Are large corporations completely oblivious to good customer service?
It certainly seems that way. Some months ago I wanted to pay off a large credit card bill. Knowing that interest can accrue between statements, I called the credit card company to find out exactly how much I owed. The customer service representative gave me a figure and I paid that amount, thinking that this debt had been totally repaid.
The next month, just as I was about to leave for a trip the mail came, and in it was a statement from the credit card company. Thinking it was just going to tell me that I had a zero balance, I left for the airport without opening it.
The following month I got another bill. This time I opened it. Evidently, the pay off amount I had been given by customer service was incorrect as I owed an additional $41 for additional interest that had accrued. Because I hadn’t opened the prior month’s statement, there was now a late fee added to it, which almost doubled the amount I owed.
I called the company. They apologized for their mistake, and took off the late fee. They told me that the final amount I would owe was $41. I paid it immediately and thought the issue was resolved.
When I sat down to pay bills this month, I opened another statement, this time finding that I owed $1.50, even though I had been given “final” amounts twice so far by their customer service representatives.
You can imagine my frustration when I opened a letter from my home equity line of credit, saying they were freezing our line because of a “significant change” to our credit status, and that I should contact Experian to find out why.
I downloaded both my and my husband’s credit reports. There was one account listed under “potentially negative”. You guessed it, it was the $41 (and late fee)that had been past due.
I called the credit card company and tried to explain that I needed their help to reverse the negative credit report. The first person I spoke to was particularly rude, and said they could do absolutely nothing to help me, that they were just a “call center”, and said their supervisor wouldn’t be able to help me either. When I insisted on speaking to someone else, I was told I should talk to their collections dept., (which didn’t make any sense since my account was not in for collection). While on hold for them, I was disconnected.
I called back that evening, hoping to get someone more helpful. Although the representative was somewhat more friendly, he informed me that he could not do anything to reverse the past due reports. The next day, I was still peeved about the letter from my home equity loan, and decided to give it one more try.
This time, I got someone who sounded as if they worked for a totally different company. She apologized profusely, said she had worked for the bank for over 10 years, and would write me a credit reference letter, reverse the past due reports, and sent an inter-office email asking their back-office asking them to send a letter to Experian with an updated report. I thanked her and got on with my day, knowing that I would not use that card again.
Why did I have to make three calls to get to someone reasonable? Chalk it up to poor training, chalk it up to new hires; but the bottom line is that this bank has alienated yet another client.
How are your customer service representatives treating your clients?
Tomorrow, we’ll examine what each of the representatives did, and where they went wrong.
Susan Martin, Business Coaching
