One of my favorite expressions when I’m frustrated is “Just shoot me!” But after the last week with my internet and cable tv provider I think I need a new expression — they took it too literally.
First, they shot me in the foot when a fellow soccer fiend from Ecuador called and asked if he could come over and watch his favorite team play. Sure, of course, we’ll buy the pizza. Then we wasted 2 1/2 hours just to find out that we had the wrong satellite dish. “Oh, THAT channel! Well, you need a different dish that we’ll come right out and install for $200.”
Then we get a notice that they’re doing a FREE upgrade to super duper high speed internet. Here comes the shot to the second foot. “You need to buy a new modem.” OK, did that. Then they left me for a full day without internet while I waited on the new modem to arrive (that they didn’t bother to tell me I needed to order from them until 24 hours before the big switchover. Then they did the big switchover without asking me whether their modem had arrived. Dead in the water.)
Too bad I don’t have four feet because the story doesn’t stop there. New modem installed, still no internet. Another hour on the phone and finally “Well, I see that your modem could use a new firmware upgrade. So I’ll just download that to you now. How long will it take? I have no idea.” Another 1/2 day of work lost.
And finally, everything is installed and my new super duper high speed internet now goes…. well, let’s see. About half speed and half the reliability of what I had before they upgraded me.
Unfortunately the saga still doesn’t end there. So I call the chief competitor in town. “You bet, we’ll come out tomorrow and install everything. Installation is free. Modem? Oh, yeah I forgot. That’ll be $5/mo. extra. Wireless? Oh, don’t worry, it’s in the same box.” You can see where this is going. The guy shows up, looks around the office and says “Um, I see you have two laptops. Do you have a wireless modem?” No, I explain, you’re supposed to have one handy little box that takes care of both the modem and the router. “Oh, no, it doesn’t work that way with us. You need two separate boxes, and by the way, it’s $100 extra to install the wireless router. Which I don’t have with me. But you can go buy your own and I could go ahead and install the rest of the things now.” All I could mutter was “Goodbye.”
So what is our customer experience lesson from all this? If you’re a business owner, empower the people who work for you to do something more than give rote answers and follow the d!@#$ book. Forget the scripts and don’t make me talk to someone in another country when I know darn good and well there is an office 1 mile from my house.
Don’t shoot me — I’m the customer!!!!!
