Being a client services representative, you'd think I'd place a high value on that "above and beyond" effort from other companies. But I don't. Honestly. I just don't expect that elsewhere. What I've learned from experience is that exceptional customer service is a rarity. We aim to provide it at our company, but that is a specialty case where a relatively small client base with specific needs are catered to, and that example can't be fairly compared to any service that provides the general public.
Like a telephone company for example.
For quite some time, Bell Canada was the main provider of my basic telecommunication needs, back when there were fewer alternatives to be sure. Phone, Internet and Wireless. Nothing fancy, they just needed to work and I needed to be billed properly and I'd be happy. Well, I phased them out one at a time over a number of years, and finally to completion today. It would be fair to say they'd had their chances to win me back and squandered them, and it comes down to pretty bad customer service.
I dumped the Mobility first, for reasons I can't fully remember but I recall the final straw was a billing issue that took months to resolve that pretty much got me fed up with the ring of "never again" in the air. The internet was next to go, definitely due to extremely poor (and outsourced) customer service. And that decision was tougher, because giving up your sole email account is quite a pain in the butt. This is what happens when you put such low priority on customer satisfaction. A fraction of the cost to Bell also equals a fraction of the quality.
Last, but not least, the landline phone is switched. That one should've been easy for Bell to maintain me as a customer but that too bit the bullet today. And once again, it was their customer service that really dropped the ball and basically did nothing to help solve my problem.
As I said before, to avoid disappointment and frustration, I keep my expectations low, but that doesn't mean I don't have a threshold, and Bell just can't muster the bare minimum effort for satisfaction. It wouldn't take much, but it just didn't seem to me they think of losing me as a customer as a bad thing, even with a blatant warning. Here's hoping I'm not revisiting this cycle in years to come with Rogers, but I'm cautiously optimistic.
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3 comments:
I am with the whole Rogers package: landline, internet, wireless. They give you 15% off everything so when you're looking at about a $250/m bill to one supplier the 15% is significant.
I am not a fan of the three year cel phone contracts of course, and the data rates for wireless are expensive. But that's a problem with data rates in Canada in general, not just with Rogers.
If you are careful, Rogers has even more deals. Like their demoted (unadvertised) couples plan. I get two wireless phone numbers with shared minutes but the minutes between the couple is free. And that includes long distance. Like the hours I logged while in Vancouver this summer: included. I pay about $50 for BOTH phones all in, including our $7/m unlimited web browsing.
You know I've got a phone, not a smart phone, basically to avoid the fleecing.
http://rdolishny.blogspot.com/2008/05/lg-shine-actually-shines-despite-rogers.html
I've tried to go the cheapest-supplier-a-la-carte but it's a lot of work frankly and not worth the modest savings.
Good luck with Rogers. They won't be your best friend, but the tech support is local (York Mills or Markham as opposed to Bangalore) and the rates are fair. Plus bundle it all for that 15% discount.
Good luck!!!
Thanks Rick! Would you believe they've already got me switched over? They came today (Thanksgiving Monday! WHEN they said they'd come...) and I only called Wednesday. When Rogers tell you it takes up to 5 business days to get the number from Bell secured, it seems they're including the weekend. If I can pry my wife away from her pay as you go Virgin plan one of these days, we might just do that couples plan you mentioned.
Follow-up, Bell's telemarketers are calling daily (a fact I can ascertain and easily ignore thanks to my new call display :) If only they cared half as much while I was still a customer. Oh well. I decided to let one "have it" - i.e. the brutal truth one night but it hasn't had any effect as they keep calling.
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