Cell Phone Customer Service Ranked Next to Last 356
Paulrothrock writes "A recent report shows that cell phone companies are the second lowest ranked industry in terms of customer service, just above cable companies. Also, they are second only to car dealers in number complaints to Better Business Bureaus. Complaints include being charged a fee to cancel a cell phone contract for a deceased husband and being double-billed for using an online bill-pay system. I guess I've been lucky, the only problem I've had is getting reception."
Well what did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
After you sign that contract, they get your money no matter what, so there is very little incentive for them to improve customer service(also note how customer service is never touted in television commercials for various carriers). But damn do they make those phones tempting. I wish that the manufacturers didn't charge you out the arse for them if you buy them directly...
Re:I wonder why... (Score:4, Insightful)
headline misleading.. a bit :) (Score:3, Insightful)
If they provided better coverage and better service usa wouldn't be a 3rd world country when it comes to cellphone service and usage(so - they'd probably make even more money if they'd just bothered to do it properly)...
The conversation in the board room tomorrow... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Life is good."
-Adam
Re:Call centers (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that's all fine and good. Some of us knew what the hell we were talking about. Problem was that AT&T changed *DAILY* yes it says daily what it let us say about stuff. One day we could say this and another day completely contradict ourselves.
It's not entirely the CSR's fault. There is only so much they are allowed to do.
If you get one that sucks hang up on the idiots and call right back. Keeping playing Russian Roulette till you hit someone that sounds like they have half a brain.
That's because cell phone companies suck.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tmobile has screwed me over so many times it isn't funny. I have had 3 different days where I could place or receive no calls. All three days happened to be times where I was trying to coordinate events that involved people travelling. Needless to say, I had a lot of people pissed at me. During the blackout in New York, my brother's and my Tmobile phones would not work while everyone around us were talking on their cell phones. When we tried to access the other networks and force our phones to roam, they would allow emergency calls only.
For about a month of my contract, only half the calls could be completed. Oh ya, Tmobile also guarantees nothing about calls being made inside. So, I can't use my cell phone in my own home.
This isn't just Tmobile, though. I had a contract with Sprint. During the first week of the contract, I had trouble getting good service and my calls were getting dropped. They assured me I had 14 days without fee. Then, they sent me a bill for $235. Then, I called them and had $200 removed. They sent me another bill for $35. I also called and had that removed. Then, they sent me to collections for $235. I was able to settle for $0. I wonder how many people ended up paying that $235 or even the $35.
They have confusing minute plans. Tmobile assured my brother that he had free nights and weekends with his $35/month plan. Then, after recklessly using his phone as a camp counselor after 9pm on weekdays, he got a bill for $450. It turns out that he needed a $39/month plan to get the free nights part of the free nights and weekends. Tmobile also kindly let him know that nothing they ever say is contractual - only what is in fine print.
I could seriously bitch about cell phone companies all day. I heard Sprint is making something like $230million this year in fees for saving peoples' old cell phone numbers. That is bullshit. The entire goddamn industry has put fees for every damn thing.
At least when you buy a car, it generally works. There is no cell phone service that works everywhere - and there is no such thing as a cell phone customer who never gets dropped calls (unless they never really use their phones.)
I have ZERO problems with my cell phone service (Score:2, Insightful)
Then again, I loathe cell phones, and don't have one. Since 98% of what I hear about cell phones boils down to these two things:
1) Cool faceplates, games, ringtones, etc
2) The service sucks not just raw eggs, but last year's roadkill raw eggs with salmonella and poisonous spiders crawling all over them
why on earth would I want one?
Thought about the cable companies (Score:3, Insightful)
When customers are approached (admitedly, not always with the best method) regarding their handiwork, they do become defensive on the matter, perhaps citing poor customer service in the process. Additionally, the broadband RF spectrum that cable providers make use of (53MHz to 850+Mhz) is filled with oodles of sources of interference. (Pagers, Ham Radios, etc)
Also, my work in the cable industry has been entirely in Canada. I think that the canadian cable industry is a lot more mature, and two of the 3 major companies have strong family roots. I believe there is a stronger sense of customer responsibility north of the border when it comes to cable.
Re:There's also: (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you guys all use different CRM systems for dealing with the customers or how does it work?
Re:The conversation in the board room tomorrow... (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the step that makes it ever-so-much more offensive...
"...people don't like it. So they switch before their contract runs out, then have to pay the rest of their contract off and our early termination fee. Of course, the loss of a customer doesn't matter, because for every one going out, we have someone coming in equally annoyed at our competition".
Once they have your signature on the dotted line, they have an actual incentive to piss you off enough to drop them early. Why would they provide customer service?
Your tinfoil hat is ajar. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think someone is sitting around listenting to people's cell conversations until they hit on one where someone is placing an order, and then write down your information?
If that actually worries you, do you ever actually use your credit card?
Credit cards are not secure. Any clerk at pretty much any place you use it has access to your number, as does any IS employee at any internet company you've ever placed an order with.
The time and money you spent calling T-Mobile to ask about their network was greater than the time/money lost if your call had been intercepted times the chance your call was intercepted. Now, stop driving up my cell phone bill by making T-Mobile pay people to field your stupid questions.
