Won’t Be Credited For Trying

(I work for a fairly large Internet company who provides free emails addresses for our customers. In customer service, we can only change the email password, nothing else. Tech support actually troubleshoots.)

Me: “Hi, thank you for calling customer service and billing. How can I help you today?”

Customer: “Yeah, I forgot my email password.”

Me: “No problem. Let me secure your account with your username and I’ll give you a temporary password… Okay, so, I’ve got your temp password set up; go ahead and try to log on.”

Customer: “It’s still not working; this is a scam!”

Me: “Go ahead and tell me what the page is showing, and we’ll go from there.”

(Our customer reads off a fairly common system error, which usually happens after his account has been locked out for quite some time. It just needs a simple reset, but only tech support can put in that order. I explain this to the customer.)

Customer: “Well, this is just bulls***! Get me your supervisor. Even better yet, get me my bill for free!”

Me: “Sir, I know this is frustrating, but this will be solved in five minutes if we get you in the correct hands. I can’t credit off your bill, because your free service has been down only because you forgot your password. Tech support will finish what I started with you, okay? I’ll even stay on the line until the issue is resolved.”

Customer: “And you’ll credit my bill?”

Me: “No, I cannot credit your bill.”

Customer: “But it’s only $220 dollars, and today’s my only day off. Your supervisor will credit my bill! Get him on the line!”

Me: “No, we cannot credit for your free service being temporarily down. We cannot credit for inconvenience. We’re a big center, sir; waiting to speak to my supervisor will be approximately a 45-minute wait, and he’ll only reiterate what I said just now. I’m connecting us with tech support. In five minutes, you’ll be on with your day.”

(I called tech and the first thing the customer screamed was, “That b**** in billing didn’t apply my 300-dollar credit!” while I was still on the line. As promised, his email was up in minutes. He’ll never get that credit.)