I am tired of Poor Service by EVERYONE

[jolinar of malkshor]

We as consumers need to start demanding proper customer service. It is getting really pathetic. Here are just a few recent of MANY poor customers service events that have happened to me.

Today: I try and log into my Rogers online account to pay my bill, something I have done for the alst 2 years. Today was different, it said that I was not set up to perform online billing and that I needed to call the 1-800 number. WHAT? So I call the number, press a few 1,5,3 and talk to the annoying automated voice. Get put on hold for about 7 mins and then the damn thing hangs up on me. 5 years ago I would have been right pissed off but now adays, if, I don't get cut off at least once during a call in to a company, I am quite suprised. So I call the 611 on my cell hoping to get a better response. Again, press 1 for english, talk to a automated voice and wait a couple minutes, all the while listening to a pre-recorded message about how they are experiencing higher than normal call volumes and that my business is important to them....???? Right. Get a hold of a rep, explain my problem and he tells me there is nothing he can do for me and that I have to call the 1-800 number, but they are now closed. I ask him if he can send some kind of email or flag on my account to have someone call me so I dont have to wait on hold and get cut off. Nope, nothing he can do. So now I have to start all over again tomorrow.

Yesterday: I had been experiencing lag issues with my ADSL. I had been putting off calling Telus because I am just getting sick and tire of having to talk to these rocket scientists over the phone. But I finally got mad enough with these lag spikes that I called in. Did the normal proceedure to try and get a hold of someone. Suprisingly didn't have to wait on hold for all that long. Explained my issue. She had me run a speed check from there site. I am suppose to have a speed of around 1.2 Mb per second. Mine was 400K. She does her thing and tells me that they had screwed something up on there end and that everything should be back to normal. I run another speed check and it is just over 1.2 Mb. Fine, seems like it solved the problem. Get off the phone, start using the computer and 30 mins later, exact same thing happens. Run another speed check on my own and it is back to 400k. You got to be kidding me??? Don't bother calling in bacause I know I will just get mad, so I put that off for a few days.

A few weeks ago: Switched out some old receivers with some HD on my starchoice account. Do the normal call in proceedure for starchoice. I always have to wait on hold for a long time with these guys and that day was no different. Not to mention I have had several probelms in the past with Starchoice which I will not get into right now. Any how; I Finally get a hold of someone after about 20 mins on hold, explain everything, tell them I have 1 receiver already hook up and another that is in the box that I will hook up at a later date. I ask if I can have both of them activated and ready to go now. Yup, was the response, sure thing. Do everything and it seems good to go. A few days later when I go to hook up the other receiver it is not working. Good GOD. Call them again, wait on the phone for another 20-30 mins. Get a hold of someone only to find out that they need to be hooked up to the sat for them to be activated. WHAT? I asked the lady before if I could do the one that was hooked up and the one that was in the box when I first called in and she never mentioned anything about having to have them hooked up. Now I am mad and explain look, I have spend more than a hour on the phone over the last couple of days and this was a load of crap. I said that I had enough of the poor service and I wanted a free month of service. The guy refused. He said there was no way he was going to give me anything for free. He goes, "do you know how much that would be? $87 in free programing" I said to the guy, ok, how long have I been a customer? Pause while he checks.....ah, 9 years he says. Ok I pay $87 a month for 9 years, probably going to be another 9 years unless you piss me off, so is it worth losing a customer who has been a loyal client with no late payment for 9 years over poor customer service that your company has provided because you don;t think that a loyal customer deserves some recognition? He then says, ok, I see your point what I will do is give you $10 a month for 9 months credit. WHATEVER buddy.

Then you have the regular screw ups of orders from places like Tim Hortons, McDonalds and all other such places. The screw up rate seems to be around 30% of orders from me. Extreamly unacceptable.

I mean I can go on for pages, but I think we as consumers need to say enough is enough and demand better service.

Thoughts?

[jayswin]

There's a guy at my work who loves wendy's fries, so whenever I go there, I put in my order, followed by asking for an EXTRA medium fries ON TOP of the one's that come in my combo. BUt for whatever reason, the Wendy's I go to can't for the life of them fathom the idea of putting together a combo and also throwing an extra order of fries in the bag.

The first two times I drove all the way back to work and then realized there was only one fries. The 3rd and 4th times, i would look in the bag before driving away and then let them know that I ordered two fries. The worst part is they get all pissed off and give me attitude because they now have to get another order of fries, and now when I make it REALLY clear that I want and EXTRA order of fries in the drive thru, they get pissed off at that too. uggh.

[Igottago]

I would add the absolutely assinine experience I had with TELUS last week, but I'm sick of talking about it, so I'm not going to. Basically I had to call them at least once a day, usually twice, for about 8 days, and on most occasions spent an average of 1/2 hour on the phone to get things fixed.

