You know, even in today's marketplace where everyone is spouting off politically correct prose about being customer-centric and how critical one's client base is, I continue to be amazed at how badly various big name brands actually handle customer concerns and complaints. They say one thing in their publicity and promotional materials while sticking their hands in your pockets at the same time - something I find distasteful in the extreme.
First up in my "two out of three is bad!" list is Bell Canada, a multimedia communications company who supply a lot of us with our home telephone and Internet and television services. I don't think it's any secret that the Bell network and exterior infrastructure is in bad shape and needs a serious overhaul - one of their own technicians, who happened to be an ex-Videotron (a major Bell competitor) employee, told me that there are many problems in an aging system.
That person even told me that it was extremely easy to jump from Videotron to Bell because of the increasing need for technicians to go out in the field and repair the ongoing problems with Bell's infrastructure - there are jobs for all. While I have no problems with that, per se, what I do have a problem with, and a big one at that, is being asked to pay again and again for upgrades to the aging, aching carcass of their crumbling out-of-date network.
I have lost count of the number of price hikes they have hitched onto my bills in recent years. It's always out of the blue, a few bucks here, and a few more there. They don't even appear to be apologetic about it - "in order to improve our services to our customers, we need to blah blah blah" - what I want to know is why WE have to pay for it? How come the company has not been investing in new technology along the way, instead of pocketing profits we have given them over many years? The fatted calf, milked totally dry.
You can say that an extra three bucks a month on a phone bill is hardly life-threatening, but this is precisely how they have been milking us dry for years already! Add on a little here, then a little there, and a then a little over here again. When you consider that Bell services some 13 million phone lines, for example, can you do the math and see how that extra three bucks adds up? $40M more per MONTH?!!
They use every criteria possible. Bump the price of the modem rental. Add some on for telephone network maintenance. Remove some of the bundle savings. Etc. My monthly bill was around $86 (after other fee bumps) at the end of 2012. Then it was around $93 by January of 2013. As of November 2013, it is now around $101. Are you kidding me? Would we accept our gas prices jumping this much (15-20%) in a year, or our electricity prices, or even our groceries? Videotron are kicking some royal butt here in Quebec, and Bell seems to think that they can continue to bilk us out of more money, when the simplest thing for us would be to do what they should be worried about - switch the phone, Internet and TV to Videotron and get their lower prices and better bundle savings on a more modern, less vulnerable network!
It's very simple, people - they have gotten away with it because they can - no one seems to notice the relatively small bumps, and when you pile them up over a year or three, well, a massive amount of extra cash is coming in. All as an effort to help us, the loyal customer. I spoke to them about it last weekend, and raised the point of why one would pay them essentially $40 a month to have a home phone line when their competitor offers telephony at a huge discount relative to them? There was no answer, so I left the chat window. How totally ironic that my home Internet service went down shortly thereafter, due to "incorrect credentials" - such irony certainly was not lost on me, and I could not get it back until the next morning.
The message is clear - we made truckloads of money from y'all in the good old days when there was less competition, we filled our bellies and drank the fruit of the vine - then fell asleep at the wheel and did not reinvest any of it. Boom, 2011 arrived, and we have an outdated old-fashioned creaking spider's web of infrastructure that needs fixing - so let's screw our loyal customers (some more) to get the repairs/upgrading done. Brilliant! Not.
In another excruciating example of a total disconnect with one's customers, I come to Speedpass by Esso. A lovely idea, in theory, but totally and horrifically dysfunctional in practice. Here's the idea - you get a Speedpass connected to your Interac card/bank account, and when you go for gas all you have to do is swipe the pass in front of a reader and bingo, the job is done! The cash is debited directly from your account, and no monthly bill on your credit card.
Except, Esso forgot about one major thing and it astounds me that it's even possible. I went onto the Speedpass website to activate my pass (seems perfectly reasonable, no?) and it informed me that you cannot do so online. Fine. I then went to my local Esso where I thought I could activate it at the pump. No. I was instructed to go inside and get it activated by the personnel on duty. Fine. But, the Esso staff had ZERO idea how you do that. Not even the remotest idea - "we don't do that, no one has ever asked us to do that, call up Esso" etc.
I then called up Esso so that I could activate it on the phone. In an astounding turn of events, I was informed repeatedly by various reps that it cannot be done over the phone either, even with all the ID they need at hand, but that it must be activated at an Esso station. I was recommended to try another Esso station. Uh huh. I have now tried at six different Esso stations (mainly in downtown Montreal) and no one is able to do it. Today's way to pay, if you can find one of those mobile street-wandering Esso robots where you flash your pass, and the green lights flash rapidly with loud music, celebrating your Speedpass activation!
