I’ve been a long time customer of AT&T, through a few incarnations actually: AT&T, SBC, Cingular Wireless, at&t and AT&T Mobility. And, as a general rule, their customer service is usually good. The reps aren’t to blame for the systems, policies and procedures they’re forced to support.
I called AT&T recently about an odd charge on my bill. (The encyclopedic bills wireless carriers send out could be another entire post.)
I had to key in my phone number during the automated portion of the call. Then, when I reached a rep, I had to give my number again verbally, my billing zip code, the last 4 digits of my social security number, and my full name. This rep was able to tell me that the billing oddity had apparently been on my bill for nearly 2 years. How I hadn’t recognized it before is a mystery.
I told her I had never requested the service I was being billed for and that I had called nearly 2 years ago to request it to be removed. I asked if she could check the records. She told me that if I wanted to dispute charges I would have to talk with Customer Care. Aren’t I already talking to Customer Service…umm…Customer Care? Apparently not.
Next, she was also able to tell me why I had received two bills this month, one for a new combined account and the other for my old account. This other bill was for a negative $ amount. I’ve never received a negative $ amount bill before, so I was unsure what it meant.
I asked the rep if the negative $ amount was going to be a credit to me. She told me that the credit could be applied to my account. Could be? Wouldn’t that just be automatic? I told her that I certainly did want the credit to be applied. She put me on hold, and came back a minute later to tell me that the request was filed for the credit to be applied, and that I would be informed by June 4 (about a week later) if the request had been fulfilled.
OK, from the customer perspective, this credit should have been automatic and already applied to my account. I shouldn’t have to spend time making the call and file a formal request. And, AT&T shouldn’t have spent the time and money to send two bills when they could have sent one.
Now, she could transfer me to Customer Care for the billing dispute. More holding.
I must say that the “Customer Care” rep was super nice and super helpful. Of course, I had to give her my phone number, my billing zip code, the last 4 numbers of my social security number AND my full name. She found the request in the records to remove the service I hadn’t requested, but noticed that the service was never removed from my account. She fixed the problem and provided me with a credit on the spot. Nice.
First, I’m so glad that companies like AT&T keep records of customer service calls and requests. Without those records, I would have had no case.
Second, companies that deal with the general public need to stop this practice of having multiple “Customer Care” or “Customer Service” groups with different names. Someone taking time out of their busy day to wait on hold for 2, 5 or 20 minutes does not care if they need to talk with 4 different groups inside your organization to accomplish a request. Call them all whatever you want internally, just give them all the same name externally.
And third, the name Customer Care makes most customers roll their eyes. It’s Customer Service, simple as that. Adding “care” to the name doesn’t make it sound better, it makes it sound condescending and like any other marketing buzz word. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig, or a fresh coat of paint on a dilapidated house. So drop it.
