I Wanna Be Your Dog

While the following story doesn't rankle me as much as my interminable Home Depot experience, my Dell hell, my two separate Delta experiences that I've never even chronicled (yet), or this Maytag debacle my brother found on Dooce, I have new found issues with Verizon Wireless.

Specifically, or at least initially, I was annoyed by the fact that the battery on my new phone won't hold a charge. I only got a new phone because my last one died, refused to recharge and, as a result, I lost everyone's numbers. But, I simply don't like the phone that I chose. I picked it out of necessity, out of a lack of time to think and out of a desire to not have to purchase all new accessories because, invariably, the cables on different brands/models are different.

Lo and behold, I can't easily swap batteries at Verizon. Instead they took my phone and placed it on a 1.5 hour test call which, in their words, "only went down a bar" apparently indicating that my phone is okay and I'm smoking crack.

Me: I rarely even use the thing. Look up my usage. How is it possible that I have to recharge it every day?
Service tech: Do you text a lot?
Me: I rarely text at all.
Service tech: Do you have poor reception at work?
Me: No.
Service tech: Do you store it in a locker?
Me: No. No. No. Not only do I not store it in a locker, it's a brand new phone. I'm comparing it to my last phone of the same brand which did not have to be charged constantly.
Service tech: Well, the new batteries are not as good as the old batteries.
Me: Did I just hear that correctly? And there's nothing we can do about that?
Service tech: That's right.
Me: Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're telling me that I'm SOL?
Service tech: Not in those words.
Me: Can I get a new phone?

Nope. Verizon won't let me trade in or up for another two years. It's how their crappy contracts are written. To hell with customer satisfaction.

But wait. Here's the kicker! I got a call that night (just a few short minutes later) from Verizon offering a new contract to raise my minutes.

Me: Why would I want to raise my minutes?
Call center lady: You had a sharp increase in minutes last month.
Me: Wow. How is that possible? I was out of the country for a week and phone-less in a conference room in CA the following week.
Call center lady: It jumped from 300 last month to over 400 this month.
Me: Well, let's just assume that was a blip and I'll raise my contract if it continues.

And a minute after I hung up, I realized what had happened. They were subverting the minutes used for my TEST call to talk me into a new blinkin' contract.

So. Messed. Up.

Lock it Up

After spending much of the weekend distilling a 290 page research report on food trends, just when I thought I was almost finished, my PowerPoint crashed. Since it happens all the time (and I've learned my lesson), I had been saving every few minutes. In this case, I only lost 5-6 slides. Other times, I haven't been so lucky.

Coincidentally, in the office mail I just received the June/July 2009 Dell business catalog with the following headline (in screaming all caps).

IT'S YOUR BUSINESS. LOCK IT UP.

Sheesh. What marketing genius thought of that?! When I think of PCs and locking up, it's never a good thing.

Worse yet, prior to my long-standing issues with Home Depot, I had Dell-related problems and solutions. By problems, I mean a laptop that crashed 6X/day. By solutions, I mean purchasing a new Dell (seriously, what was I thinking?) and, thankfully, Dell not processing the order.

Following is a portion of the letter I wrote to Dell and sent to myriad muckety mucks without a single response. Ever.

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On August 13, 2004, a co-worker ordered a Dell notebook computer on my behalf. It never arrived. In fact, seven weeks later, it still hasn’t arrived. To this date, we have never received any contact from anyone at Dell.

Please take a moment to review the following event log of my co-worker’s actions on my behalf:

• August 13: Notebook ordered online through the Dell.com small business site.
• August 13: Immediately received an “Order Acknowledgement” email.
• August 23: No computer. Called customer service. After much discussion, was told that we needed to deal with our account representative. (As e-commerce “customers,” we did not know that we had a designated account representative.)
• August 23: Was told that our account representative was not in at the moment but would respond within the day.
• August 24: Sent e-mail to the Dell Online Communications Center describing the problem (see attached).
• August 25: Received a short, but prompt, “customer care does not have access to Sales data” response (again, see attached).
• September 24: Still waiting by the phone for our account rep—but not anxiously as I have been using my new IBM ThinkPad since August 27.
  

Is it the customer’s responsibility to know that a SKU presented on your site is not valid? If your e-commerce system rejects an order that has already been acknowledged to the customer, is no one notified either internally or externally? Was no one empowered and/or incented to take action? Is it possible that no one at Dell wanted or needed our order? At the very least, would it have been difficult for someone to acknowledge that a problem had occurred? Conversely, would it be ludicrous to hope that someone might take the initiative to cross functional barriers (from customer care to sales) and proactively meet our needs? Quite simply, is there anything that could have been done to facilitate our transaction?

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So much for my non-complaining. I bring this years-old issue up because earlier this year, after five years of peace and tranquility with my IBM ThinkPad, I got a new Dell laptop that our IT vendor purchased on my behalf (against my better judgment). Well, what do you know? It keeps crashing. I've had our vendor's help desk people looking into the problems, running diagnostics, etc.

IT'S YOUR BUSINESS. LOCK IT UP.

Finally, it's a refreshing change of pace to see a tagline that is brutally honest!

Yes, There is a God

After nine months of mayhem and, no exaggeration, probably 20+ calls to customer service, I just received a long overdue $125 refund from Home Depot for a wedding gift that they mis-shipped to my friends in VT.

Instead of simply reshipping the correct product without further involvement from me, Home Depot claimed to be crediting my account and I had to reorder the gift. I was also informed that, since Home Depot marked the item as "returned" on their system, someone else had already ordered it for the couple and I had to pick something else. I almost ordered something immediately, but decided (thankfully) to wait until my account was credited. I had no idea that it would take the better part of a year, with literally no response from Home Depot to my countless calls, and would result in a final, three-month “escalation” process.

During that same span of time, I have maligned the company not only personally with anyone who will listen but, more importantly, professionally in front of countless organizations by using it as a case study for “what not to do” as well as a treatise on the importance of effectively living your brand values.

You know, a good friend once joked to me, “I just read ‘I’m okay, you’re okay’ . . . I get the ‘I’m okay part’.” Well, that’s exactly how I feel about the Home Depot tagline, “You can do it. We can help.”

Home Depot either needs to streamline their internal operations, train their staff on customer service 101 (starting with the importance of returning a call), and revisit the term “escalation” or simply change their tagline. I suggest the following:

“You can do it. Let’s all sit back and crack open a beer as we watch her struggle.”

I'm going to celebrate by going on a shopping spree at Lowe's. Anyone need anything?

OMG! Update! Update! I just received a call (June 12) from Home Depot! The woman was looking into my account and couldn't figure out what was going on. I shared with her that I had already been reimbursed -- she didn't even know. Could this possible have been the call I requested in October? She stated that I had requested help reordering. As if!