I have a wealth of apalling customer service stories, so I’ll have to pick and choose. Maybe my favorite for absolute rudeness–as well as lack of service–occurred when I stopped by the local Steak N Shake. There were maybe two customers in there at the time, both already seated and eating. Three waitresses stood at the end of the counter socializing. I waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, the guy flipping the burgers looks at me and then at them. He leans around the corner and the manager sticks his head out and says to the waitresses, “Would one of you like to take her order?” So one of the waitresses hauls out out her order pad with a great dramatic sigh and walks over to me. She slams–I mean SLAMS–the pad down on the table and growls “What DO you want?!?” in a tone of voice that left me no doubt that I’d committed some horrible faux pas just by showing up. I couldn’t come up with an immediate retort because I was so absolutely stunned!

Then there was the car dealership whose service department was open until 11:00 PM. I took the car in because I’d been having problems and it was still under warranty. The guy tells me they can have it ready for pick-up that evening at 10:30. I tell him I’ll just pick it up the next afternoon. So the next day at 4:30 PM I come to get the car and I’m told they didn’t have time to look at it yet. Could I come back the next day? Excuse me? You were going to have it ready by 10:30 PM the previous day, and now it’s nearly 24 hours later ,and you haven’t even looked at it?!? I went off on the guy. (It probably didn’t help that this was the third time I’d had the car in the shop for the same problem. I guess it’s kind of hard to find out what’s wrong with a car when you never get around to checking it out….)

Now, I’ve had wonderful service in other situations, being offered freebies because I had to wait fo something or not being charged for a service I was perfectly expecting to pay for. But somehow it’s the horror stories that really stick in our minds.

Most of the establishments in North County are customer service horror stories. What’s sad is that I’m so used to it I’m only shocked when I get good, friendly service.

I think most bad customer service stories are unpleasant to remember – especially if you ended up with the short end of the stick. So I will relate one where I came out ahead.

It was time to have my spark plugs changed, which I normally did. However, from past experience with this car (an ‘85 Olds Cutlass Supreme), I knew there was one plug which was nearly impossible to reach, so I took it to Jiffy Lube. When I picked up the car, the engine was making a loud ticking sound and shuddering (it was clearly missing on one cylinder). I went to the manager, complaining that it was worse than when I came in. He proceeded to snowball me, telling me all kinds of major things were wrong with my engine – but he could fix them for slabs of cash. I pretty much knew what was wrong with the car, but he made me mad enough to prove it – I popped the hood, reached for that one hard to reach plug and sure enough, the spark plug wire was loose. I pushed it on, got in my car and fired it up – it purred like a kitten. I then got out, closed my hood and told the slack jawed manager that he and his crew were incompetent – and drove away, a happy customer.

Customer Service? Is anyone else laughing out there with me? Please, the last time I felt like I was a customer anywhere being serviced politely was back in the 70″s. When I walk up to the customer service line and see that the average age of the person working behind the desk is between diapers and 20, I know I am in for a treat. I know that having attitude is the “in” thing today, but not when I have a complaint that I need handled professionally.

To all you business owners out their, your customer service desk is probably one of the most important postions that you need to fill. If they stink we ain’t coming back!!

Ever try to cancel a credit card? It’s more involved and complicated than applying for one! I noticed I was no longer using my CitiBank Visa card, so I called them to cancel. Their customer service rep wouldn’t accept “cancel” as an option, so they passed me from one department to another. After 15 minutes with them on the phone, almost pleading with them to listen to me, finally I became very rude, barked out my final decision and discourteously slammed the phone into the receiver. For three months, I received zero-balance statements, which I promptly discarded in the circular file. Now I get monthly solicitations to apply for a new card. Don’t think I’ll ever go there again,

Over the summer, my wife and I had gone to our local Steak N Shake for an early bite. We were seated promptly and given our drinks. Then, our waitress disappeared. We watched for 20 minutes as three other families were seated and served. SERVED. They all got their food right away. No one had even taken our order yet. When we finally complained to the manager, he offered no apologies and just stated that our waitress’ shift was over. We left without another word and went to the McDonald’s in the same parking lot.

Our situation had not improved much. The air conditioning was broken and they were out of ice. It was 90+ degrees outside. Since it was so hot inside as well, we decided we wanted our order to go. We were disappointed that our drinks would not be very cold, but figured we could put ice in them at home. Initially, we felt sorry for the employees that had to work over the hot stoves and deep fryers, but that quickly changed. The teenage guys were more interested in hitting on their female co-workers than working on our order, so not only did it take several minutes, but they got it wrong twice. My wife wanted a quarter pounder without cheese. When we first got it, to no surprise, it had cheese on it. I took it back and asked them to fix it, so they scraped the cheese off with the edge of a fry box and handed the burger back to us. Despite the heat, our fries were now getting cold. They put our fries back under the heat lamps and handed us some “fresher” ones. The manager informed us that our next order would be free, but we’ll never go back to claim it.