The last resort, on my last attempt, was the recommendation to "get them to call us (Esso Speedpass) from the station when you are there, and we will tell them how to do it" - the only problem being that I get gas when I am on my way to work in the morning and there is no Speedpass customer service before 9am, when I am already in my office! It is an appalling and unbelievable example of a total customer service fiasco that, one year later, and this Speedpass remains inactivated. On top of that, their personnel on the phone are staggeringly unsympathetic and unmoved by my frustrations at this ridiculous and totally avoidable situation.
It's shameful, and someone should be in front of a piercing white light being grilled about how it could happen at a brand like Esso. In my case, the tagline is less what is shown on the logo above, and clearly more - "Speedpass, today's way to (not) pay!"
But thank God, not all brands are hypocrites and some actually do care about their clientele, and about expanding that clientele beyond the current customer database. I am talking about a company who I have admired for decades, primarily as a high street retailer, but one which has become quite a force in the new world of online retail and which truly and consistently delivers on their customer service promise - Gap.
I cannot say more that says it all about Gap other than - it works! You get hot promotional codes in your email, you go on the site, it's super cool and super clear, a great display of merchandise at all times, you add stuff to your cart and then apply your codes and you get really nice discounts. An email arrives shortly thereafter to confirm the purchase, and more often than not, mere days later it arrives at home, perfectly packed and shipped, for free.
Just as they claim, when you don't like something, you simply pop it back in the bag or box (both cleverly designed to be resealed/reused), stick the pre-supplied shipping label on top and drop it off at the post office. No charge, no fuss. And, your credit card gets reimbursed right away. Anytime you do have a problem, a discount didn't get applied, or you realized you made an error in the order, you can get them on the phone, and their very professional and courteous staff sort it out for you, immediately, no questions asked. They cannot do enough for you, and they eliminate all the usual reasons why people don't like shopping online, or talking to customer service departments. A truly exceptional customer experience.
Gap gets it right, and they are a shining example for all. I don't care what the commercial area might be, customer service is customer service, irrespective of whether you are selling a phone line service or a "lived-in wash" microcheck shirt. It's all about user experience, and when one uses Gap one feels really good about it, not least due to all the time they just saved you, and when you hit a roadblock they step in and get you on your way again, with no delay. It goes without saying that having a slew of great looking great feeling products at great prices doesn't hurt either!
It all adds up, and with the time I saved ordering some clothes from Gap recently, well, I found the time on a chilly Sunday morning to be able to stay home and write this blog! Not surprisingly, that fact may make Gap feel a lot better than either Bell or Esso, but when it comes to customer service responses I think that you get what you deserve - and two out of this three disappoint - big time. Only time will tell whether they care enough to do anything about it, and I won't be holding my breath on that one! - Kevin Mc
That person even told me that it was extremely easy to jump from Videotron to Bell because of the increasing need for technicians to go out in the field and repair the ongoing problems with Bell's infrastructure - there are jobs for all. While I have no problems with that, per se, what I do have a problem with, and a big one at that, is being asked to pay again and again for upgrades to the aging, aching carcass of their crumbling out-of-date network.
I have lost count of the number of price hikes they have hitched onto my bills in recent years. It's always out of the blue, a few bucks here, and a few more there. They don't even appear to be apologetic about it - "in order to improve our services to our customers, we need to blah blah blah" - what I want to know is why WE have to pay for it? How come the company has not been investing in new technology along the way, instead of pocketing profits we have given them over many years? The fatted calf, milked totally dry.
You can say that an extra three bucks a month on a phone bill is hardly life-threatening, but this is precisely how they have been milking us dry for years already! Add on a little here, then a little there, and a then a little over here again. When you consider that Bell services some 13 million phone lines, for example, can you do the math and see how that extra three bucks adds up? $40M more per MONTH?!!
They use every criteria possible. Bump the price of the modem rental. Add some on for telephone network maintenance. Remove some of the bundle savings. Etc. My monthly bill was around $86 (after other fee bumps) at the end of 2012. Then it was around $93 by January of 2013. As of November 2013, it is now around $101. Are you kidding me? Would we accept our gas prices jumping this much (15-20%) in a year, or our electricity prices, or even our groceries? Videotron are kicking some royal butt here in Quebec, and Bell seems to think that they can continue to bilk us out of more money, when the simplest thing for us would be to do what they should be worried about - switch the phone, Internet and TV to Videotron and get their lower prices and better bundle savings on a more modern, less vulnerable network!
It's very simple, people - they have gotten away with it because they can - no one seems to notice the relatively small bumps, and when you pile them up over a year or three, well, a massive amount of extra cash is coming in. All as an effort to help us, the loyal customer. I spoke to them about it last weekend, and raised the point of why one would pay them essentially $40 a month to have a home phone line when their competitor offers telephony at a huge discount relative to them? There was no answer, so I left the chat window. How totally ironic that my home Internet service went down shortly thereafter, due to "incorrect credentials" - such irony certainly was not lost on me, and I could not get it back until the next morning.
