An Anecdote about Customer Support
I had to call my cable provider today because, for the fourth time in as many months, I did not receive a bill. This has led to two late payments and associated late fees and a letter threatening to cut off my cable. Needless to say, I was ready to put an end to this problem.
So I called customer service and punched the buttons to have my call connected to billing. After waiting for a couple of minutes, my call was answered. I answered several questions to verify my identity and explained my problem to the woman who fielded my call. She put me on hold to investigate. After holding for a few more minutes, she returned and explained to me that I had enrolled in Electronic Billing.
What?
I certainly did not. I explained this to her politely and told her that I couldn't even access the on-line billing page for my account and hadn't been able to do so for several months. I suspect the origin of the problem coincides with the transition, but more on that later. She kept trying to explain to me how to change the option on the website. I kept politely telling her that I couldn't. After a few minutes of this back and forth exchange, she got the idea that I wasn't just an idiot and forwarded my call to technical support.
Note to Charter: please add a menu option beyond one for help with e-mail and another for help with connectivity. My problem fell into neither category, and even if the option just connects with one of the other two help desks, it would have given me a sense that I was doing everything I could to have my call dealt with promptly and by the right people.
Again, when my call was fielded, I explained my problem with a preface about how I was unsure whether or not I had even connected with the right people. The polite young woman who helped me promptly delt with my issue. It seems I had two valid logins associated with my high speed internet, but only one of them was associated with my cable service as well.
The two women to whom I spoke were both helpful and understanding, and they seemed to really want to help me get my problem solved. I suspect my problem originated when I payed a bill a few months ago by telephone. I somehow became automatically enrolled in their electronic billing program or I failed to hit the right button to tell them that I didn't want to be enrolled in said program. This, coupled with the fact that my account was a mess and they transitioned to a new billing system, meant that I couldn't fix the problem.
Another note to Charter: Don't automatically enroll people in stuff.
But now it's fixed and I have a hard time being too angry about it since the length of the problem was in part due to my reticence toward getting to the bottom of my missing bills.
A third note to Charter: Your electronic billing site requires Internet Explorer or Netscape. I use neither. And it is not because I am some off the wall zealot. My computer of choice is an Apple PowerBook, and the best browser for me is Apple's own Safari. Please make your web site architecture independent.
This was going to be a rant, but it turned into a description of the problem, its suspected causes, and the assistance that two helpful customer service representatives provided to me.
So I called customer service and punched the buttons to have my call connected to billing. After waiting for a couple of minutes, my call was answered. I answered several questions to verify my identity and explained my problem to the woman who fielded my call. She put me on hold to investigate. After holding for a few more minutes, she returned and explained to me that I had enrolled in Electronic Billing.
What?
I certainly did not. I explained this to her politely and told her that I couldn't even access the on-line billing page for my account and hadn't been able to do so for several months. I suspect the origin of the problem coincides with the transition, but more on that later. She kept trying to explain to me how to change the option on the website. I kept politely telling her that I couldn't. After a few minutes of this back and forth exchange, she got the idea that I wasn't just an idiot and forwarded my call to technical support.
Note to Charter: please add a menu option beyond one for help with e-mail and another for help with connectivity. My problem fell into neither category, and even if the option just connects with one of the other two help desks, it would have given me a sense that I was doing everything I could to have my call dealt with promptly and by the right people.
Again, when my call was fielded, I explained my problem with a preface about how I was unsure whether or not I had even connected with the right people. The polite young woman who helped me promptly delt with my issue. It seems I had two valid logins associated with my high speed internet, but only one of them was associated with my cable service as well.
The two women to whom I spoke were both helpful and understanding, and they seemed to really want to help me get my problem solved. I suspect my problem originated when I payed a bill a few months ago by telephone. I somehow became automatically enrolled in their electronic billing program or I failed to hit the right button to tell them that I didn't want to be enrolled in said program. This, coupled with the fact that my account was a mess and they transitioned to a new billing system, meant that I couldn't fix the problem.
Another note to Charter: Don't automatically enroll people in stuff.
But now it's fixed and I have a hard time being too angry about it since the length of the problem was in part due to my reticence toward getting to the bottom of my missing bills.
A third note to Charter: Your electronic billing site requires Internet Explorer or Netscape. I use neither. And it is not because I am some off the wall zealot. My computer of choice is an Apple PowerBook, and the best browser for me is Apple's own Safari. Please make your web site architecture independent.
This was going to be a rant, but it turned into a description of the problem, its suspected causes, and the assistance that two helpful customer service representatives provided to me.