What moments of painfully bad customer service can you remember getting? Or, if you were/are in customer service and had to tend to a difficult/idiotic customer, what are your worst experiences?
I have had several customer service moments where I was the customer and the guy at the service desk was a serious a-hole or did not speak one single word to me. I can't go too much more into detail than that, other than I refused to go in their line anymore.
What do you folks have to share, through experience?
I was with my friend years ago when a clerk tried to pocket her fifty-dollar winning lottery ticket and say it was a loser. That wasn't good customer service.
Once when moving houses I called AOL (for they were my internet providers) and said "I am moving to this address on this date. I'd like to switch my service over."
I was told this was all fine, but I'd have to wait ten days between it being switched off at my old house and turned on at the new one. Such was the joys of the internet in pre-broadband days.
About a week later (and a few days before I was due to move) I got an email from AOL saying they were sorry I was canceling my service. I phoned them up and said "I am not canceling, I am just moving."
They assured me they knew this and the email had merely been an automated one.
So I move and my old internet is switched off as planned and all is fine there.
Twelve days later I still have no access at my new place. So I called up customer service. "But you canceled your access," they told me.
Of course, I replied that this hadn't been the case. The woman on the other end of the phone got quite insistent that I had, and I was more insistent that I hadn't. She started shouting at me down the phone and then cried out "Right, I am off to check the records. I'll be back in a minute."
After a short while she comes back on the phone and says "Oh yes, we've mistakenly canceled it. I have put in an order to get your line set up, but it will take ten days."
No apology or anything. I told them that they wouldn't be setting me up in 10 days and I'd be going with someone else instead. They tried to send me a bill for breaking my contract which I refused to pay (and still haven't to this day, although they occasionally send me reminders even over 10 years later telling me I need to pay it.
As an American living in Germany I had access to US Army Bases throughout Europe. My dad used to work for the Army, so we did most of our shopping on base. I bought the 2009 released Starship Troopers Blu-ray box set on base, but the first disc containing the first Starship Troopers movie wouldn't play unless you inserted a memory card into the player. It was a well known "error" and Sony, the distributer, had a disc replacement program. All you had to do was contact them via e-mail and send them the disc.
Sony refused to send me a replacement disc because of my location outside the U.S., even though I explained that I bought the disc on base (with American dollars. I even included a pic of the receipt), which is technically "american territory". They said once I'm done with my tour of duty (they assumed I was a soldier) and back in the states they'd be more than happy to send me a replacement disc.
I thought that was silly, especially since the box set was also Region free, but there was nothing I could do. It kind of felt like a bad Starship Troopers scene so I thanked them for supporting American Troops on duty in Europe. They didn't reply.
I hace a smartphone but I use it very rarely and only for necessary things like "i'm at he store and they':e got blank on sale, you want some? " sometimes in a store I go online to check an item on sale to see the reviews.
I use tracfone because I donct use my phone enough to pay 30 a month for it. I may use it like 15 minutes a week at most.
One time someone at tracfone made a mistake that shut of my service and I went thru hell with them. One heavily accented hombre deliberately tormented me by keeping me on my house phone for 75 minutes "workeeng on thee problem" then told me I couildmfice it be entering a code in my online, then hung up.
Another barely understandable person told me to call back at 11pm to get help and their service department closed at 11.
The abuse was so bad I told a manager at their department that I hoped him and every ryone in his department ended up in hell for it.
For someone who condemns the doctrine of hell you sure are quick to wish other people there. Hypocrite.
Quote from: indianasmith on September 22, 2019, 11:11:38 PM
For someone who condemns the doctrine of hell you sure are quick to wish other people there. Hypocrite.
Actually I condemn the christian hell, there are other beliefs that have hells that are not permanent and are based on balance and correction. The hindu faith has a hell but it's only until your bad bad karma is balanced out. Other faiths believe in forms of hell that are very different from your belief.
I'm an agnostic and I don't kmow if there os an afterlife or not. There may be one. One thing I do believe strongly is thast the muslim-christiasn belts (they're the same basically) are nothing but tools for social control. I do not believe anything thast could create nthe universe could be as small, petty and childish as the gods of those faiths.
Unfortunately, your perception of Christianity, from what you have written about it here, is based on an extremely distorted view of what we believe, and a horrible grasp of its history and theology.
If there is an afterlife of some sort, and i'm open to the possibility, i'd like to think this is one possible scenario.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttevamkS6gw&t=709s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttevamkS6gw&t=709s)
There is one thing that will forever keep me from being s christian: I believe that people only deserve to suffer appropriate punishment for wrongdoing. The punishment should fit the offense and there is such a thing as excessive punishment.
I'll never be able to join a group that has many members who light up like Christmas trees and rub their hands together in glee as the thought of peolle suffering eternal agony for not being liken them.
Actually I can think of another bad customer service deal. Back before cell phones I moved and had my home phone through my local cable company, and they were sending someone out to hook up the cable and the phone, and the person never came, so when I went to a payphone to call and find out why, the person said, "Well, you didn't answer our confirmation call two hours ahead of the appointment, so your appointment was canceled."
