Well, it finally happened to me. I’ve been “customer serviced”. I now feel like a true American. Here’s what happened.
I have had a digital camera since 2005. In that time, my family has never refrained from taking pictures, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the family albums. It appears that my entire family is frozen in 2004. No pictures, except for the kid’s blurry ones from the disposable cameras in camp. Lots of pictures of beds, and pimply kids.
So, BAC has been after me for a long time to get the pictures developed. Let’s go to Walmart, Costco, whatever. I wanted to save money and do it online. Finally, about two weeks ago, we got together and put 335 pictures on line. I went to print them out, and shipping was $16.00 on top of the cost. I figured I would wait for a free shipping special.
Sure enough, yesterday, I get the e-mail, free shipping. Then my entire family, who collectively think that I can’t get out of a room unless the door is marked EXIT, felt compelled to tell me that there was free shipping yesterday. I got the hint.
However, as my incompetence is apparently legendary and all pervasive, we decided that BAC would order the prints already uploaded to the site, and I would scour all my files for additional pictures.
Turns out, I found around 1,300 other pictures, which I whittled down to 850. I uploaded them, which took about 2 hours to run, and then the fun started.
First, either because the promotion was so successful, or because there were a lot of pictures, the website kept freezing my computer. After three shut downs, and removal of some programs ( “ what the heck is that for??”) I went to a different computer. Very slow, but it worked. I got to checkout, put in the coupon code, and…
No dice.
Apparently, you can only use a coupon once per account. Sounds a little silly to me, it’s the same day, same account, same address same info. So I figured that we are a service society, and happy customers are repeat customers, I"ll just call customer service, and they will graciously allow me to use the coupon.
So I call the service center, and a very cheery recording tells me that due to the successful nature of the promotion ( and I guess the complete incompetence of the internet using picture taking pubic) there is a one hour wait.
I then figure that I will just upload the pictures somewhere else while I wait. After ten minutes someone picks up the phone. However, my elation was immediately deflated by two things. One, the significant hiss in the background, and two, the accent of the fine gentleman who answered the phone. Suffice it to say that even though he gave his name as Bob, is was clearly more like Punwbrahamja so we will just call him Punjab.
Well, he was very very sorry for my inconvenience and would try to do everything he could to help me with my problem, and how are you today. (please use your best 7-11 accent for the previous sentence)
Well, the outcome was as I expected. “So sorry, we cannot do anything for you once you have used the code. “ But then he really threw me. He asked me if I would like to answer a short survey on the company. I was completely flabbergasted. They tell you to go to hell ( politely, of course), then they want your opinion! The disconnect of these people is mind boggling. I think I might have done better with an automated system using voice recognition, I certainly could not have done worse. And that would REALLY save the companies money, which they should look into, since the current customer service is gonna cost them all a lot more.
I just told the guy that I didn’t think it was the wisest thing for me to do since I had just been screwed.
Just like the “outsourced” American worker whose job Punjab now has.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
great post, keep them coming
Oh where do I begin?
First I'm going to berate you.... Don't you read the fine print (that said CLEARLY only once per account) religiously? Sheesh....
But I hear you about Punjab and his cronies. I've been inadvertantly "unsubscribed" from this company's promotional email list and every time I call in to try to get back on the list I get an email telling me I have been successfully UNsubscribed and I can be assured I won't receive another email from them again....
And one last thing, you must realize that when Punjab goes home to his family tonight, after you told him you've been royally screwed, he will proudly tell his wife that his customer told him that he was treated like a king......
Careful, berate too often and I'll reject your comments. This is NOT a democracy, see earlier posts as to the country of origin of the greunkern.
"This is NOT a democracy...."
NO KIDDING!!! I see you "edited" my comment.
Hmmmm... what is this? YeshivaWorld II {smirk....}
There's a theory we have: the name of the person that is given by the call center employee is the name of the person they replaced. It's creepy but why else would someone who hasn't yet adapted their accent to effectively sound like the people on "Friends" claim that her name was Ashley? Who would pick that name?
I repeat: creepy.
I have never found it cheaper to go online to print pictures(even with free shipping). Sam's club is usually the cheapest but sometimes Meijer (open 24 hours) has great sales on pictures too. You should check out Costco's prices.
You should be allowed to state your opinion, according to the Constitution !Tell 'em what they DON'T want to hear! But then again, this isn't a democracy!
The way they track your account is by email address. If you would have created a new account with a new email address you could have used your code again.
First of all, Pujab changed his name to something like Bill Smith. It sounds great with that accent!
Second of all....
Where have you been!?
Are you completely out of touch!?
Customer service has been outsourced for years, and the arguments hashed out in every newspaper in existence today.
End result; it's just too darn bad!
If you want to buy things at such low prices, you're going to have to pay for it with crummy customer service.
Thirdly - get with the program dude. You need to create multiple accounts for yourself. Generally you can by using your mother, brother, sister, uncles, aunts, 19 kids names. And it's all legal - kinda like changing your name (Just like Punjab did!).
Doctor Uhberschnitzel
Best way to trip these guys up is to ask them if they have the time. It is usually at least a few hours ahead.
Additionally, dont ask for a supervisor, as it is usually the spouse sitting a few feet away (actually heard them talking once)
your kids are not pimply and one of the best pictures i ever took was on a disposable camera
I had the same issue with the online photo service and I just emailed them enough times that they told me to just resubmit my second order and email them the order number so that they can refund the shipping...
BTW, email doesn't have the 7-11 accent...
Post a Comment