Circling the Drain, Customer Service Loses All Meaning

As strange as it may seem, I often tell my Hungarian students that things in general are not better in the US, regardless of what Hollywood wants the world to believe. One life issue that arises with greater repetition than any other is customer service.

Each time Hungarians or my fellow ex-pats complain about customer service here, I share my tales of the hour I spent on the phone with my CA bank trying to resolve an issue. Then there were the six calls I had to make to the credit card company for another problem. Of course, there was also the time… I might as well be speaking to an android. They all have a scripted speech that is never diverted from, regardless of the issue at hand. If your problem does not fit into their operation manual, all 5 pages of it, you are out of luck.

The point is if I could recapture all of the time I have spent calling the US for this or that problem, I would have enough time to live another five years. Though many of these people who listen to me rant, just believe I am trying to be a US naysayer while being a cheerleader for Hungary.

Today, in my mail was an article that drive the point home “Yes, customer service really is circling the drain – here’s what to do about it” gave me a tool to use to justify my opinion. Give this article a look-see. Christopher Elliott has been a travel guru for a couple of decades, yet he is like Dick Clark, he never seems to age. What he does do admirably is expand his repertoire of advocacy and information providing.

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Hold it, Hold it, Hold it

When you go for a chest x-ray, the technician tells you to take a deep breath and then "hold it, hold it, hold it!" while they shoot the picture. 

Well, these days when you call any company for customer service you may as well prepare yourself for a wait. I honestly think that this is why someone invented speaker phones. They were tired of holding the phone to their ear. Over our eleven years, I or someone else has complained about the quality of customer service here in Hungary. I have, however, qualified it with "Well, I cannot really complain because when I lived in California..." and I would continue with some disastrous lack of achievement there to show the parallel circumstances. Responses were and still would be the same from other ex-pats or Hungarians: "Oh, that must have been an isolated incident, because things are so much better in the US."

Interestingly, one of our dear former Fulbrighters posted this on her Facebook today. She is in the US. I am keeping this as proof that I was not alone and no, it has not improved. I guess it is worldwide if you look at the related articles below.

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No Money From You, You Cheeky Monkey

This is an exercise in patience Hungarian style. I received a notice from the electric company stating that we have not paid our full bill and if we did not pay the 1,629 Huf by June 30th, they would shut off our electric by July 6th. Strange that there was the time lapse. Would it take this long finding the switch assigned to us to throw? Honestly, I was not sure which apartment the bill was for, but the envelope clearly had the remnants of a "Return Receipt Request", yet I had not signed a thing. The note did say they have sent previous notices. I paid the bill and told our tenant Jeff he should perhaps pay it also, just in case.


Last night, I went for beers with a former student. I happened to show him this insane note when the conversation topic transitioned into a news article about how Hungarians are 1.6 billion HUF behind in their utility payments. Balazs turned the bill over, which clearly showed it to be assigned to the Feri Flat. I called Jeff our tenant to warn him it was indeed his responsibility.


This morning Jeff came to claim the notice showing he was a deliquescent as he attempted to pay the bill. We joked about how they may not take his money at the electric company office, while wanting him to go to the post office to fill out a blank check. Ha, ha!! He left.


A half hour later he calls again, his voice immediately raises alarms before the words spill from his tongue; they are laced with a special blend of humor and anxiety. "I was kicked out of the electric company office" he shares. I am incredulous at first, thinking this is an exercise in hyperbole. Then the story unfolds.


Jeff: I found a woman at the electric office customer service desk who spoke English. I told her I wanted to pay this bill and showed it to her. She said the letter should never have been sent; the computer generated it by mistake and it should be ignored. 


It should have stopped there as would seem reasonable, but it did not. She asked me if I had a power of attorney to pay the bill since it was not in my name and I was not associated with the company. I inform her that I didn't know I needed a power of attorney to pay a bill. I continue to share the fact that I have been paying the bills all along. She insisted that I did need a legal authority to pay the bill since the bill was not in my name; I was not associated with the company being billed. Therefore, I had no right to pay any company money owed on anyone else's behalf. At this, I started to laugh out loud, which turned the tide of her demeanor like flipping a light switch (assuming the electric bill had been paid). "You are being rude by laughing at me" she quipped. The office was becoming more crowded by the minute like customers storming the Bastille waving their yellow payments checks over their head. I knew in my heart that some must have been there to pay a bill on someone else's behalf. Oh how my sympathy pored out to them at that moment.


Trying to look seriously at the customer service lady, I apologetically mumbled "I am not laughing at you, but at the ridiculousness of the situation. See these?" at which point I pulled out previous receipts for bills paid at the post office. With greater command, she reiterated that I was NOT allowed to pay these bills without a legal power of attorney. When I started laughing, she became furious stating that if my behavior continued, she would have me removed by the guard. The mental movie of that statement alone forced the laughter from the depths of my diaphragm and it continued until the security guard had his arm entwined with mine as he escorted me out the door of the office building. As the unwanted escort was assisting my exit, the once helpful customer service rep was telling "You are being cheeky. I told you to stop laughing."


Now, I have a grave fear for entering a post office to pay other bills or mail a letter. It is almost certain that my face will be on a WANTED poster sooner or later. 