I inquired as to how I could answer their call when they were coming out to set up the phone service.
last year a customer threatened to throw a brick through my shop window because I was selling a certain item that he said he could buy cheaper elsewhere. (erm, go and buy it elsewhere then?!). had to call police, although he did not carry out his threat
last month a woman customer asked if she could have an item for sale at £10 for just £1, on the basis that she did not want to use said item for its intended purpose. when I refused, she threatened to "report me". (report me to who? and for what, trying to make money?)
as a customer my worst experience by a mile was with ACER who took 4 months to fix the CD/DVD tray on my laptop. after 2 months I was phoning them almost daily just asking for it back, even if it wasn't fixed.
the worst thing was, because the laptop was still under warranty it had to be sent away to Acer for repairs. had the warranty run out, the guys in the repair shop I took it to in the first place said they could've done it in less than 1 day.
Quote from: Svengoolie 3 on September 22, 2019, 11:18:12 PM
Quote from: indianasmith on September 22, 2019, 11:11:38 PM
For someone who condemns the doctrine of hell you sure are quick to wish other people there. Hypocrite.
Actually I condemn the christian hell, there are other beliefs that have hells that are not permanent and are based on balance and correction. The hindu faith has a hell but it's only until your bad bad karma is balanced out. Other faiths believe in forms of hell that are very different from your belief.
I'm an agnostic and I don't kmow if there os an afterlife or not. There may be one. One thing I do believe strongly is thast the muslim-christiasn belts (they're the same basically) are nothing but tools for social control. I do not believe anything thast could create nthe universe could be as small, petty and childish as the gods of those faiths.
It might surprise you to know, Sven, I for one cheerfully support your right to say how you feel about this or any other subject you care to bring up, I'm not about censoring or banning anyone, but free speech doesn't mean others aren't going to reply critically to you, especially when you deliberately offend others. Keep that in mind, and until next time, peace and good wishes your way. :thumbup:
Quote from: zombie no.one on September 23, 2019, 01:34:53 PM
last year a customer threatened to throw a brick through my shop window because I was selling a certain item that he said he could buy cheaper elsewhere. (erm, go and buy it elsewhere then?!). had to call police, although he did not carry out his threat
last month a woman customer asked if she could have an item for sale at £10 for just £1, on the basis that she did not want to use said item for its intended purpose. when I refused, she threatened to "report me". (report me to who? and for what, trying to make money?)
My sister works the customer service desk at a hypermarket. The stories she tells me about customers "complaining" are unbelievable. Like that one time the store discontinued a certain type of yogurt. An upset customer threaten to sue my sister for not having said yogurt anymore (she works the desk, she doesn't own the store) and called her all kind of names. Then there was this crazy young man who randomly kicked a three year old kid brutally in the head. My sister had to quickly lock the entrance doors so that the crazy guy couldn't escape, who was trying to make a run for it. When the police arrived they found him hiding behind potato chips in the potato chips shelf. Another time a customer tried to steal a frozen chicken by hiding it underneath his wool hat, with the frozen chicken placed on top of his head. He had a brain freeze of sort and passed out at the cash register. The frozen chicken was sliding 65 feet in my sisters direction at the desk. She had to call an ambulance and the police. Then there is this creepy middle aged dude who always buys dolls. He unpacks and undresses the dolls at the customer service desk, leaving the packaging and wrappings behind for my sister to dispose. Just a few stories but my sister certainly could write a book about her job and crazy customers.
lol, doll guy sounds like a real winner. I did have a very strange guy in once who stood in the middle of the shop and announced "I'm into black magic. Is anyone else here into black magic?".
I think if you work with the general public you will encounter loonies regularly
Quote from: zombie no.one on September 24, 2019, 09:59:22 AM
I think if you work with the general public you will encounter loonies regularly
I work with the public daily: 98% of it is easy and clients go away happy but the other 2% :buggedout: :buggedout:
Part of one of my jobs is to deal with and often placate artists, their reps, and gallery owners, and I think crying toddlers and brooding adolescents are easier to handle than needlessly stressed out artists, especially the ones in Germany with whom I am in contact on a regular basis.
One last year frankly told me she needed her check to buy cocaine and was withdrawing and she screamed at me, switching from German to English and threatened me with all sorts of miseries if I didn't get her money to her right then so she could get cocaine.
Never before had I wished so much for the Jedi mind trick: "You don't want to buy cocaine, you want to sit down and re-think your life....and quit screaming at me."
I once called 911 about a man who got hit by a car (minor accident) and I calmly and in a clear conversational tone told the operator I'd just seen a car swipe a man in a crosswalk and he was bent over kind of limping, and the 911 operator practically screamed at me:
CALM DOWN! I NEED YOU TO CALM DOWN!
Well I used to work a "sort of" dispatcher job that dealt with much bigger and worse things than a car brushing against someone and I don't see how I could have been speaking much calmer, and if I wasn't I doubt an operator yelling at me would me helped much.