My Experience in Bad Service

As I have been writing and reading more and more on what is the standard excellent customer service, it has made me more and more aware of the service I now receive as I go places or speak with representatives on the phone. This week, I spent over an hour on the phone with a large nationwide internet service provider that failed miserably over and over in their service with me during that time. Here is the story and hopefully you can see and learn from my bad experience, and apply it to your future position in the customer service field.

Multiple times during my conversation I saw their service structure fail. I must have been transferred about eight times, and many of those transfers were to the wrong departments. This shows that the people who transfer me really didn't know what they were doing, or who to send me to, or were just trying to pass the buck to someone else to handle. One time I was sent to a Spanish speaking support line - and no, I do not speak Spanish. An important aspect of transferring a call, is to stay on the line yourself until you are assured that the customer has reached their destination. Hitting transfer and dialing a number and letting go is a failure in good service techniques.

Aside from being mishandled and passed off many times through the conversation, every time I would get cycled back to the same department that misled me to begin with, it would be a new representative, and I would have to re-explain my situation - over and over again. My question was a fairly simple one for any internet service provider, and I was becoming more and more astounded that the more people I spoke with, so few of them had a clue. That is why I felt that they just kept passing me off to who knows where, because they did not know who to send me to.

Ultimately, after explaining and re-explaining, being transferred, re-transferred, and having to call back to start over, I got through to someone who knew what I was asking, understood why it was I was asking, but in the end had no known solution for me. This shows that the company made a major decision that affects the customer, but had not planned on dealing with the backlash of their actions. That shows a very sad view of their customer service practices.

Of course being told there was no solution to a simple, common internet service provider issue is utterly ridiculous and unacceptable. I explained this to them, and told them for their company not to offer a solution, something that every single ISP offers, was a very bad sign of their business practices. So when I asked for some kind of compensation for the trouble of this simple service not being an option, and the amount of additional work it was causing me - as well as eight years of lost work and promotion - I was offered nothing.

It is sad business practice when a company strips a benefit that causes unnecessary problems for a customer, and then is unwilling to provide any kind of compensation for the damage caused by their action. In the end, I asked for the number to someone higher up - a person responsible for the decision that led to my issue. Of course, the representative had no clue who to even consider telling me to call. Not knowing the management infrastructure of your company is not a good thing, so always seek to know who handles what and who would be "in charge" if the need arises.

As I pushed for the information, they eventually put me through to their supervisor, who immediately was able to give me a phone number to call the corporate office to lodge my complaint. I have yet to call them to find out what kind of runaround I will get there.

So, if you work or are seeking to work in the customer service industry, take the initiative to know and learn as much as you can about the company, the other departments, and who handles what. Do not be one of those that just blindly shoots the call to someone else. Always stay on top of it and treat the customer as if they are your customer, and see them through to the end.

Have you ever encountered a situation like this? Did you lodge a complaint? What was the outcome? Let us know in the comments.

Jeff McCormack resides in Virginia Beach, VA. where he works as a web designer by day. In his off time he is a husband, father, and musician. Aside from being a freelance writer for this Customer Service Jobs blog, he also seeks to assist in career choices and information by contributing to other Nexxt blog sites.

My Experience in Bad Service

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