What Happened to Customer Service?

What Happened to Customer Service?

By Jodi Cross


Now-a-days when you call a service company like AT&T or USAIR you are lucky to get a real human being on the phone. When you do, they barely know how to help you!


Recently, I was trying to get my phone service moved to a new location and literally spent 5-hours on the phone with AT&T. I started on a Tuesday with the promise that by the next day it would be turned on. By Saturday, four days later, I still had no service.


Everyday I would call back, to speak to a different representative, who would promise that by mid-night that day, my service would be on. On the fourth day, after my original order was lost due to a computer malfunction, I was again on my cell phone in the cue waiting for someone to help me. Finally Ms. Preston, figured out the problem and my home phone rang! I spoke with six different agents during my frustrating four-days including supervisors. None of them figured out that my DSL was connected to my regular account and until they separated the two accounts my main phone was inactive.


I was at the end of my rope by this time, feeling helpless and hopeless with no alternatives. It was shocking how little they cared or were trained until Ms. Preston came along.


Armed with my new phone, I decided to call USAIR for a ticket quote for an upcoming trip. I had spent about an hour on the web but it was a complicated ticket with multi-cities involved so I decided to speak to a representative. I called the USAIR 800 Number. I was shocked when a person named Lynn answered. I could barely understand her, I asked where she was from, and she responded “Hong Kong”! 


Two calls and an hour later and I couldn’t even get quoted a fare. Lynn asked me where Palm Beach was, when I said Florida, she asked me where that was. It was painful. Even after I had done my research and had airport codes and flight numbers and times, she still couldn’t find the flights. I finally asked her for a supervisor, she would not connect me and asked me why I wanted to speak to one. Either there was no supervisor or she was too scared for her job to actually connect me to one. She kept saying, “I think I understand, I’ll catch up now, what city are you traveling from again?”


I finally ended the painful call with her and called back again thinking it was a fluke. Not so, this time, I got Maui from Hong Kong. She was able to follow the flight numbers and cities. By the end of the call and after I had given her my cities and flight numbers, I asked for a quote. She said “$189” that sounded good considering I was pulling a fare of $800 on the Internet.. I never did book a ticket; she actually hung up on me when I asked to speak with a supervisor. The irony is, you can’t book a ticket with USAIR over the phone. They may have saved money by going offshore for their reservation call center but having and untrained person who doesn’t even know where Florida is can’t be good for business.


Has our automated society and computers taken the place and jobs of a trained human being? Is there anyone left who really cares? It is a basic fundamental to business growth to be able to connect your phone or book a plane ticket.  I am sure not having a trained human being is cheaper in the short run but it can’t be good for a company’s long-term growth strategy.