The story about Sprint firing some of their customers is old news now but I'm compelled to blog about it anyway since it's worthy of some thought. There are two sides to this and I'm not as interested in taking sides as I am fantasizing about the possibilities. For those that don't have the background info I can make it brief and then we can look at both sides of the coin. Sprint sent a letter to a bunch of their customers notifying them that they (Sprint) are canceling their (customers) service. The cause stated has flavors of "irreconcilable differences" similar to what you'd see in divorce. Sprint is claiming that they cannot satisfy the needs of some of their customers and are exercising their right to terminate their contract as a result. The said customers are gobbling up too many Sprint resources to no satisfactory end, calling and calling and calling customer service. To me it looked like it was a no win situation for Sprint or the customer so Sprint decided to cancel the contract and pay these select customers balances and sent them on their way. I'm leaving out some details but that's basically it. I can defend both sides as I suspect there are a couple of problems here. My guess is that Sprint has been crappy enough in some way to cause all these people that probably have better things to do to incessantly call customer service and customer service sucks badly enough that a resolution cannot be reached. When you hear enough people complain about a company you tend to assume that the company in question sucks in some way.
To illustrate my point about crappy companies, I'll use Comcast as an example. I can't even recall how many people I know have complained about how bad Comcast is. Folks use them because they are in the forefront of the types of services people want so we put up with it. It's all about accessibility. I'm still a customer of their digital cable and to be fair, it's been totally fine. But I'll share a fun piece of anecdotal evidence to make my point. When I went to a Comcast facility to return a cable box a few years ago, which I shouldn't have to do to begin with, I immediately noticed something that screamed "we suck". All of the employees were behind a counter that had several inches of dual-paned plexiglass that went from the counter top to the ceiling and stretched the entire length of the building. All the employees are on one side and the customers are on the other. While I was in there waiting in line there was a heated argument going on between a customer and a "customer service" representative. I joked to myself that that was the purpose of the plexiglass while really assuming the glass was to protect them from robbery or something. It was a crappy area of Sacramento after all. Robbery at a Comcast didn't make much sense to me though because it's not really a place that would have cash or anything worth stealing. Hmmm. When it was my turn I walked up to the window and I swear it was a window like you see at the bank teller drive up where there is a chamber open on either side with plexiglass doors on each end. My end of the box opened and put the cable box in it, bitching to the guy on the other side about having to drive all the way the hell out here to do it. Once my little door closed, his opened and he could safely retrieve the cable box without risking being assaulted by me. Seems ridiculous doesn't it? I asked the guy what all the plexiglass was about and he simply stated that people get pissed off and they've had a problem with people throwing their cable boxes at the employees, endangering their health and safety. No shit, I thought to myself. "Why would someone get that angry about cable", I joked with the dude, remembering all the cursing I did while I was on my way there. I spent literally two hours driving around looking for the damn place because the dumbass there gave me bad directions, calling it a "street" when it was really a "road". Big difference when there is a same named location on the clear other side of town. So let me get this straight, they suck so badly that they need to barricade themselves behind plexiglass to protect themselves from violently angry customers? Nice. My experience that day warranted a spontaneous margarita in the middle of day. Someone else may have dealt with it by driving their car through the building while screaming profanities at the top of their lungs, but not me.
Let's look at another example. At least when I did call Comcast I talked to someone that could speak English (albeit bad English). Calling customer service these days often results in a difficult conversation with someone that doesn't speak English very well at all. Of course people across the world don't need to speak English. After all, I don't speak other languages. But when call centers are moved to other countries to save money it's the consumers that suffer. I don't care what language is spoken in what part of the world but I do know that when I call because I'm having a problem with a service in Roseville, California, U.S.A, I need to be able to communicate with the person that is there to help me. When I call and hear the faint ring I get nervous. Then I hear "Hello, my name is Tom, how may I help you" in a very very very thick accent, my first thought is that their name is in fact not Tom. My blood pressure begins to rise because I know the conversation is going to be difficult. It's not their fault either so that's not the point. The point is that customer service in general is an afterthought more often than not these days. I really can understand why people get frustrated with the phone company, cable company, insurance company, bank, etc. Let's face it though; companies only do this to increase their margins to remain competitive and to put more money in their pockets. They are a business after all. And there is another side of this whole Sprint argument. Maybe the problem is in fact crappy customer service but I tend to think blame can be shared with all the stupid people in the world (no offense stupid people). Let's take a deeper look at this side of the argument in the next post…