Similar thing happened to my family (Score:3, Insightful)
2 months later after the funeral was behind us, I decided to call and see just how high up I could get by asking for supervisors. At this point, with 4 months left on the contract, and my grandmother actually deceased instead of just of ailing health, despite my explanations and disgust with their customer service, I didn't get very high up and got shut down within minutes.
That was 5 months ago. The INSTANT we paid our last bill on contract, I waltzed into the nearest verizon store with a typed letter of open digust to attach to the form for my reason for no longer choosing their service. We have since moved on to a different provider with inferior coverage but much superior customer service.
It amazes me that with all of the competition in the cellular market ANY company can get away with treating people like that and not suffer a mass exodus of customers. I suppose its because of the fine tradition they have of locking us in to contracts - fortunately, laws (such as California's new cellular fairness law) and competition are slowly starting to change the landscape. When a 30 trial period, a ban on small print, and much shorter contracts are the norm I would not be surprised to see the customer service shape up industry-wide.
Re:Well what did you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I wanted to try out Sprint last year, they gave me the option to opt out of the contract for $10 per month. I could eliminate the $10 charge by signing a contract any time.
It was interesting, though, the sort of leverage this gave me with customer service. Twice I got to the point in a service call where I mentioned that if a problem wasn't corrected, I would be dropping service, and they reminded me of the contract fee, and I mentioned that I was free of that, and after an aural double take, I got something to the effect that "we might be able to arrange something"
But damn do they make those phones tempting. I wish that the manufacturers didn't charge you out the arse for them if you buy them directly...
Two things:
(1) Ebay and phone unlocking put phones in an affordable price range
(2) If your new provider of choice has an option like I did with sprint, you'd quite possibly be able to sign up, carry service for a month, and drop -- and keep the phone.
Overall, though, I wish that the law required companies to provide sans-hardware contract-free service at comparable rates, and let the market fight it out. Because at that point, the competition would be almost all about service, and the companies that would survive would be the ones with the best service.
Cellphone reception easier to find than cust serv? (Score:3, Insightful)
The unluckiest people are the ones where cellphone reception is EVEN HARDER to find than customer service!
ln -sf
My perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, the contracts are bullshit. I will never EVER sign a contract. If 10 years from now all there is for phone service is cell and it's done by 3 companies and you're forced to sign a contract then I'm sorry, I won't own or use a phone ever again. Contracts are for buying houses, renting cars, financial agreements etc etc. Not for phone service. It makes as much sense to me as signing a contract at a restaurant to return 4 times a week when all you want is the ocassional hamburger. I had a cell as part of my job a few years ago and I used it at most, twice a day and that was just a quick 1 minute convo with the boss. Yet he was paying upwards of 160$ a month for that phone (top of the line service contract). It just doesn't make sense to me. A girl I work with has a cell and pays 50$ a month for it, not counting the over charges (she showed me an $800 bill once). That's just nuts to me. Maybe I'm cheap but I just don't have unlimited funds, nor do I feel secure enough under the current economic climate to contract out a 50$ payment each month for 2 years with no recourse should I need to cancel. Hell my bank gives me ways out of my loans if I need it, even refinancing should times get real hard. I can also negotiate settlements with them if I need to file bankruptcy. None of that is possible with the cell phone gustapos "FUCK YOU PAY ME" attitude. All in all, why sign up? Other than to fit in with the cool crowd and have equally obnoxious cell phone jangles. I don't see the value and "cool gadget, must have" feelings aside, I just can't make myself buy one again.
Big man in a pub (Score:4, Insightful)
Always follow the BIG MAN IN A PUB rule.
Imagine you're sat in a pub and there's a big, tough-looking man who's maybe had a bit too much to drink. That man is your customer. Make sure that every policy, every rule, every clause in a contract, every apology or excuse, everything about your customer service, is something that you would comfortably say to that man in the pub while you're sat right there next to him.
If you think there's a part of your customer service that might provoke the man into hitting you then you wouldn't say it to him, would you? So why would it be okay to say it to him over the phone, by letter or by e-mail? Why would it be okay to have an employee say it to him in person?
Keep the big drunk man happy and everyone else will be happy too. Including you.
As any consistently ethical business person will tell you, it isn't a myth or a fantasy -- the better you treat your customers, the better your bottom line will be. You may occasionally get ripped off. You'll even get the odd one or two customers who decide to take a disliking to you for no good reason. But at the end of every day you'll always have a business that is more popular and more profitable than it was at the end of the previous day.
Short term gains generally lead to long term losses.
Re:I wonder why... (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you ever worked a customer service job? In particular one that supports people over the phone??? I have done tech support, telemarketing, and support for a cell phone company. Telemarketing was terrible, tech support was frustrating, but cell phone support was a living, breathing hell. Consider first off the way the company is treating the employees, like utter and complete crap. The employees are worked mercilessly, the pay is shit and the benefits are null. Almost any call center is a haven for drugs and sex, you end up with an enviroment close to high school. Strangely enough, in thier own twisted way the employers actually support this kind of behavior. Until you have sat down, answered a call of a screaming customer, getting paid next to nothing and having to drown out shouting, ill comments and what have you from other employees.