Related articles

• Texas woman hit with $1.3 million electric bill

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• It pays for businesses to go extra mile for customers - ROBINSON COLUMN

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• Electricity Consumers To Get Free Prepaid Meters

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Now This is Customer Service

When I get excellent customer service these days, regardless of the originating country, I am bowled over. On Saturday, I sent an e-mail to Kingston Technology. I am not even certain where they are located, but I had purchased a 4 GB expansion card for my Treo 750. It would not work and I searched all over the 50 million pages of the Internet trying to find out why. It turned out that it is because I do not have Windows Mobile 6 on my phone and this particular card is a high capacity card, which is only recognized by Mobile 6 on Treo 750s. Today, I am at the grocery store and my phone rings. It is the support person from Kingston Technology wanting to follow up with me about my e-mail. They were concerned about my card not working in the phone. We had a rather lengthy discussion between the vinegar and pickle sections of the store. This gentleman and I don't use the term loosely, was truly concerned about the card not working. Kingston Technology has gained one loyal customer and as you can see, I am willing to share the experience for others to know the excellence in service.

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The Generic Customer Service Line

A friend of mine sent me this link. He obviously doesn't know I am without my main computer. Good thing I have a laptop or I may not have received the laugh for days. I am sure this is the Bank of America customer service training video.
http://automatedphonehell.com

Perhaps all corporations are getting on the bandwagon and using the same thing. It really makes me laugh when my students come back from a short stay in the US and say they are so impressed with how efficiently everything works there as opposed to here. Sure if you live in a dorm or with a host family, you are insulated from most of the daily issues the rest of the population has to negotiate.

Again, I am fighting with Bank of America for a $6.50 service charge for our checking account when our balance fell below their standards, yet it is was significantly above. What this brought to mind were the fees that those less fortunate have to pay because they are low income. It is not just banking, but the rewards for those who have more and get more run across the spectrum. I really don't care about $6.50, I just don't want B of A to have it. I would rather make the decision myself of how it is spent.

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The Fight Is On Again

Why is it necessary to fight for your rights all of the time with major corporations? The David and Goliath story over and over again gets draining. We flew to Istanbul in March purchasing our tickets on Lufthansa and giving them our frequent flier numbers for United Airlines, both being part of the Star Alliance. We flew from Budapest to Munich and from there on to Istanbul. The latter leg was a code share with Turkish Airlines, but with a Lufthansa code and flight. Our return was the same in reverse. When I checked our miles on United.com, they had given each of us 500 miles for the first leg of the journey, but nothing for the Munich to Istanbul portion. I checked the list of United's partners and sure enough Turkish Airlines was listed as a full fledged partner. Checking on the Star Alliance web site, I found that Turkish Airlines is listed there also as full fledged partner also. Thinking that both Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines both being partners, we should have received miles regardless of whose plane we flew on. I submitted the form for missing credits. A day later, I received an e-mail from United stating that our flight did not qualify for miles. No explanation was given, no apology for our misunderstanding, but best of all, no "Thank you for contacting us. We value you as a customer." I would rather nothing at all than a phony apology. I was 20,000 miles short of getting both of us tickets to Australia, but have enough for another trip to Africa assuming they don't go out of business or raise their mileage rates before December of 2009. I want those miles! I try to book flights that will garner us miles. I wrote to Christopher Elliot, the travel ombudsman about this. He suggested I write to the higher ups and gave me the addresses for various airlines. I have yet to write, but will as soon as school is out this next week. Issue two is Bank of America yet again. I keep saying I hate this bank, but the more I hear about other banks, the problems with others are similar. I was looking at our statement online. They charged us $6.50 service fees last month. We have not been charged service fees for over a year. I wrote to Customer Service an oxymoron if there ever was one. Although polite, I said there must have been a mistake and would like it rectified. They responded within 12 hours stating it was due to our "linked" accounts falling below the minimum balances for the month, but I should be happy to know that since we have direct deposits, we did save $2.00. Well I had to admit that our checking account did run with about $500. as a balance, but our regular savings account has over $5,000. in it, but if that is still not enough, we have a CD account with a hell of a lot of money in it that is well over their minimum standards. I wrote back explaining all of this, but in return received yet another emotionally inflaming e-mail stating this could not be handled over e-mail and I would have to call customer service. That would mean waiting 6 hours later than normal for their office to be open due to the time differences, then pray I reached one of their numbers that accepted collect calls, and finally found someone with enough brains to overcome their scripted training to tell me there is nothing they can do. All of their e-mails end in "We value you as a customer and appreciate your business." Well they have a hell of a way of showing it. I know, I just know that when I call, they will tell me that the CD account was never "linked" to the other accounts and therefore we incurred the charge. "Linked" is a magical way for banks to carve more fees from their customers' hard earned money. Hey, I did not send you my house keys because I could not pay my mortgage, so don't try to make up the losses by screwing with me. I know full well this "linked" trick and I made sure I had all of our accounts linked when we opened this new account. Thanks to a comment posted to this blog on a previous rant about Bank of America, I have the address for the president. Excuse me now, I have a long list of letters to write.

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