I receive the dreaded email from my ISP telling me my eighteen-month contract is over, and next month, my bill will go from £20 to £51! Yup, more than 150% increase. The comparison sites show that there are plenty of providers (including my current one) that offer new customers a similar package from around £27. 

Obviously, it is time to change ISPs, but first, I have to cancel this one. I log into my account, but there are only options to increase your package, not downgrade or cancel it. I look back at the email, and they only offer a phone number. This is where the fun starts.

I call the number, select “cancel my service” from the menu, and go through security questions with the bot. The voice then tells me that wait times are very long and asks if I would like to switch to SMS, instead. I decide that’s better than a phone call!

SMS chat begins, again with a series of questions with a bot. Then, it tells me that SMS service isn’t available, and I must switch to WhatsApp

WhatsApp conversation begins with a bot, as above, and this time after the questions, it tells me that web chat is three times faster. Would I like to switch to that? Sure, I guess. It sends me a link to some third-party website that is generic, so why wasn’t it on the email?

The web chat bot repeats the same security questions and then tells me the wait is currently about fifteen minutes. Great, I was planning to be at home for the next hour. Forty-five minutes later, nothing. I type something, and the bot responds asking me if I want to keep waiting. I say no, expecting it to offer me something to pick up the chat later, but it just ends abruptly.

I go back to WhatsApp, thinking that even if it’s slower than the web chat, I can just reply at my leisure. But WhatsApp is bot-only. The offer of a human agent was a lie. Each discussion is quickly terminated with a link to the useless web chat.

Finally, I put on my Bluetooth headset and call the original number again, resigning myself to an afternoon doing the housework while listening to hold music.

But here is the twist!

The phone is answered within a couple of minutes. After going through the security stuff — again! — he asks me what the issue is.

Me: “I don’t want to pay £51.”

After a few seconds of tapping, he says:

Employee: “I can get that down to £17 a month.”

I was gobsmacked. That was a third of what they had tried to charge me, half of what I was prepared to accept, £10 less than any price I had found, and £3 less than I was paying already! I was so happy, I thanked him multiple times and gave him five stars in the feedback.

I guess it makes sense. I’m a low-friction customer; this is the only time I have contacted them, and though I have quite fast Internet, I am not taking advantage of it most of the time. 

I wrote this to share the Rube Goldberg-like device they use to stop you cancelling, but now my story has a kicker! I just logged into my account, and there, staring at me was my next bill: £51! I checked the contract and it was all good, but then why was I being charged £51?

Honestly, the next call would require a separate post longer than this one (which I may write), so I will just say that my account is currently £33 in credit, and I am quite curious to see what they do next month!

Related:
Welcome To The Call Center Centrifuge, Part 2
Welcome To The Call Center Centrifuge

I am interviewing for a job at a large furniture store for a customer service job.

Customer Service Manager: “So, do you have any questions for me?”

Me: “Well, since this is a customer service position, what are your customers like?”

Customer Service Manager: *Smiles* “You have time for a story?”

Me: “Absolutely!”

Customer Service Manager: “We had a customer who returned everything he bought. He was always dissatisfied with the product and the service. Delivery was bad, the product wasn’t good, the sales staff was rude, the checkout was too long, and on and on.”

Me: “And was it?”

Customer Service Manager: “You’ve seen our place. This is not a poorly run or shabby organization. It is hundreds of thousands of feet of showroom and runs very professionally. We’re sat in the middle of a cornfield in Kansas. People travel from states around to shop here.”

Me: “Fair point!”

Customer Service Manager: “So, anyhoo, I fired that customer mid-rant on his last visit. I thanked him for his input. I gave him his money back and I told him he was fired.”

Me: “You can fire a customer?!”

Customer Service Manager: “You betcha! I believe the exact words I used were: ‘It’s obvious that our company and our products are not up to your standards. We appreciate the opportunity you gave us, but we obviously can’t meet your needs. Please leave and do not ever come back.'”

That story almost convinced me to take the job. I went to work on the customer pick-up dock instead. When asked why, I explained to them:

Me: “I would rather be on the dock helping happy people load their new toys in their trucks than in customer service trying to satisfy unhappy people returning stuff.”

I work in customer service for a hunting brand. I take a call from a customer who is asking if we have some gun-related items in stock.

Me: “Can you email me a picture of the rifle attachment?”

Caller: “Ma’am, I don’t have one of those flat phones. I drove through ten miles of woods just to get to a phone to make this call.”

Just one of the things you had to get used to when working for a hunting brand in Middle America! He was a really nice customer, though, and we managed to get him an item shipped out to a PO box in a town in Washington State that I had to look up on Google Maps as it was so remote.

As I looked it up, I also discovered that it was the number one location in the entire country for Bigfoot sightings, so… happy hunting?

I work for a streaming service’s customer support for tiers one and two support. A customer calls in to get their service back up and running. She sounds like she’s in her late teens to early twenties.

Me: “Ma’am, it looks like your payment has lapsed, so I need to take a payment to get it working again. May I ask for your payment card information?”

Caller: *Suddenly freaking out* “You’re a scammer! The real [Streaming Company] customer service would never ask for card information!”

Me: “Ma’am, if you want to get your service up and running again, we need a payment and a payment card on file, especially if you have had your card replaced. If you’d prefer, you can type it in yourself on our website.”

Caller: “No! You’re scammers trying to steal my card information! I don’t trust [Official Website], either!”

Me: “How are we the scammers if you called us? Where did you get the number to call us?”

Caller: “I got it from the app.”

Me: “Well, if you’re calling the number on the official app itself, then you must have the right place.”

Caller: “No! You must be scammers, and I’m going to call again to not get a scammer!”

Me: “You’re welcome to do that, but you’re going to run into the same issue with the next agent when they ask for your payment information or suggest that you type it in yourself on the website.”

Caller: *Scoffs* “We’ll just see about that!” *Click*

Of course, she called the same number back — supposedly the same scam number. The agent a couple rows away got her and asked me over our internal chat service what had happened because the caller was pissed when she was asked for information to make a payment. I just explained.

A few days later, the caller’ boyfriend called up and got it done with his own card information. He was much nicer about it, according to the account notes.

I dealt with something like this story when first dealing with [Company], who provided a franking machine [a postal meter that marks letters] for the place where I worked. As far as I could tell from repeated attempts to speak to people about the fact that the machine had stopped working again, there was no way from the general phone line to reach a person.

Pay, yes. Request an invoice, yes. Request a top-up of the balance on your account, yes.

All automated.

Report a fault. Hahahahahahaha…

Every time, I ended up emailing the employee at our head office who had arranged the contract — which we didn’t want as our postage was too low to justify the machine, but we were forced to have it. The message would just read:

Me: “I have got the sledgehammer out again.”

She would speak to the sales representative at [Company] and yet another fruitless repair attempt would occur.

Eventually, they just took the machine away and gave us a new one.

I never did get to use my sledgehammer on the old one.

Related:
Welcome To The Call Center Centrifuge