When Your Work Around Needs a Work Around

Our company recently switched telecom providers, going from one digital service to another, supposedly less expensive provider (keep that point in the back of your mind). Haply, all the employees turned-in their desktop phone instruments and began using telephone service through their individual desktop computers with wired and/or wireless headsets.
Alexander Graham Bell’s head would probably explode.

In my little corner of the office, literally, there is the studio wherein we produce our daily Radio show, complete with live-streaming on YouTube, and occasionally, a guest interview or two by phone. That phone system is managed by a Comrex STAC device that had worked very well with our previous telephone service provider, but apparently ran afoul of the new guys’ system for no good reason that was offered to me. Their solution was to “stick with the old provider,” but to buy the new guys’ service as well.
What a wonderful sales pitch.

And for a period, that’s what it seemed we were going to do. I would occasionally check the phone line for a dial tone and be comforted by the dual pitch tone buzzing in my ear.
Until it didn’t.

Today we learned the phone number assigned to our Studio gear had been mistakenly ported-over into the new system, effectively cancelling the working service on that line. There’s no going back, and there’s no going forward, since the new guys say they cannot integrate the Comrex unit into their system. 

My work-around is to take calls into the show via the phone system that’s in place at our host Radio station, and pipe them into our audio stream through our remote connection.
Except…AT&T seems to have severed the phone lines for our Radio partner.

What do you do when your work-around needs a work-around?
Stay-tuned, as they say, for the outcome.
But don’t even think of calling-in now; operators are not only not standing by, they don’t care, and they’ve apparently left the building.

Trashing Waste Corporation of America

I'm done.
I've had it with WCA, and they know it.

In January, the talented team of trash collection technicians which services my neighborhood destroyed  my trash receptacle--the second such container I've had to replace in a year's time. I had little choice but to immediately replace it with another 32-gallon Rubbermaid container for the princely sum of $32.44. Oh, and by the way, these events always occur on Saturdays, when WCA's corporate offices are closed; there's no one to immediately speak with.

I wrote WCA with my complaint:

"Greetings-

Enclosed is December’s invoice for trash collection service at my residence in Lakewood Forest North... You will also find a WalMart receipt for $32.44 for a 32-gallon Rubbermaid trash can, which has been credited against the invoice amount of $54.86. I have enclosed a check for the remainder, $22.42.

This is the second trash container I have replaced in the past year. Your crews continue to destroy them at a rate of about two per year, by my count, which is wholly unacceptable. 

Please counsel your collection crews to treat these containers as if they were their own. In this case, this one is yours now.

Sincerely...

No response from WCA to this letter, but they did cash my check...and not long after, stopped picking up my trash. I called Customer Service, explained my complaint, and the guy on the other end of the line actually agreed with me, and promised to resume service (which he did). Seven weeks later, the kind and considerate neighborhood WCA crew graciously dropped off an official WCA trash container on my driveway. And they refused to pick up my trash. I called Customer Service.

This time I spoke with a very understanding woman who placed me on hold for a time, and returned with apologies and promises to restore my service, credit my account for the cost of the can, and to have the official WCA container retrieved, as I didn't want it, and didn't have room for it in my tiny suggestion of a two-car garage. Within 24-hours the WCA can had been retrieved, and my trash was collected on the next trash day. Until today.

The crews refused to pick up our trash--which happened to include this week's grass clippings, which have been rained on overnight, so they're nice and pungent  in their industrial-strength trash bag. It's Saturday (of course), and Customer Service is not accessible at WCA (if indeed it ever existed). 

It's not like when you get miffed at HEB, and you can go to Kroger.
WCA apparently has a lock on our neighborhood trash collection, so there's no competitor to keep them honest: They can destroy my trash cans and refuse trash service with impunity. They are the Trash Monopolists, sole arbiters of any and all complaints; judge, jury, and trashocutioner. 

This isn't over by a long shot, but it's certainly out there, in public now.
Stay tuned for all the trashy details...

Customer Service, Part Deaux

The customer is always right, even when he’s wrong.
We’ve all heard that.
Have probably preached it to our customer service reps at least once, too.

There is a prevailing trend away from that mentality, as companies operate more “lean and mean,” and I suppose figure they can make up in volume what they lose here and there from a few occasional dissatisfied customers.

There has also been a different attitude about customer service emerge as more entrepreneurial immigrants begin to filter into the business matrix. I’m not picking on foreigners, either. There’s just a difference in the way other cultures perceive trade and commerce, and the ways of jawboning for deals are conducted very differently.

Earlier this week I mentioned frustration with Massage Envy.
Some of you wrote back to either commiserate or to tell me to get a grip and look on the bright side.
Both points well taken.
However, there is a “rest of the story” you should know.

The manager of the Massage Envy never did call me back. All of his staff and assistant managers were terrific, however. Problem was, he wouldn’t call THEM back, either.

So I visited the location where I’d first purchased the gift of a year’s worth of massages for my bride. Nothing like a disgruntled consumer walking in the front door to grab your attention.

On duty was Assistant Manager Jessica Connors, who one day (hopefully sooner than later) will make an excellent store manager for the company.

She was kind, gracious, understanding, and more than a little perplexed that it was taking so long to reach a satisfactory conclusion to the problem. She issued a gift certificate for a complimentary session to replace the session the Manager had penalized my bride for her missed appointment.

Sometimes the customer is right, even when things are wrong.
Sometimes all you have to do is stop and listen to what’s being said.
Sometimes you have to show up in person to get satisfaction.

Jessica Connors “gets it” because at the end of the day, if a customer walks away unhappy, everyone loses.