I am not saying that you are altogether wrong, I am just saying consider the enviroment these people are made to work with. I once lived by the motto, "if you don't like your job quit". After the past two years of rampant unemployment, my attitude has changed. If you need a job, a place to live and food, a call center is the meal ticket. With that, comes the enviroment described above.
Before you yell at the person on the other line, consider these facts. Training is a joke, supervisors will do little or nothing unless they ABSOULTELY have too!
Please, yes your bill maybe wrong, you may not be getting the service you expect, what have you. However, the people on the other line are people, they are not the cause of the issue, they are fodder. Simply fodder to keep you from dealing with the people that are responsible for the real issue. Be nice to them, your chances of a solid resolution are much higher. That and finding a company that treats thier employees well, could very well end up with much better support.
Re:Totally saw this coming (Score:3, Insightful)
But anyways. I work in operations in the dataside (GPRS/EDGE/UMTS), we work 60-80 hour weeks to make sure the network is up, that everything is working correctly. The hardware is always being patched, upgraded, its a constant juggle. And this is common for all carriers.
Then we have the field who does the RF piece. Base stations for each market, Cell site deployment and tuning. Most of the markets outsource to either ericsson, nokia, nortel or lucent. This is the worse thing that can happen, low paid contractors..
Then there is the Call centers, mass low paid jobs with high turnover, and half are outsourced to major low pay parts of the country. (Atlanta anyone?)
So, where is the ownership, pride of the company? Everyone is working for a paycheck. Where is the bonus awards for people? Where is the respect of management for its employees?
The total lack of responsibility of the CEO's have screwed over the companys. Stock sharing is a joke, 98% of the employees are loosing money while VP's,CEOs', etc just gave themselves stock at half the merger price.
Basically it comes down that all the Telcos are Major corporations, with little groups (fiefdoms) that can't work together. Outsourcing to save money, and shady back room deals buying software that cant do the job, but someone got a kick back. The skill level of the Customer care group never rises because of the high turn around rate due to low pay, so might as well offshore them.
Lets put it this way, pay the person to do a job, and make sure there are enough people. Without enough people to do the job, correctly, with pride and ownership, the companies are doomed to fail with customer service.
Ever go to a more expensive place because they did good quality? Every shopped around for the most cheapest cellphone and rate plan?
Maybe trade some of those billions in revenue to make a good company. What a novel idea.
BTW, you do realize most Telcos use the same vendors and hardware? So the only difference is the people. And if all the companies are ran the same, what is the difference then?
Maybe it will get better when all hardware is the same, and the only thing left is good customer service.
Hold times are my problem... (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, I come here for cutting edge news...not stuff rehashed from the USA Today blurbs from 2 days ago (literally on this story. It was in Washington Posts 'Express' mini-paper on tuesday).
Re:Well what did you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, I work customer service for Bell Mobility (largest cellphone service provider in Canada), and while I'm aware that my experience working there probably doesn't apply to other companies, and there are most certainly many providers that have a very bad customer service, there are a couple of points I'd like to make which probably apply to many places:
Frankly, in my experience, when you call in with an actual problem, it'll get fixed within at most 24 hours. Most of the time, especially if the error is actually user error, it'll get fixed before the call ends. The kind of customer who files a complaint is the kind of customer I've described. They'd make the same kind of complaints no matter how good service is because they have unreasonable expectations. My personal theory is that cellphones attract more idiots because only an idiot buys something he doesn't need because it's cool and his TV told him so.
Hey, while I was writing, I called Telus (a competing cellphone company) customer service on behalf of a friend. Can't say anything negative about the experience - it was exactly what I expect of customer service.
Then again, I didn't RTFA - probably the study doesn't apply to Canada anyway
Re:I wonder why... (Score:2, Insightful)
The link was very interesting. Unfortunately, the literacy rate of the United States is not necessarily equal to the literacy rate among Sprint customer service representatives and therefore does not necessarily contradict my perception of the truth based on my personal experience and the experiences of those I know. I found it interesting that several countries claim higher literacy rates, including Trinidad, which is referenced by a later poster as a call center location.
Unfortunately the ability to read at whatever level will qualify you for that statistic or even read the script does not a good customer service experience make. Since you brought it up, what I would really like in a good customer service experience is a representative capable of independent critical thinking. The ability to read fluently with clear articulation should be an absolute minimum requirement.
Please forgive my ignorance of html, but there is more information about the status of Ebonics as a separate language at www.cal.org/ebonics/. So, that would negate your point about my ability to understand someone from my own country speaking the same language. According to several sources, African American Vernacular English is a separate language, which I do not speak. The ideal then would be a representative who is able to communicate with the customer in his/her native language, in the case of most Sprint customers, American English. I'm sure we'd be a little upset if the call centers in India allowed their representatives to speak to all callers in Indian.
In reality I'm not as harsh as my previous post. That was my anger and frustration speaking and was meant to be taking with a grain of salt and an ounce of humor. It seems that most of the other people who read it were able to do that.