Let’s face it — the maxim “the customer is always right” never really held true. But still it was nice and polite for managers and customer service reps to at least pretend they had customers’ needs in mind. So it’s distressing yet oddly comforting to hear the bluntness in which A Verizon CSR handled Sean:
I had a maddening experience today with Verizon Wireless’ customer service. Long story short: I ordered a Verizon phone and a talk plan that included unlimited text messages. Or so I thought. When I got my first bill, I was shocked to find I’d be sending and receiving texts at $.20 per. When I called to ask why I didn’t get the plan I asked for and to get the charges reversed, I was told in so many words that I was lying because the computer didn’t say I ordered the talk and text plan. This, of course, was my whole point. I didn’t get what I asked for.So I escalated the issue to a supervisor. He also told me I couldn’t have asked for the talk/text plan because it wasn’t on the screen. When I asked this rep whatever happened to the customer always being right, he responded, “Those times have changed.”
What’s the most quotable thing a CSR ever told you?
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“The customer is always right” never meant “the customer’s version of events, policies, and statements is always 100% accurate”.
It always meant: “never tell the customer ‘you’re wrong’.” For example, if a customer says “but the advertisement said ____”, don’t tell them “you’re wrong, it said ___”. Instead, say “I’m sorry the advertisement wasn’t clearer; it’s supposed to mean _____”.
The customer was probably completely in the right in this scenario but I do believe the “customer is always right” policy is total garbage. I work in retail and have had a customer “swear to God” that he purchased a particular item on release date from my store when my store didn’t open until three years after that item was released. This is one of many examples when customers have been full of crap.
My wife had someone from the No Help Desk at the local hospital tell her, after they had deleted two years worth of emails, “computers are very complicated”.
My wife is a burn and trauma surgeon and COL in the Army Reserve Medical Corp with two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So she tells the unhelpful geek, “You should try taking out a gall bladder, that’s complicated.”
– Steve
I had an overdraft fee placed on my account even though my bank’s policy (as stated by an employee of that bank) is that charges causing an account to go negative will only result in an overdraft fee if the money charged past the $0.00 marker is deposited on the day of the original charge. So I went to make my account positive on that same day and was charged an overdraft fee anyway. When I called customer service to get the charge taken off my account because of an obvious bank error, the rep. told me that they could not do anything about it because it was not, and i quote, “classified as a bank error”. These kind of things happen to people every day and we are supposed to just bend over and take it because we have no other leverage against them or we don’t have the time or money to make them see their mistake and make things right. It’s just the way the world works. There are very few businesses with customer service like we all picture it to be. The only company I know of that would fix an error until it was made right is Starbucks. I have never once been turned away because my drink was not made right and they always offered me incentives to return with my business when I was not satisfied.
part of my job is CSRing, and the customer is NOT always right. the customer is the customer, and should be treated with respect, but their word is not law, so stop feeling so bloody entitled because my way of making a living is “less” than yours.
When my boyfriend and I first moved out together almost two years ago, we thought we could not get Verzion where we were living, so we decided to bite the bullet and order Comcast.
Well, after calling Verzion anyway, I found out their internet was available in our area, and for only 31.99/month (which we are still paying now, they have locked it in at that until we change services), rather than the $81 something that Comcast wanted to charge for both internet and cable, which we didn’t even want. (Internet alone would have been $50 some a month by itself).
Needless to say, I canceled the Comcast installation appointment. The following week I received numerous calls from several different Comcast “CSRs”, asking if I wanted to reschedule. Here is the kicker: The last person I talked to actually told me that they were “desperate for sales”. Why would you tell the customer that? I just hung up on him, and it has become a running joke now, that whenever either my boyfriend or I see a Comcast van, we just wait for them to somehow realize who we are, and follow us to our destination, yelling out the window, “DO YOU WANT TO RESCHEDULE YOUR APPOINTMENT?!?”
OP should have double checked what plan he was getting before confirming it, whether it be from checking his shit before ordering online or reading his receipt before leaving the store. Talk & Text is different from Talk. Also if a transaction is done through VZW’s website it says in the notes on your account, the notes that are auto generated by the computer system, that they selected that particular plan and features. Saying “why didn’t I get what I asked for” is like getting pissed at your teacher for not proofreading your term paper for you.
But maybe I’m just a former VZW rep venting about all the “I thought the customer was always right” calls I’ve taken.
I used to work for Verizon Wireless Customer Service, and the store reps NEVER got the initial order right. My job constantly called for me to adjust off charges for things that should have been included in the plan but were conveniently forgotten to be added on by store reps. I’ve seen other posters say it, and I’ll confirm that – tell them you want out, and they’ll change their tune.
I’ve been a customer for about 12 years, but Verizon this past 2 weeks, has tried its best to rip me off. My Storm wouldn’t boot, and they told me it was no good I would have to buy a “Droid”, that they were no longer going to support blackberries…, my buddy got the phone re-booted and working in about 15 minutes, today it says the sim card is not working and is cutting out, on phone calls, they said they could not replace the sim card, and that I would have to buy a new phone, a Droid…and that after Jan 1 they would no longer carry blackberries…
Any one suggest a service in Texas that sells blackberries, and has good service….