The message is clear - we made truckloads of money from y'all in the good old days when there was less competition, we filled our bellies and drank the fruit of the vine - then fell asleep at the wheel and did not reinvest any of it. Boom, 2011 arrived, and we have an outdated old-fashioned creaking spider's web of infrastructure that needs fixing - so let's screw our loyal customers (some more) to get the repairs/upgrading done. Brilliant! Not.
In another excruciating example of a total disconnect with one's customers, I come to Speedpass by Esso. A lovely idea, in theory, but totally and horrifically dysfunctional in practice. Here's the idea - you get a Speedpass connected to your Interac card/bank account, and when you go for gas all you have to do is swipe the pass in front of a reader and bingo, the job is done! The cash is debited directly from your account, and no monthly bill on your credit card.
Except, Esso forgot about one major thing and it astounds me that it's even possible. I went onto the Speedpass website to activate my pass (seems perfectly reasonable, no?) and it informed me that you cannot do so online. Fine. I then went to my local Esso where I thought I could activate it at the pump. No. I was instructed to go inside and get it activated by the personnel on duty. Fine. But, the Esso staff had ZERO idea how you do that. Not even the remotest idea - "we don't do that, no one has ever asked us to do that, call up Esso" etc.
I then called up Esso so that I could activate it on the phone. In an astounding turn of events, I was informed repeatedly by various reps that it cannot be done over the phone either, even with all the ID they need at hand, but that it must be activated at an Esso station. I was recommended to try another Esso station. Uh huh. I have now tried at six different Esso stations (mainly in downtown Montreal) and no one is able to do it. Today's way to pay, if you can find one of those mobile street-wandering Esso robots where you flash your pass, and the green lights flash rapidly with loud music, celebrating your Speedpass activation!
The last resort, on my last attempt, was the recommendation to "get them to call us (Esso Speedpass) from the station when you are there, and we will tell them how to do it" - the only problem being that I get gas when I am on my way to work in the morning and there is no Speedpass customer service before 9am, when I am already in my office! It is an appalling and unbelievable example of a total customer service fiasco that, one year later, and this Speedpass remains inactivated. On top of that, their personnel on the phone are staggeringly unsympathetic and unmoved by my frustrations at this ridiculous and totally avoidable situation.
It's shameful, and someone should be in front of a piercing white light being grilled about how it could happen at a brand like Esso. In my case, the tagline is less what is shown on the logo above, and clearly more - "Speedpass, today's way to (not) pay!"
But thank God, not all brands are hypocrites and some actually do care about their clientele, and about expanding that clientele beyond the current customer database. I am talking about a company who I have admired for decades, primarily as a high street retailer, but one which has become quite a force in the new world of online retail and which truly and consistently delivers on their customer service promise - Gap.
I cannot say more that says it all about Gap other than - it works! You get hot promotional codes in your email, you go on the site, it's super cool and super clear, a great display of merchandise at all times, you add stuff to your cart and then apply your codes and you get really nice discounts. An email arrives shortly thereafter to confirm the purchase, and more often than not, mere days later it arrives at home, perfectly packed and shipped, for free.
Just as they claim, when you don't like something, you simply pop it back in the bag or box (both cleverly designed to be resealed/reused), stick the pre-supplied shipping label on top and drop it off at the post office. No charge, no fuss. And, your credit card gets reimbursed right away. Anytime you do have a problem, a discount didn't get applied, or you realized you made an error in the order, you can get them on the phone, and their very professional and courteous staff sort it out for you, immediately, no questions asked. They cannot do enough for you, and they eliminate all the usual reasons why people don't like shopping online, or talking to customer service departments. A truly exceptional customer experience.
Gap gets it right, and they are a shining example for all. I don't care what the commercial area might be, customer service is customer service, irrespective of whether you are selling a phone line service or a "lived-in wash" microcheck shirt. It's all about user experience, and when one uses Gap one feels really good about it, not least due to all the time they just saved you, and when you hit a roadblock they step in and get you on your way again, with no delay. It goes without saying that having a slew of great looking great feeling products at great prices doesn't hurt either!
It all adds up, and with the time I saved ordering some clothes from Gap recently, well, I found the time on a chilly Sunday morning to be able to stay home and write this blog! Not surprisingly, that fact may make Gap feel a lot better than either Bell or Esso, but when it comes to customer service responses I think that you get what you deserve - and two out of this three disappoint - big time. Only time will tell whether they care enough to do anything about it, and I won't be holding my breath on that one! - Kevin Mc
