From the Observation Deck

October 1, 2009

Experiments in time travel. Or, just being stupid.

Posted by Grendel's Mother under marketing
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I have already talked about customer service in another post but feel it’s necessary to do so again. I’m sure all of you have had your share of less-than-stellar service from people you are paying to help you and I would love to hear your stories. This is a tale of my most recent experience and I’ll start off by saying that I don’t heart Cox Communications. Not at all.

First of all, I find it reeeeaaaaaalllly hard to believe that they have been given awards for good customer service. I don’t know who voted for them or any of the methodology involved in the research that backs that claim, but I think it must be a sham. It has to be. Let me tell you why.

First, I’ve had dealings before with the customer service people in their office near my home and they treated me as if I was interfering with their donut break and that I was the stupidest person on earth because I couldn’t read their minds and didn’t know all of their policies by heart. That was before. This last experience was so bad it was comical. I can’t make this stuff up.

Tuesday

I go into their office and talk to the pleasant customer service lady about how I need a cable card for my TiVo. She says, “A technician has to come out.” “Okay,” I say. After lots of typing we make an appointment. I say, “I have a TiVo, so do I need to do anything or does the technician need anything for that?” She replies, “No, they’ll have everything they need.”

Thursday

The appointment was set for 10 a.m. –12 noon. When no one showed up I called Cox.

Me: “Hello, I had an appointment for a technician to come out 10 a.m. –12 noon.” Pause here because there was no response. “No one showed up.”
Alicia, the customer service lady: “Hold on.” “Okay, they’ll be there at 11:47.”
Me: “It’s 12:18.”
Alicia: “It’s 12:18?”
Me: “Yes.”
Alicia: “Hold on.” “Okay, they’ll call you in about five to 10 minutes to let you know when they’re coming.”

Thirty minutes later the phone rang and I got an automated message saying that a technician would be arriving soon. When the technicians finally arrived, they did not have the proper equipment with them.

Technician: “Oh, you have a TiVo. We need a converter box for that.”
Me: “I told the customer service person about it and mentioned that specifically.”
Technician: “Yeah well, customer service didn’t put that on the work order.”

So basically, they had to come back later that night and still couldn’t finish it because I had not gotten the set up done ahead of time (something that the technician told me that customer service should have told me about).

Friday

So third time’s a charm and on Friday morning they came back to place two little cards in the two little slots in my TiVo. Seriously? I needed two guys to do that job? I really need to get a union job. That way I can hang out with pals and blame all the crap on customer service.

The Following Week

Now just to add a bit more fuel to this burning disaster, I also switched my phone over to Cox because the geniuses in their pricing department figured it out so that if I added a service, my bill would be ten dollars less than it currently was. I understand pricing and bundling and have worked out some complicated pricing structures myself, but that one doesn’t quite seem like a logical way to run a business. But so be it. The customer service guy I talked to told me that the phone guy would be coming out in a nice short window of time, 1–9 p.m. After my steep intake of breath he told me that I would be getting a call one hour prior to the arrival of the technician so I wouldn’t be trapped all day. I did get a phone call. From a customer service rep telling me that the technician was knocking on my door and there was no answer. Thanks for the one-hour warning call Cox, you managed to screw up yet again.

Final Conclusions

Is your left hand talking to your right? Are the executives, marketers, finance personnel, etc. talking to your front line personnel? Are you hiring competent workers and training them properly? From my perspective there are a lot of companies out there that need to seriously work on their customer service skills. Because after all, it’s just your brand image that’s being shattered. And that usually translates into less revenue and bad reviews on blogs. So there. And while the phone guy was still in my house I got a cutomer service follow-up survey call from Cox. I told them the job wasn’t finished yet and we hung up. But because I didn’t get a call back, I’ll express my opinions now. You stink Cox.

apathyn1n

September 28, 2009

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Posted by Grendel's Mother under Friends, laughter
[2] Comments

I spent the weekend catching up with some good friends from college. I haven’t seen them in about 15 years and was a bit anxious as to how everyone would be—in what ways have we changed and what we’d do during the visit. It took a whole three seconds to see that nothing really changes. It was like stepping back on to the third floor of Bowman Hall. It started with a quick meet with Beth, Kristen, and Karen (who we for some reason used to call Bimbleman) at the breakfast table and then on to a winery. Yup, that’s right. What do you think five forty-year old women are going to do when they meet up again? After the first tasting we met our old bard Shannon at the local mall. It was a bit comical to see a group of women screaming hello and hugging in the middle of the shoe department.

