Customer Service, RIP

You can read horror stories all over about how terrible "customer service" has become as companies try to maximize profits by cutting back on things that don't directly generate revenue. Some of the worst come from the airlines (read one example here), but you have no doubt found them all over on your own. My latest example is from yesterday...

A few years ago, Agnes was feeling a bit homesick and decided she'd like to have some German TV channels to watch. Being the dutiful husband, I went to our cable TV service provider and checked the channel offerings ... only to find that unless you wanted Spanish (seven billion available channels), Chinese (only a few less), Arabic, Urdu, Tagalog, or any one of a gazillion minority language stations, you were out of luck. No German.

So I looked into satellite TV, and discovered that the Dish Network offered a two-channel "international package" of German stations. I went through the kabuki dance of credit checks and engineering surveys, had a dead tree blocking the view to the satellite cut down, and - finally - we had German TV.

Fast forward to a month or two ago.

No satellite signal for our German stations. It seems that Dish Network (or someone) had moved the German channels to another satellite. OK. New service call to Dish Network to readjust our antenna. Oops ... technician tells us that there's another tree blocking the new satellite. Oops again ... the tree is not on my property, so I can't have it removed. AARRGGHH!! Technician goes away, I call Dish Network, and ask to cancel the service since we can't access the satellite. Welllll, says the lady on the other end, why don't you let us send a supervisor out to double check and make sure, because sometimes the technicians don't get things just right (???). Okay.

Fast forward to yesterday morning.

A Dish Network contractor shows up, climbs up onto the roof, pulls out his trusty satellite-o-meter, carefully peruses the low southeastern sky, then comes down to give me the good news-bad news message: the good news is that we really can see the satellite; the bad news is that I need a new feed horn for the satellite dish, he doesn't have such a feed horn with him, and even if he did, he couldn't install it because his work order was only to evaluate the reception.

Back to the telephone to Dish Network to set up a new appointment to replace the feed horn and reacquire the satellite. While waiting for a service person to answer, I decide to inquire into adding another outlet so that we can watch the German channels in the rec room, the guest room (for Agnes' parents when they visit), and the master bedroom (for those times when we're not doing anything else, wink, wink). A nice lady named Cassandra finally comes on the line and I explain the situation. She sets up a service call for two weeks hence (first possible Saturday appointment) to fix the feed horn, and then I ask about the new inside outlet. She puts me on hold to do some research and comes back with the news that yes, we can do that, this is how much it costs, but it can't be done on the same work order because there are two different "promotions" involved...we have to schedule another appointment to do the extra outlet. Eh?, I ask in puzzlement. The technician is here anyhow, why do I have to have two separate work orders? We then go into a long and endlessly circular Talmudic argument about how there are different billing systems for different promotions, and each requires a separate work order to complete. Okay, I suggest, how about this: write up a second work order and assign it to the same guy so that he can finish one, close it out, then do the other one right after? Answer: we can't do it that way.

By this time Agnes, listening to this in the background, is making slashing motions across her throat to indicate that I should stop arguing with poor Cassandra the Drone who, clearly, is in the position of having to try to explain a stupid rule she didn't make. I grit my teeth and go with Cassandra's suggestion to just ask the technician, once he's done with the antenna, if oh-by-the-way he has another receiver box he just might be able to install while he's here. If can't (and he probably won't, as these folks are heavily booked anyhow), I need to call Dish Network back and schedule yet another appointment for yet another technician to come back and do the rest of the work.

Is it just me, or is this stupid? It seems to me that it would make sense to coddle the customer a little bit here, as I am asking for something that will, after all, increase their earnings. The technician is already here. All he has to do is bring along some extra cable and a new receiver box. How hard can this be?

Pretty hard, evidently, at least from the perspective of someone at Dish Network sitting in an office drafting arcane rules in Technical Sanskrit.

Okay, I've got that off my chest now.

Old-fashioned Customer Service is pretty much dead. Economics killed it, and those of us who suffer through it aren't likely to see it come back any time soon. The lesson here is that if you need a home service call, if you need to fly anywhere, or if you need warranty help on almost anything you buy, medicate yourself heavily before you embark on the quest.

You'll need it.

Have a good day. More thoughts later.

Bilbo

P.S. - In an hour or so, Agnes will be off to Las Vegas for the class she's taking. Between this afternoon and Thursday morning, when I fly (oh, oh!) out to meet her for a mini-vacation, I'll be a footloose Class Two geographical bachelor. Time to catch up on a few of those back posts I've been meaning to get to. Stay tuned...

B.