Any company that has a call center customer service approach seems to be terrible recently. And the bigger the organization, the worse the problem is. I used to work in a call centre so I know how often the buck gets passed, and its a little disheartening to see these companies treat their customers like dirt.

[Weiser Wonder]

On the other end of the spectrum, I called into Bank of Montreal the other day and received excellent service. Very helpful, understanding, and friendly. A problem that I thought would take a long time to fix, they fixed in about 10 minutes. I was impressed.

[jolinar of malkshor]

Originally Posted by flameswin

There's a guy at my work who loves wendy's fries, so whenever I go there, I put in my order, followed by asking for an EXTRA medium fries ON TOP of the one's that come in my combo. BUt for whatever reason, the Wendy's I go to can't for the life of them fathom the idea of putting together a combo and also throwing an extra order of fries in the bag.

The first two times I drove all the way back to work and then realized there was only one fries. The 3rd and 4th times, i would look in the bag before driving away and then let them know that I ordered two fries. The worst part is they get all pissed off and give me attitude because they now have to get another order of fries, and now when I make it REALLY clear that I want and EXTRA order of fries in the drive thru, they get pissed off at that too. uggh.

Some times I can go into a store, order my food, pay for it, say thank you and the clerk doesn't say a single word.

[Five-hole]

My personal favorite is when you ask one of the real winners at bigger stores where to find something and they kinda just shrug at me with a "sorry dude, don't know, not my problem" expression on their face. Is your f##king job to just stand their looking stupid then?

[Machiavelli]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

Some times I can go into a store, order my food, pay for it, say thank you and the clerk doesn't say a single word.

Pet peeve of mine. I cannot STAND impolite people, especially in the service industry. Effin' acknowledge my presence, you numbskull.

[Aeneas]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

Some times I can go into a store, order my food, pay for it, say thank you and the clerk doesn't say a single word.

Went to the movie theater Saturday night (a whole other thread) ans was not terribly suprised when the popcorn guy didn't even make eye contact the whole transaction. When did that not become the first thing you should do? Of course I recieved no greeting, but I pretty much expected that.
When he finished with the person ahead of me, I stepped up and attempted to make eye contact. It's hard with the hat pulled down, tilted and his effortless ability not to. Instead of greeting me (it was very busy) he started a mind numbing short conversation with the employee next to him.
Then I had to use my powers of mind reading to tell he was ready for me. So I said "Hello", no response. So I ordered, no response. He did however proceed to prepare our food and drink.
The only real communication from him to me were two words when he put down the corresponding drinks: "coke", then "diet" a minute later.

[loob job]

My favourite thing to do now is this. After i ask them a question and they give me a "i don't know" or crappy response as described above, or no response at all, my next line is, Okay, where's your manager.
It's amazing the service you get after that.

[loob job]

In addition, i actually just emailed my cable provider asking for a discount on this months cable due to their poor service. Losing channels, chanels pixelating. Enough's enough.

[Boblobla]

Re: Telus,

Where in the city do you live. When I first moved into my place my roommate moved his Telus over and it was terrible. I had people from Telus come in and try 'everything', although I am pretty sure all they did was come in and look at the modem and leave. Sigh at billable hours, anyway, it wasn't until my buddy who works for the business IT area for Telus check my location and I was as far away from a hub as you could possible get. The only solution to fix my connection was to switch to shaw, which I gladly did because Telus sucks.

I find I am very happy with shaw and I have everything bundled through them. I recommend the switch, you can keep your number.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by jolinar of malkshor

Some times I can go into a store, order my food, pay for it, say thank you and the clerk doesn't say a single word.

add in a total lack of eye contact, and welcome to new york.

I cant stand poor customer service either, and an basing more and more decisions of where i spend my money on this. i would, and DO, spend more money on a place i know will treat me right.

[4X4]

Yesterday I bought gas and coffee at the Esso on Mcleod & 69th. The girl working behind the counter was yapping on the phone the entire time. I don't really want to hear the ######ed gossip of a complete stranger, but I understand if she does it while I'm making my coffee.
Please, though. When I come to the counter, is it asking too much to tell your friend to hold on and acknowledge my presence?
Not a single break in the conversation, didn't even say a single word to me. She pointed to the pump I was on, then pointed to the coffee, punched the buttons and handed me a receipt.

The worst part about it was that she was doing all the talking. That meant that I saw plenty of her gnarly Klingon teeth. Ew.