Lunch time was for catch-up where we realized that only one of us was doing anything remotely similar to the degree we earned in college. So if these statistics say anything about the general population then 80% of college students are too young to decide on what they want to be when they grow up. For example, Shannon, the English major who shunned numbers is now an accountant, and Kristen, who now works as a paralegal was an Urban Studies major. I was shocked that our school even offered that degree especially because none of us knew what the hell it was or that Kristen had majored in it.

After talking about careers, babies, husbands, and fun trips, we started talking about other old friends and remembering stories. At first I thought, jeez, I’m old and I’ve lost my memory. But then several of the other women remarked that Kristen just happened to have a recall of details the rest of us didn’t. It had something to do with partying…

The phrase, “Stop me if you heard this one…” started many a laugh. And Shannon topped the one-liner list with the statement, “The title of the book about my life will be, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time.’” And it’s also an appropriate reply to all the crazy things we did as young twenty-somethings—but not appropriate for my young nieces and nephews or my friends’ teenagers. We’re not that dumb anymore, kids.

Another wine tasting led to happy hour back at the hotel and then a nice dinner. The wine tastings were great. We learned about how certain grapes grew better here in Virginia, how the glass you drink out of can affect the taste, aerating the wine, and how (ahem, Beth) if you flirt a little with the wine guy you may get a little extra in your glass and a tour of the barrel room. (Not to be confused with the Barrel House, an establishment we frequented during our college years.)

What a great time. I encourage all of you to find some old friends on Facebook and arrange a reunion weekend. Not only will your abdomen hurt with all the laughing, but you’ll realize you haven’t changed that much, and your soul may just get the refreshment it needs. Thanks ladies! Ear!

September 26, 2009

Rocky Raccoon, checked into his room…

Posted by Grendel's Mother under God, travel, unemployment
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Every time I think of a Gideon’s Bible I think of that song Rocky Raccoon. I’m up late right now and can’t sleep. That’s really nothing new these days, except I’m staying at a hotel and trying to get over a bad cold. I miss having my pets around and I hate the noise that comes with staying in a hotel, but there can be some upsides. I treated myself to some in-room dining. The cold kept me from venturing out and frankly it’s nice to make a phone call and a few minutes later have a nice meal appear at your door. Okay, that’s just like ordering pizza or Chinese food, I know, but it feels different. Better. And I’m also really enjoying the mirror on the closet door. I don’t normally like looking in the mirror, but this one is two mirrors with a divider down the center where the door folds. When I stand in front of the center of this mirror/door, half of my body disappears. I’m thin again. Wow, I look great.

Okay, bored with that and still not sleeping. I’ve had a really tough time lately with the whole unemployment thing plus some other stuff that has basically added up to some serious frustrations and me being a not-so-nice person. The reason I’m boring you with that complaint will become evident with the remainder of the story, so hold on and keep reading. I thought a few months ago I was doing pretty well with the “waiting on God” thing and being patient as His plan took place. Lately I’ve had some serious arguments (one-sided of course) with Him about his lack of haste. In any case, I have always enjoyed God’s sense of humor and the fun ways he likes to inject himself into my life. Like dropping hints and reminders to me through various means. This latest one was interesting and it made me think of a neat experiment we could all take part in.

So back to the sleeplessness in the hotel room. How to calm down and drift off? TV, done. Mirror image thing, done. Bath, done. Read through some passages of the Bible placed by the Gideons in the drawer next to the bed? Yup, good idea. It may help me calm down and sleep and I’ll earn brownie points with God so maybe he’ll get a move on with the job thing and the other stuff that’s pissing me off. As I looked for some uplifting passages I noticed a page that was dog-eared. And when I looked over that page, I started wondering about the visitor to this room that dog-eared that page. Looking more closely, I saw a pencil mark noting a specific passage. Hmmmmm. This started my imagination going. Who was it? What was this person going through that made them pick up the Gideon’s Bible in the night stand and circle this passage? Someone struggling with their marriage? Someone struggling with doing something right or wrong? (Remember, I was in a hotel room suffering from sleep deprivation late at night.) Was it someone who was going to give a speech at a seminar and needed inspiration? I skimmed some more and found more dog-eared pages with more passages circled. And what was funny was that these passages were perfect reminders for me. Thanks God. I know you did this. Good one. Here were two of the passages that the traveler left for me.

Psalm 27:14
Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

Mathew 19:26
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, with men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.

Here is an idea I’d like to put out to all you dear readers. Next time you’re in a hotel room, look through the Gideon’s Bible in the night stand and see if some pages are dog-eared and some passages are marked. And maybe make some of your own to give hope to the next weary traveler. At the very least you may inspire their imagination about who stayed in that room and what was happening in their life when they marked those passages…something to dream about. Good night.