We’ve received a follow-up email from Chuck, who has spent the better part of the week trying to determine why Progressive’s Roadside Assistance service—for which he pays an additional monthly fee on top of his normal insurance premium—sucks so badly that they’d leave a motorist stranded for 45 minutes on a busy Interstate on a weekend morning.

Here’s part of Chuck’s email:

After dealing with Progressive executive customer service for most of this week I have finally gotten a resolution. Rachel at Progressive is issuing a formal apology from Cross Country (the outsourced roadside assistance people) and an AMEX gift card.

They of course say that this is an unusual circumstance and call volumes were extremely high at 11:30am on a Sunday…

…I asked for a credit in the amount of my October premium and was turned down by Brian Passell, Divisional President.

We’re happy the matter has been resolved to Chuck’s satisfaction, but also a little surprised that Progressive is still insisting on passing the buck to their hired help. After all, it’s their service, their brand, and they collect the money for it, so trying to scapegoat a poorly-run outsourced company is a bit of a cop-out. We think outsourcing should be an internal issue that remains invisible to the customer, or else it’s not successful outsourcing—and the company that sold you the service or product is the one to blame. (We’re looking at you, too, Mattel.)

But the issue has been resolved to Chuck’s satisfaction, so we’re happy for him and hope his step-daughter has a better weekend coming up.

(Photo: Getty)

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