that my daughter went through, getting a refund.
She ordered a rotating car seat from Amazon and then they notified her that it wouldn’t be delivered for (I think) three weeks. And she really needed the seat for an upcoming weekend trip. She found and purchased one at the local Walmart for cheaper, notified Amazon to cancel the order … but they told her it was already shipped. Refuse delivery, or take it back to the local Amazon receiving location and they would process her rather substantial refund. (North of $300.) Seat delivered, she took it unopened to the facility, received documentation of it being returned – and then began the epic of getting her refund. It took almost a month, and many, many phone calls and discussions with many Amazon people who couldn’t basically do much other than tell her that the refund was being processed. She finally did get her refund, but she’s not purchasing anything substantial from Amazon from now on.
As an aside, I feel really sorry for anyone from the Indian sub-continent with a noticeable accent, trying to make an honest living in customer service, and especially one making outbound calls. I hear that accent, and blam! hang up the call and block as spam.
What helps when speaking to Indians over the phone is to ask them politely to speak more slowly. That’s what I did when I lived there. Also, speak moderately slowly and pronounce words clearly when you talk; this will help them understand you better.
A slightly different story: I did a Microsoft update on my laptop, and it immediately started crashing with the “blue screen of death” every 3-4 minutes. So, I took it to my friendly local computer repair shop. The kept it for a week. I called once, and they said it was “on the bench.” Finally, I called and demanded to know what was happening. They admitted that they not only could not fix the problem, they could not even figure out what the problem was. I went back to the store to pick it up, and asked for their recommendation. They suggested that I give up on it, and buy a new computer (from them, naturally). Then, they had the gall to charge me $50 for the work they did trying unsuccessfully to diagnose the problem. I was tempted to grab the computer and stomp out, but I grudgingly paid.
I took it to another computer shop, and told the same story. They said, “Oh, yeah, this happens with Microsoft updates all the time. They push out updates to a few customers, and if they don’t crash, they push it to everyone.” I was probably one of the unlucky first people to update. I said, “So basically, we are being used as guinea pigs by Microsoft.” “Exactly.”
They called me back later that day. The operating system was corrupted, probably by the update. They would have to back up all my files, install a new operating system, then restore the files. That was completed by noon the next day, and I picked up my computer that afternoon. It was a new fellow who returned it to me, so I asked him, as well, if the update could have caused the problem. He said, “If you hadn’t told me that it happened after an update, I would have guessed that as the cause anyway.”
Because it was a new operating system, I had to re-install all my software, and I lost all my favorites and passwords. After a few more hours of work, I am pretty much back to where I started.
Before all this, I disliked Microsoft. Now I hate them with the passion of a thousand white-hot suns.
Shirehome said: Hate Hate Hate nonCustomer Service.
You reminded me of something that used to make me laugh. The company I used to work for had a Computer Help Line that was notoriously hard to deal with. A friend used to always refer to them as the “no help whatsoever line.” As in: “I was suddenly unable to print, so I called the no help whatsoever line, and…” and usually a long tale of woe would follow. Always made me laugh.
back in 2009, when I had an E Machine, (Ibm clone) and it was hacked and i contacted who was supposedly the It people, it turns out when I finally had the bill a month later, it turns out the hackers were from azerbaijan and poland, who knew,
I have a Mac. I always back up to a backup hard drive before installing updates. If something crashes, I can always go back. Plus, I don’t subscribe to Microsoft Office. I bought my own copy and don’t store anything online with them.
During my career, when I was in the technical services part of the corporation, and I had nothing more important to do I worked trouble tickets. The company had gone metrics happy and put an unwise metric on the technical fix it people. Specifically, time-in-queue. This meant the techies wanted to transfer the hard problems out of their queue as quickly as possible so as not to screwup their metrics. Didn’t matter if the problem was in desktop services or network services or database or server admin, if there wasn’t a quick obvious fix, transfer that trouble ticket right the heck out of there usually up the support chain. I didn’t care one whit about grades and metrics so I got lots of interesting problems. Sometimes people were pretty upset by the time it got to me. I eventually got a job where the boss told me I was the “designated spear catcher”. One guy was so upset, I was close to asking the receptionist to call security.
I’ve found that whenever I manage to convince someone at Amazon to fix a mistake of theirs, they insist that they’re doing it one time only, just for me, as a “courtesy.” They never want to get caught offering to provide good customer service to everyone, lest we come to expect it.