Customer Disservice

I recently had a problem, and called my ISP (who shall remainunnamed) for help. I could not dialup to the ISP and getconnected. I let this ride for a day, in the event they werehaving a problem, but the next day when I still couldn’t getconnected, I gave them a call.After listening to their computerized message, which told meeverything except how to brush my teeth, I finally selected theappropriate option. I was given the approximate hold time,(which I appreciated) put them on the speaker phone and went about other things I was doing.After 5 minutes or so, I was connected to a customer service rep,explained the problem and was put through a series of things totry, which I did. None of them worked. I was told the softwarehad become corrupted, and I would have to reinstall the softwarefrom my Windows CD. I explained that I could dialup to otherservices and the problem was only with their service. No matterI was told, I would have to reinstall the software. I couldn’timmediately put my hands on the Windows 98 installation CD, sohe told me to call back when I did.Unable to find it, I called my daughter and she had a copy. Ipicked it up the next day and called back. I asked for thecustomer service rep I had talked to, and was told he wasn’t inthe office I was connected to. Seems he was housed in Tennesseeand now I was talking with someone in California. I told thisrep I was instructed to call back for instructions on how toreinstall the software. This one told me to turn off my computerand then restart it. When it still didn’t work, he told me hecouldn’t do anything. Now this guy barely spoke English. Notsatisfied with his answer, I asked to speak to a supervisor whotold me the problem would be referred to their researchdepartment and someone would call me back within 48 hours.Two days came and went with no call back, and I figured #1 and #2didn’t really know what they were doing so I tried again. Thistime I got a very pleasant person (#3) who took the time tolisten to my problem, and she solved it “lickety split”. Shenot only solved the problem, but displayed a real caring attitudewhich the previous two did not.Now, it seems that many companies staff their customer caredepartment with warm bodies, give them a trouble shooting book(you can hear them turning the pages) and then try to get rid ofyou as quickly as possible so they can handle their next call.This never ceases to amaze me. They spend millions onadvertising their service, send out trial CD’s by the train load,and then staff their primary customer contact, with incompetentsor people that don’t give a fig about problems their customersare having. It seems that they really don’t care if they lose acustomer.If you are in business, either you must be a #3 or have oneworking for you. Never forget – the sales department getscustomers, the customer disservice department loses them.