I had a longer rant storing up about Cingular’s policies, but I just have to say… bleeehhhhhh!
Last week, I replaced the five-year-old candy bar Nokia with a Treo 650, in the process moving my AT&T account to Cingular, officially (my phone has reminded me for months that I’m on Cingular’s network). Despite signing up for another two years of service, despite being a customer for nine years, despite spending a good chunk of change on a new phone, despite signing up for unlimited data service, Cingular dinged me for an $18.00 “upgrade fee.” Hello?!?!?! I’ve been a customer for nine years. You bought the company for the customers, among other things — why annoy them and harass them? Especially when they are not the cheapest customers you have.
I complained to the store rep, I complained to the store manager, I complained to their customer service rep on the phone (while in the store)… all to no avail. The most aggravating part? Each time, all three people said they couldn’t do anything about the charge, and several times referred to those who made this (bad) decision as “they.” This is from people who WORK for Cingular. You can’t shuffle off responsibility to the invisible bad guys — you are the company, especially if you work in a store. I could have pursued the process online, but my situation seemed cumbersome enough that spending time with a person was likely to be more effective. I got little satisfaction. If my wife wasn’t already a Cingular customer, I would have moved my number.
After the upgrade fiasco, I figured I was in the story, I should combine our numbers into their family plan (same price, better minutes, with free calls between the numbers on the same line). How’s this for irony? The process involved my sales rep in the story spending 30 minutes on the phone talking to someone to wade through the process. It got done (with another $18 fee!), but… why bother having a store??!
Moral of the story: cellular customer service is still a quagmire, and I do believe there is a place for someone with reasonable rates to deliver a service that makes sense without beating up the customer. My time is worth something, and besides making me angry over $18, Cingular wasted 90 minutes of my life. I think a cellular company needs to hire Seth Godin and remind themselves that customers matter, and empowering employees to solve problems pays off.