BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers

Subject: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 02:36 PM

Several years ago I bought a coffee grinder to replace one a co-founder of our monthly music series had supplied. Turned out that she preferred to use her own so I never even opened the coffee grinder box, just put it in a kitchen drawer.

This morning I got a surprise. My own coffee grinder has developed a strange whine so I opened Mr. Coffee. Good looking casing and nice heavy materials. But. There was no lid!

So I went online and got a customer service number; called "Joe" direct.

He looked it up, says it is out of warranty, that they can send me another one for $25. I say, If I'm going to spend $25 to replace something still in the box, I'll buy a new one.

He says, Sorry. I say, I was hoping I could buy just a lid. He says, Oh, you can. A lid is only $1.19, shipping and handling are $24.95.

I say, No! Whyever? It can't weigh more than an ounce and a half. If I took a lid to the post office, it might cost me $2.00. I'm not going to spend $25. for a lid! Mr. Coffee is a major brand; I would have thought you would stand behind it.

Upshot: He/They will send me a lid -free- "within 6 days."

I think their policy is to hold out unless a customer makes a fuss.

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: John P
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 03:09 PM

I think so too. I've run into so many similar situations that I have to assume they are waiting for me to get angry before they will actually take care of me.

As a customer service person, I'm really glad I work for a company that believes in straightforward honesty and actually helping our customers. When I train new customer service people, one of the first things I tell them is that our only customer service rule is that we don't have any customer service rules. Each person gets treated as an individual with their own needs. Of course, I work for a small company that builds musical instruments, not a huge corporation that makes coffee pots.

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: gnu
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 03:22 PM

Unfortunate, but they have rules they have to follow. It's the SOB accountants/auditors that Scrooge the bottom line when sucking up to management by selling "ideas" to management for the bottom line. "I have an idea to fleece sheep." "We're listening."

Yours is a typical case of that, SINS. Unfortunately.

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 03:54 PM

SINS, eh? (For mine?) :)

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 08:07 PM

I have to deal with Charter Cable. They have the fastest (for now) Internet service in my neighborhood, but I don't care for their television offerings or prices. I watch over the air.

Last year at this time I arranged for a 12-month plan to "bundle" my phone and Internet, and they were supposed to give me phone for $29.99 and cable for $29.99. By the time a few taxes were added in, it would be $64 and change. But they kept hiking the bill, fiddling with the fees and charges to do with the phone, I think, and when I protested that our contract said the price should be the same, they said I didn't have a contract. By the last bill of that year, it was at $87. Seriously.

I took the phone away from them, and put it on my cell phone friends and family plan. My house number is now a cell phone for $10 a month more on that bill. And because I didn't have the cable bundled any more, the Charter folks told me it would be $67 a month for Internet I have now.

I take no pity on those folks when I try to set up the plan. This time there is a contract, and because AT&T put up a cable in the back yard this summer and it should be activated one of these days, I really bludgeoned the sales folks. I got my Internet for $30 a month for 12 months, and it goes up a few dollars the second year, but I'll call by then and tell them that the penalty is so small (over two years the $75 penalty for early leaving is reduced by $2.50 a month) that I'll eat the $35 and switch unless they leave it down where it is. We're still arguing over the prorated bill from last month (since my phone service was no longer with them, we prorated that amount due to cover Internet only. They have this trick of saying you need to pay the full amount but next month they'll give you a credit. They then add a new line in your bill that consumes the "credit" with a new fee. I'm not going to let them do that again.)

The thing is, no one really know what anything costs. It's just what the market will bear. So be polite, take notes or tape the call, and ask a lot of questions. Stick to your guns.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 10:40 PM

That's what I decided too, Sage. I wasn't angry but incredulous that a 'major brand' would not give a customer proper service.

After all, it was their error from the beginning: There was no lid. Warrant or no warrant - and as I told him, This is Alaska- the warranty may have been off when I bought the grinder; it happens a lot up here.

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: gnu
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 10:53 PM

Ya know, after they screw you over on the phone, it really bugs them when ya tell them they are being recorded for quality control purposes NOT ONLY on a voice recorder but on video... yes, camcorders are cheap and you can record your speaker phone and it's call display along with your computer screen displaying the current weather forcast for dating the time of the call. You can upload same to You Tube and trash the bastards when they screw you over. That does get their attention.

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: SINSULL
Date: 31 Dec 10 - 11:21 PM

SINS????? What did I do?

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 01 Jan 11 - 04:04 AM

I was with Tisacali, but they got swallowed by TalkTalk. Shortly after the takeover, a TalkTalk rep phoned me to try to get more money out of me. I told him I was glad he'd phoned so I could tell him that despite reading all about his company in the financial pages, I had decided to give them a chance and not to change providers in the immediate future. He seemed in an awful hurry to get off the phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Jan 11 - 10:18 AM

I had a similar experience with a Bonjour Hugo Unbreakable French Press (drip coffee-maker) which after years of hard use its plastic gasket at the bottom of the plunger broke. I called their 800 customer service number and determined that there was no way they could send me a replacement part. But after I mailed them the plunger with its broken gasket, they sent me an entirely new Press.

It does take persistence to achieve such success and I did note that the box had a qualifying "limited lifetime warranty." All I actually wanted to do was to purchase a replacement part and that option didn't appear to be available.

It's still our favorite coffee-maker.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Care and Nurturing of Customers
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jan 11 - 03:56 PM

I've had some good experiences too.

A few years back the door to the battery compartment on my IntelliTouch tuner broke off. I mentioned it to a friend who told me that in his case, the Intellitouch's clip part had broken. And then another friend told us both that hers had never worked right.

I called Intellitouch describing our experiences. The outcome: they mailed new tuners to the friends and mailed me a new battery door. All free.

Not only were they accessible but they actually *listened.*