Your Telecom Provider Feels Your Pain

Interesting article in the Washington Post today, "An Outbreak of Caring" (subtitle:  Stung By Complaints, Telecoms Stress Customer Service).  It spotlights Tom Maguire, Verizon's new Customer Care 'Czar', hired last November to tackle the ever present irritant that everyone who lives and breathes in this great country experiences:  crappy telecom customer service.

The article leads with a blurb about Maguire being "one tough customer" himself:

When served chicken tacos without the chicken recently, he first complained to his waitress, then went online to the restaurant's Web site to fill out a survey with scathing remarks about his experience.  That accept-no-excuses attitude serves Maguire well when dealing with his own customers.  The straight-talking Long Island native knows how enraging poor service can be.  He understands that perfect service is difficult to achieve.  And he grasps how important it is that companies hear about it when they fall short.

OK, so he feels our pain, and has a no-excuses attitude, following up on his in-person complaints with a visit to offending business's websites.  Good for him.  But how does he feel about automated voice prompts?  And call center reps in India who you have to ask to repeat themselves several times?   Does he ever have to navigate the customer service maze telecom consumers endure? 

The article points to service bundling as part of the problem.  It saves consumers a little money (I'm a Verizon bundler), but complicates the heck out of billing, and heaven forbid you have an issue or question with more than one service at a time, because each separate service has a separate customer service team, which means you'll be transferred from person to person - across continents - adding time and frustration to an already frustrating situation. 

According to the article, Maguire oversees 131 call centers from Laurel, Maryland to Bangalore, India,  (I'd love to know how many are in India) some 46,000 employees handling customer service issues.  In addition, there's an elite 'escalation team' of 90 that engages customers that've either blown a gasket or figured out how to get through to top executives via phone or e-mail.   No doubt the Consumerist blog is responsible for many of the tips on bypassing automated prompts and foreign call centers.

I'm not writing this to rip on Verizon.  The whole industry is built on a philosphy that strives to eliminate customer service costs, as opposed to elevate customer service itself.  Creating Passionate Consumers seems like the furthest thing from telecom minds.  But the Post article says execs like Maguire are trying to change things.  Maguire has created a "tiered system" at Verizon, where his call centers act like "medical triage" to handle normal issues.  Complaints from Triple Play customers (Fios TV, Internet and phone ... big bucks consumers) go to a team of "personal account handlers in Florida".  Ahh ... Florida, where I assume the reps can speak English clearly.  So the average customer is sent to Bangalore, while the Fios customer gets someone in Ft Lauderdale.  Customers frothing at the mouth get sent to the escalation team, because as Maguire says ... "what you don't want them to do is leave or write up a blog or something."  Translation:  please don't rip us on the Consumerist (or perhaps Consumer Passion ... if only my readership were as large). 

If only the consumer was priority number one with telecoms, then those wonderful and innovative smart phones (iPhones, Nokia N95s, Blackberry Pearls) would be attached to service providers that are equally committed to to the task of creating Passionate Consumers.  I hope Mr. Maguire is committed to just that. 

Comments

[John Nicolazzi]

We would like Mr. McGuire to know that after numerous forceful phone calls from Verizon's accounts receivable dept. (after which they found out we had actually paid our bill in person after we had to go to great lengths to prove to them that we did and that in fact the clerk who took our check put in the wrong account number) we were escorted by security out of the Gulf View Mall in Port Richey, FL because my husband objected to the way we were treated what with the 2 employees rolling their eyes and making like they were annoyed that they had to help us. We suspect it had something to do with their manager not being in and on vacation. Can you imagine what the security person thought when he came in to see my 83 year old, WWII disabled veteran husband waiting for him in his motorized scooter? The district manager and his superior were very nice but we are still waiting for an apology from the main person who took it upon himself to tell us "I want you out of the store" to call us with an apology which is what we feel we deserve. Where is the respect in this country? If it wasn't for my husband going to war at 17 yrs. old, most of these so called customer clerks would not even be born. Please see if you can get this e-mail to Mr. McGuire so he is aware of the bad apples in Verizon creating ill will and upsetting people for no good reason.
Thank you for your help.

[Jeff Crites]

Very sorry to hear about your experience. My wife is a children's book author (http://www.susancrites.com) who is doing something called Operation Rainbows, where she collects extra books (her picture book is called I Love You More Than Rainbows) to give to families with military personnel serving overseas and in combat. She'll be collecting books this weekend at a book signing, and hopefully we'll be going to Walter Reed soon to pass some out to wounded vets, so they can read them to their kids. On behalf of mywife and I ... THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY!

And I'll do my best to pass your note and experience along to the Verizon executive.

Best Regards

Jeff

[Russ Locascio]

So what gov't agency do you contact when Verizon is non-responsive to your complaint? It's not the PSC. They only handle telephone complaints. Who do you call when it's everything else like cable TV or Internet or VOIP? How about when their contractors tear up your property and fail to restore it to a reasonable level. How about all those boxes that they put everywhere for reasons nobody will tell you? FIOS is an eyesore. How is it nobody has mentioned that? Are your lawns and shrubbery that bad that the boxes are an upgrade?

[Jeff Crites]

Off the top of my head, the Better Business Bureau (http://www.BBB.org) is a place to start.

Also check out The Consumerist Blog (http://www.consumerist.com). It's slogan is "Consumers Bite Back", and I think they have info on various contact routes to complain, etc. You can also send them your experience with a company, and there's a chance they'll do a blog write-up on it.

I had a thought the other day, after writing about a new company, http://www.suggestionbox.com, which enables any business website to take consumer ideas and suggestions, and organizes them, it's transparent, and so on. Great new startup. Anyway, I thought, what if a telecom, like Verizon, decided to be "the most customer focused telecom on the planet", and opened up a feedback/idea portal, using something like SuggestionBox.com. They'd get skewered at first, with a zillion people venting. But what if it started them down a road of better service and focus on the consumer experience. I'd be willing to PAY MORE for the best service. Telecoms are unique ... they box us in with their contracts, and send us to India for tech support. It could be so, so different if they woke up and decided to make it so.