Bad Customer Service

Now it's obvious that at work you can encounter lots of strange and rude people, especially if you work in sales. Though, what about when the tables are turned and you are the polite (ideally, but optional) customer and you encounter just plain terrible customer service?
I don't mean bad, or "it was an off day" kind of thing, but rather stuff that just shouldn't happen very frequently, if not, at all.

An instance when I went to the mall the other day:
1) I walked into Radio Shack greeted by the standard "Are you looking for anything in particular?"/"May I help you with anything today?" Okay, so it's standard stuff so far. I was eyeing Ipod speakers on a whim and to kill time, so a couple of seconds after I say "no thanks, just looking," I'm just browsing and the guy comes up again. He sort of asked me if he could help me with anything again (I wasn't even eyeing the speaker section intently) and then ended up "testing if my ipod would fit onto the dock." After that I'm sort indifferent, since it was really nice, but $300.00 I put on my pod to listen and crouch down to move on to the cases section. Then the guy starts to snap his fingers at me almost immediately after I crouch down and take a brief look, to tell me "this case over here's pretty good," even though he commented earlier on how nice my case was when seeing it earlier (note I'm listening to my music at this point). After that part, he would have followed me to the back of the store had I not rushed towards the back very quickly after he was tied up with greeting more customers. On the way out, I took the side route to avoid any further possible contact.

2) I have quite a few cases where at a fast food place, all the teens for the particular shift were particularly airheaded and inattentive and forgot my order multiple times. The worst was at the Harvey's near where I work, where they forgot my burger order a couple of times and almost made me late for work with no explanation after 30 or so minutes of waiting. I dislike eating there since the staff consists of the same apathetic individuals each time since I always go to work weekly at the same time.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

*I used to work as a customer service representative for the Help Desk at my college and I've seen quite a few things. One time, the campus' whole internet service was down. Our service provider was working fine. The laptops seemed to be working fine. So, the only other solution was the Network Team. Help Desk representatives were swamped with calls and they kept telling the Network Team that there was something wrong, but the Network Team kept telling them that there's nothing wrong with the internet.

Finally, we had to write a letter to all of the students saying if they had a problem to contact the Network Team. The Network Team was flooded with calls and e-mails, and they basically told them that there was nothing wrong with the network, go back to the Help Desk. We finally got the situation under control--I have no idea whether it was Help Desk or Network Team, but it was still a confusing time.

*I work as a Supervisor for software training and it's still a branch of the main I.T. center. However, we only have one internet hookup in each of my dorimory's rooms and 2 people to a room. All of the hubs are broken, so my dorm tried contacting the Help Desk. The Help Desk contacted the Network Team, and the Network Team didn't believe them. The Help Desk then told the people to go to the Network Team about the problem. They contacted the Network Team and the Network Team said, "Bring in all 20 something hubs and we'll see what's really wrong with them. Then we might order some more hubs for you." Waiting for weeks for a shipment of hubs to come in may be too late for many of us who have classes starting tomorrow.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I remember hearing someone say that they called Customer Support (it was for a computer company, but I don't remember which one, may have been Dell) and the person on the other end of the line was obviously not very knowlegeable in the area of computers. So the person patiently goes through the steps, which obviously aren't helping them with their problem.

About halfway through the call the person on the other says says, "Oh crap." The person asks what's wrong, and the CS person says, "My computer has just frozen, I'm going to have to restart, and we'll have to restart the process at the beginning."

Not only were they using some sort of database-type thing to go through the motions to solve the problem, they didn't even have a basic understanding of what to do about the problem, which forced them to have to go through the whole "problem-solving" script from the beginning.

That's what I call bad service.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I used to be tech support for a US internet company, while I know my stuff, I sometimes do not give a crap about the customers that treat me like shit so I pull some of my own.

If any of you Americians talked to a lady with a newfie accent on the phone for internet support, it could have been me.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

One evening I went to Friendlies (service with a snarl!) with my mom for some ice cream. Lots of teens (most of whom go to my school, coincidentally), were working there that night. Not only did they take their time, but the kitchen was a WRECK. Wet floor, bunched up trash, dirt, ick. None of them had their hair secured properly, and one girl in particular with very long hair kept running her fingers through it and, without washing her hands or anything, went straight to touching food. Also, beeing the STUPID teenagers that teenagers can be, they let their friends into the kitchen. They would chat and hang out and stuff. Uh, no? I don't want even MORE stupid kids around my food!
Yeah. Not exactly poor customer service but this thread reminded me of this experience. The ice cream was pretty good in the end, though. >_>

I was speaking idiomatically.

The worst customer service I've ever heard of has to be the audio company Sensaphonics. Their custom fit monitors have a very bad habit of breaking down completely if even the slightest bit of sweat or ear wax gets into the nozzle and onto the driver element.

If you call them, they will tell you that it will cost $500 dollars to repair it, period. It doesn't matter if it broke down because of a manufacturing defect or because of shoddy workmanship, the cost is $500, sometimes more. If you complain, they will give you lip.

This stands in stark contrast to one man's experience with Westone. He stepped on his custom fit monitor and broke it, but they not only replaced both monitors for free, but also sent him to an audiologist for free ear impressions for said monitors. Wonderful.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I went to McDonald's once, when I was a wee lad, And I asked for a hamburger with nothing on it.

They gave me a hamburger patty, no bun, lol.



And the other day at the train station, the MBTA Charlie Tickets were down (they work real well, pff.), and I had to pay another $1.25 for fare.

FELIPE NO

Cable companies. Fuck them.

You get placed on hold for at least 10 minutes, and when you finally reach a customer service rep. You'll usually get transferred to a different rep because the other one is "new" and doesn't know how to resolve the problem. Then you are on hold for about another 10 minutes.

When you try to schedule a techinician to fix your problem, the rep will tell you that you need to be present for the technician to fix the problem. Oh, and did the rep mention that the technician will be coming sometimes next week, anytime between 11 am to 4 pm?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Trigunnerz

Cable companies. Fuck them.

Doesn't everyone hate cable companies...no matter where they live, or what particular company they have?

My parents switched from cable to DirecTV a couple of years ago, because Mediacom wouldn't fix their broken system...I guess they got the same runaround that you did? Ever since they got satellite TV, the cable company has been sticking advertising signs in their front lawn at least once per month...they can't send someone out to fix the system of a customer, but they CAN torment their former customers.

It's not really a customer service problem, but they sent all of their technicians out to picket (with signs and banners and a giant inflatable pig!) the opening of some new satellite TV installer a couple of years ago. Guess that's what all of their technicians are doing...besides vandalizing property, of course.

Jam it back in, in the dark.