THere have been a lot of custoemr situations that have made my blood boil, but I’d rather talk about appalling customer stories.

^ Typos, I know.

Yes, Gina, I’m laughing with you. I was under the impression that “customer service” was a thing of the past. Granted, I’m only 30, but I’m pretty sure that the customer service situation is only getting worse. It seems as though it takes an act of congress just to get simple thigns accomplished anymore.

The most recent story I can recall is from this past Christmas.

I ordered a treadmill, however after waiting a couple weeks to even be contacted (for delivery) I grew a little impatient. Finally, when someone contacted me to deliver the thing, they mentioned that I had to be home for delivery and that I had to sign for it. Okay, fine, I guess I understand since it’s an expensive piece of equipment (even though I figured if you could go through the hassle of stealing a treadmill off my property, then you must need it more than I do). But, the kicker is they only deliver between 7:00 and 3:00. Well, guess what, I happen to work full time and I live alone. So, I told them that I work from 7:00 to 3:30 (I leave my house at 6:30 in the morning and don’t return home until 4:00). The delivery guy was beyond confused and didn’t know what to do. So, I called the company that I ordered the treadmill from and cancelled the order (it was too much of a hassle just to get the darn thing, I’d rather bundle up and walk outside at this point). The company just said to refuse shipment when it arrived in order to have it sent back to them (and get my refund). So, instead of going through all of that, I called the shipping company and told them that I cancelled the order and that I refuse shipment. So, everything should be copasetic, right?

They sent the treadmill back and the company received it on 12/3/07(according to the first person at Icon Fitness that I spoke to). I was to receive my refund on 12/5 (they only do refunds on Wednesdays!). So, when I hadn’t received my refund by 12/7 (even giving it two days to go through my bank) I called Icon again. They explained the whole, “we have to receive the treadmill before we can refund you” thing. I quickly replied that I spoke to one of their representatives on 12/4 and they had conveniently recieved the treadmill on 12/3. So, the guy starts to get nervous and just says that I’ll have my refund NEXT Wednesday (12/12).

I wasn’t even nearly convinced that would happen and I was correct. On 12/13 when I hadn’t received my refund, I called back again. I got another representative that told me that they had computer problems and that as soon as those problems were cleared, they’d enter my refund manually so I’d get it (probably on 12/14). Of course, on 12/15, I had to call back because I hadn’t received my refund.

This time, I was told that the treadmill was received on 12/3 and that it would take 7-10 working days for the refund (no one told me this the previous three times I had called). Mind you, the 10th working day would have been on the 17th. So, I ask the guy if they will do it manually since I’ve been given the run around and he says, “no, we can’t do that, we don’t even have the technical capabilities to enter manual refunds, you’ll receive your refund on 12/19″. Remember, they were going to enter my refund manually earlier when their computers were messed up.

So, of course, I didn’t get my refund on 12/19, so I call on 12/20. “Oh, I see the refund has been entered MANUALLY, you should recieve it on the 21st”. Naturally, I didn’t believe them, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t get the refund on the 21st. At this point, I realized it was useless to keep calling them. So, I filed a complaint with the BBB. After the BBB contacted them, I received my refund last week!!! It took over a month to get my refund. RIDICULOUS!!!

Here’s my recent run in with DirecTV. I’ve been a customer forever. Two lines come into the house, and one of them wasn’t working. I personally checked that it wasn’t the receiver. They tried to tell me they were going to charge for a service call, and I promptly told them I’ll switch to cable. It was waived. Someone came out, stole my existing TIVO receiver (I bought at Best Buy) saying it was obsolete, and replaced it with a different one, didn’t have a ladder to check the dish on the roof and left promising to return. A week later, and several phone calls later with promises that the local service company will call or come out, I find out the first guy closed the service call. After opening a new one for the same problem, someone comes out, again without a ladder (after specifically telling them), and said it was a cuppler on the roof which he replaced using my ladder to gain access. Well, the second line still intermittently doesn’t work, and because it is intermittent, and unplugging the new but inferior receiver seems to fix it for a time, they won’t send anybody else out.

That’s my fun with what used to be a very good company. I still don’t understand how they can ridicule the cable company’s service record in commercials when their own has become so dismal.