Customer Service with Personality
When I turned our cable TV back on recently, I added the digital video recording. When I added that, they offered some special service that gave me HBO for a few months for free basically. I'd not wanted it, but figured what the heck. Well, I have enjoyed it--but the series, not the movies. Anyway, the trial period ended as I noted when I got my bill so I promptly called and cancelled the other day.
Yesterday, I was talking with a friend about some of the series and realized I'd really rather watch some of those than rent a few movies so I decided to have HBO turned back on.
I tried to do it over the web site but when it wanted to schedule an appointment, I knew that was just wrong. So I called them on the phone. I was a bit irritated that when I went to "add" to my account on the web site, it wasn't really equipped to handle that. If you can't do it, don't offer it! Put the phone number front and center instead. That would have been much less frustrating!
On the other hand...the woman that answered the phone was fantastic. She saw that I'd cancelled it just a few days ago and said "Oh, miss that HBO do you?" And she had some $x per day that the whole amount I was paying added up to and we joked a bit about what else that would pay for. Then she tried to upsell me on the phone service and the Internet access.
It was quite well done--other than the fact that my neighbors have their service and are frequently calling me to ask if my Internet is down like theirs is. Nope! Mine is never down. Literally. Hasn't been for a few years. I explained that I worked out of my home and was totally dependent on being online to earn my living and that neighbors had less connection than I did. She instantly said "Oh, I know we're doing some upgrades in that area and I'm sure that's why there have been problems." Man she was quick! And I could almost believe her!
Anyway, my point was... I was ticked that I couldn't do this on the web site, as it promised. But this woman managed to get me over my irritation. She managed to have a cheerful conversation as I turned down the upsell. She acknowledged there might be problems with the Internet service where I lived and had a somewhat plausible explanation--and encouraged me to think about switching when the upgrades were done. It was, despite the initial frustration, an overall pleasant experience.
Yesterday, I was talking with a friend about some of the series and realized I'd really rather watch some of those than rent a few movies so I decided to have HBO turned back on.
I tried to do it over the web site but when it wanted to schedule an appointment, I knew that was just wrong. So I called them on the phone. I was a bit irritated that when I went to "add" to my account on the web site, it wasn't really equipped to handle that. If you can't do it, don't offer it! Put the phone number front and center instead. That would have been much less frustrating!
On the other hand...the woman that answered the phone was fantastic. She saw that I'd cancelled it just a few days ago and said "Oh, miss that HBO do you?" And she had some $x per day that the whole amount I was paying added up to and we joked a bit about what else that would pay for. Then she tried to upsell me on the phone service and the Internet access.
It was quite well done--other than the fact that my neighbors have their service and are frequently calling me to ask if my Internet is down like theirs is. Nope! Mine is never down. Literally. Hasn't been for a few years. I explained that I worked out of my home and was totally dependent on being online to earn my living and that neighbors had less connection than I did. She instantly said "Oh, I know we're doing some upgrades in that area and I'm sure that's why there have been problems." Man she was quick! And I could almost believe her!
Anyway, my point was... I was ticked that I couldn't do this on the web site, as it promised. But this woman managed to get me over my irritation. She managed to have a cheerful conversation as I turned down the upsell. She acknowledged there might be problems with the Internet service where I lived and had a somewhat plausible explanation--and encouraged me to think about switching when the upgrades were done. It was, despite the initial frustration, an overall pleasant experience.
posted by Ellen at 9:21 PM
1 Comments:
Great story. It is surprising how little can be done through the web site of many utilities, including Cable TV company's sites. It shouldn't be so hard to do such routine tasks like the ones you described.
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