[BuzzardsWife]

Agreed, service is getting bad, and you can't blame it all on a booming economy. People are just being raised to have no manners. I was at Mark's the other day and the woman working there was so rude to the customer in front of me, I was actually embarrased for him! He wanted to exchange something without a receipt and she was yelling, throwing things..I thought about telling the manager, until I heard her say she was the manager! I still get pretty good service from retail workers, I think my attitude towards them counts alot for that. You don't have a lisence to treat a clerk like crap, and alot of people do. I see it all the time, and I don't work in retail, I just see it as a customer. The worst service now is with the big companies, like Telus, Shaw,Rogers etc.

[Sample00]

Here's my favourite..you walk into a store or fast food restaurant and the person behind the counter just stares at you and doesnt greet you, ask if you need help, nada!
so I typically go, "HI, HOW ARE YA, NICE DAY TODAY ISNT IT, MAY I ORDER SOMETHING WITH YOU OR ARE YOU JUST GONNA STARE AT ME ALL DAY LONG"

[Sample00]

Originally Posted by 4X4

Yesterday I bought gas and coffee at the Esso on Mcleod & 69th. The girl working behind the counter was yapping on the phone the entire time. I don't really want to hear the ######ed gossip of a complete stranger, but I understand if she does it while I'm making my coffee.
Please, though. When I come to the counter, is it asking too much to tell your friend to hold on and acknowledge my presence?
Not a single break in the conversation, didn't even say a single word to me. She pointed to the pump I was on, then pointed to the coffee, punched the buttons and handed me a receipt.

The worst part about it was that she was doing all the talking. That meant that I saw plenty of her gnarly Klingon teeth. Ew.

Originally Posted by loob job

My favourite thing to do now is this. After i ask them a question and they give me a "i don't know" or crappy response as described above, or no response at all, my next line is, Okay, where's your manager.
It's amazing the service you get after that.

Thats what I would be doing!!

[4X4]

Originally Posted by flameswin

There's a guy at my work who loves wendy's fries, so whenever I go there, I put in my order, followed by asking for an EXTRA medium fries ON TOP of the one's that come in my combo. BUt for whatever reason, the Wendy's I go to can't for the life of them fathom the idea of putting together a combo and also throwing an extra order of fries in the bag.

The first two times I drove all the way back to work and then realized there was only one fries. The 3rd and 4th times, i would look in the bag before driving away and then let them know that I ordered two fries. The worst part is they get all pissed off and give me attitude because they now have to get another order of fries, and now when I make it REALLY clear that I want and EXTRA order of fries in the drive thru, they get pissed off at that too. uggh.

I swear to god the wendys on 58th does stuff like this on purpose. I used to work in the Blackfoot industrial area and I'd hit up Wendel's for lunch at least once a week.
One day, after forgetting to check the contents of the bag, I got all the way back to the plant before realizing that they'd "forgot" the potato that my manager requested I grab for him.

That Wendys is the worst drive thru in the city for consistent failure.

[CaptainCrunch]

Its a two edged sword though.

I'm sure that some of the folks on this board that work in the service industry could start a thread called "I am tired of idiot customers". You know the ones with the over inflated sense of self worth. Who's opening gambit is to act like the store clerk or cashier is somehow sub human. The customer that doesn't know what they want. the guy who starts yelling at the drop of the hat because he's had something for a year and wants to return it. The dickwad that likes nothing more then to lord over you. The sucker who doesn't realize that some of these kids work 10 hours a day for low pay dealing with asshat after asshat.

Try having a little empathy with these people and you might get good service.

These people are not the people that put policies in place. They can't decide to give out a months free service because you know what, its not in their guide or their training. And threatening these guys with pulling your business, frankly they don't get commissioned on your bill anyways.

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Its a two edged sword though.

I'm sure that some of the folks on this board that work in the service industry could start a thread called "I am tired of idiot customers". You know the ones with the over inflated sense of self worth. Who's opening gambit is to act like the store clerk or cashier is somehow sub human. The customer that doesn't know what they want. the guy who starts yelling at the drop of the hat because he's had something for a year and wants to return it. The dickwad that likes nothing more then to lord over you. The sucker who doesn't realize that some of these kids work 10 hours a day for low pay dealing with asshat after asshat.

Try having a little empathy with these people and you might get good service.

These people are not the people that put policies in place. They can't decide to give out a months free service because you know what, its not in their guide or their training. And threatening these guys with pulling your business, frankly they don't get commissioned on your bill anyways.

I worked retail for 5 years, the people that talk down to you are by far the exception not the rule, except for Christmas time. That is when you really see peoples true colours...

[Bobblehead]

I was at a local restaurant that recently opened in my area (Original Joes, in the NE, by the Westwinds Superstore). The guy next to me up at the bar was asking what salt was used to rim the glass for the Caesar he was drinking. The manager pulled out the jug and let the fellow look at it. The fellow then asked if the salt was sold to the public, and the manager said if not he would be happy to order an extra bottle.

This place is a bit more expensive, but since they have great service and good food, I'll stop in there once a week.