"Tell me, Mr. Anderson... what good is a phone call... if you're unable to speak? "
I recently ran across this http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070709/us_nm/sprint_dc article on Yahoo! News. I read this first with amusement, for how could a company have so missed the concept of ‘Customer Care’, and later annoyance as it reminder me of my personal experiences that paralleled this story. As a former customer, linking my experiences with this service provider, I realized that I would have been an ‘excessive’ customer service caller as well.
In 2003-4, while I was a customer of this service
provider, I received a call from the Arizona Department of Corrections.
They wanted to know why my phone charges were being billed to them. It
turns out that somehow my bill was being booked to me as well as a
regional prison, and they were rightfully attempting to figure out how
this had happened. At the time I had no idea if
this was some crank call or not, so I responded by asking them what
they were doing with my personal information and how did they get my
unlisted home number? Admittedly this call did not go well, but we both agreed to call the service provider and get to the bottom of this issue. The following day I received a voice mail from the prison informing me that they had called and had my account suspended. Sure enough, my cell phone was dead, and I could not even use it to call ‘Customer Care’ to get the issue fixed. Not only had my personal information been leaked, but it had been used to shut off my phone service!
I will make a long story short, but during the 2003-4 time frame I had logged over 70 phone calls to ‘Customer Care’, spending over 80 hours of my time during my first two months of service to straighten various items prior to the call above. It was at this time I went nuclear, and sent email to the CEO, most of the board members, and several members of the executive team, with detailed notes of everything that happened. They responded in a professional manner, told me the issue would be investigated and that they would do their best to keep it from happening again. While I was hoping for a call from the security or fraud department, I did get a call from VP of Customer Service, who I gave quite an ear full on security and privacy. I have no idea if the free advice ever put it to good use, but we did mutually agree that I could terminate my contract if I chose to do so. So long, problem customer.
Back to the issue of data privacy: The original setup of my account took an extraordinarily long time. The issue was my unwillingness to provide my social security number as an issue of privacy. The company stated that a social security number was a *mandatory* requirement to activate an account. I wanted service and did not want to provide the number because there was no good reason to do so. They were happy to have me become a customer, but not unless I provided a SSN#. After several phone calls to various representatives, they said they needed it to deter fraud. After four hours they wore me down, gave me an extra free phone, and I relented. My mistake in giving it to them in the first place because I thought I could save $10.00 a month on my cell phone bills. That won’t happen again! I will not give up my personal information because my time and my privacy are worth more than a couple dollars per month, or a free iPod or whatever else they are offering.
If you are one of the ‘Problem Customers’, I would love to hear your story. Oh, and if anyone would care to explain to me how 'ringing' should be considered a 'service', I would love to hear an explanation for that as well.
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