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Old 03-11-2009, 11:57 AM
 
377 posts, read 1,059,534 times
Reputation: 727

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Situation: Have phone contract with major wireless company. I made my usual payment in January. I paid through the mail with a check. Have never been late paying. The wireless company converted the check to an electronic payment and debited my account for the amount of the check ( meaning they got their money). Apparently the payment was lost by them. After several calls and being transferred and the phone "monkeys" basically being clueless. I was told that I needed to get a special statement from the bank and fax it to them. I told them it wasn't my fault that they were incompetent and lost my money and that I would send them this statement with my next payement. I do not have a fax and am not wasting anymore of my time or money fixing THEIR error. I sent my next months payment and the statement from the bank with a letter. Now they send me a text message to call them. So I call and am put on hold forever. Finally the monkey comes on the line and tells me my service will be cut off unless I pay X amount today which is the amount I originally paid and they lost. They insist I FAX them what I already SENT and I told them I'm done with their crap and the person I sent it to should have enough brains to process my payment and use that signed bank statement to fix the problem. It is not my fault they hire idiots. I explained everything to this monkey again that I explained to countless others before and told her that if my service is cut off that they will be sued for this and taking my money as and whatever else the lawyer can get for the emotional stress I have had to endure as well as time I've wasted on this. I have never sued anyone before but I'm done with this. We have a business ourselves (hubby and I) and I would never dream of treating a customer this way when it was my incompetence or some idiot I hired that screwed up in the first place. Also is it so hard nowadays to hire people with some level of intelligence and independent thinking??? Are people getting less intelligent in general? I mean how hard is it to look on a computer screen to see what went on with the customers account without transferring multiple calls. Or...... here is another idea. How about actually giving a crap and trying to help somebody you wronged instead of sitting at your desk doing your nails or scratching your ass while you chat on the internet or whatever they do instead of thinking and working.
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Old 03-11-2009, 12:20 PM
 
14,984 posts, read 23,754,305 times
Reputation: 26468
Feel better now?
No debate on the "monkeys". Most of it is outsourced to the cheapest vendor. But getting mad at the monkey and threatening to sue (which they could care less about) is probably not the way to handle it.
The way to handle it, as frustrating as it is, is to log everything, play there game of phone tag, try to escalate, and as a last resort switch services.
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Old 03-11-2009, 12:22 PM
 
823 posts, read 2,208,837 times
Reputation: 425
Call center people get paid almost nothing and there is very high turnover. If you want "some level of intelligence and independent thinking" then they need to be compensated accordingly. Companies won't do that because that would cost more.
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Old 03-11-2009, 12:43 PM
 
Location: Houston, Texas
10,447 posts, read 49,508,076 times
Reputation: 10614
Most of the phone monkeys are just minimum wage uneducated clowns who cant get any other type of job. They get to sit with some other monkey clown for a half hour training and are thrown into their jobs.

All the rest of the phone monkeys are not even Americans in America. Most of our large companies have placed their phone centers in India where they get paid 10 cents per day for 12 hour days. There are no labor laws there of any kind. No federal minimum wage, no mandatory overtime pay over 8 hrs., nothing.

When ever I have to deal with them I can assure you, they never heard proper language as I give them. Most Indians never even heard the F word but I educate them well. I abuse them to no end and they just keep their cool like your not even upset.

Then again.....when we call with a problem, be lucky we get through to a human. That task alone could be mind boggling just getting through all the touch prompts.

And to that I rarely get through. I only get as far as being ordered to press 1 for English which I refuse. Why should I have to press anything to speak the official language of the USA? Let them press 1 for spanish. So if I press nothing it hangs up on me. So be it.
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Old 03-11-2009, 12:49 PM
 
48,505 posts, read 96,476,720 times
Reputation: 18300
Always remember that the "monkey" you talked to could careless about if you stop using the service because he/she is goping to pickup his/her check the next week. As long as he is giving the company line on the problem that is all that matters to him/her.Mostl likely the person is not capable of really resolving your problem. I had a similar problem and arranged to send a copy of the cancelled check from bank site that I printed to a specific person by e-mail after asking to speak to a supervisor. Got a e-mail back thinking me. and a apology for my trouble.I certainly didn't want to deal with correcting a credit report later.
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Old 03-11-2009, 03:57 PM
 
13,811 posts, read 27,297,800 times
Reputation: 14244
That's crazy can I ask? Sprint?
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Old 03-11-2009, 07:57 PM
 
95 posts, read 244,052 times
Reputation: 41
Hey, I had friends that were "monkeys" in college. One of the "monkeys" delivers babies for a living (human babies) now.
With that said, most of the customer service people aren't here in America anymore. So now you have two problems. They can't understand you and you can't understand them. If you veer too far off of their check points, they don't know what to do. They look for key words to help them figure out what it is that you need. Slang messes them up real bad as do accents. And as far as education goes, most of the folks working in customer service over in India are educated higher than their counterparts are here. They can speak another language (albeit, sometimes not very well) fluently.

It is extremely frustrating to get someone who could care less about your problems. I had the same problem with a phone company. Just getting the run around. Oh yeah, and press 1 to continue in English. Press 1 for balance inquiries... by the time - 3 sub, sub menus, 4 sub menus and 5 menus later, I finally got to a real live person, I was very frustrated and angry. So the poor person on the other end of the line got the brunt of my anger - and yes, a plethora of colorful language spewed forth relating to the lineage of the unwitting recipient of my call. He kept his cool and his manners. I still didn't get the problem resolved, even after I spoke to his supervisor, who also didn't have a clue.

And the new automated contraptions are even worse After saying what you want and it still doesn't understand, instead of forwarding you to a person, it kicks you back to the beginning. And don't utter a single word that you don't want it hear or it (thinks ) you're talking to it and it didn't understand, see the previous sentence for what happens next.

Oh, I do believe I ranted and possibly raved
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Old 03-12-2009, 08:44 AM
 
377 posts, read 1,059,534 times
Reputation: 727
Yes, I feel better after my rant. It does make me mad and frustrated but I never did treat the "monkeys" rudely as far as cursing or yelling. I am just not that way I. I would just repeat my point and try to make them understand and try to use analogies to get my point across when they were clueless. If they turn off our phones we are just going to get phones with no service contract, prepaid or something or even look into satellite phones, or maybe go back to At&t who gave me good customer service but their phone reception in our area was terrible (maybe it's gotten better). I was not threatening to sue either as I WILL seek legal counsel about what they did with my money and so I do not get charged a cancellation fee for early termination of the phone agreement. Oh and it wasn't sprint. It's verizon.
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Old 03-17-2009, 09:03 PM
 
Location: North Adams, MA
746 posts, read 3,489,797 times
Reputation: 815
One of these days consumers will wake up and shake off their stupid "lowest price" mentality and put millions of companies out of business. What will replace this will be value, and service. I can think of half a dozen companies I currently patronize who have lower prices but not the lowest, and very good customer service when needed. You get what you pay for. I you buy something because it's cheap, you buy second rate service, too.

If you pay top price, and get low end service, well, I hope you get a kiss out of the deal now and then to make it worth the cost.

Many companies know they lose a lot of business because of terrible service, and just factor it in as "churn". But in a shrinking economy, this may be the sand their business foundation is built on, and it won't last.
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Old 03-18-2009, 09:50 PM
 
48,505 posts, read 96,476,720 times
Reputation: 18300
Have you looked at the number of dropouts from high school;what do you thnik they will be doing.
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