customer service means servicing the customer

can you hear me now? good. can you hear me now? good.
yes i know that verizon can have some annoying commercials-my favorite being the 2 little ghosts boys in the hallway- but i am a big fan of verizon for so many reasons.

in my job of a/p gypsy and now a/r gypsy as a result of a mass lay off, i am in charge of dealing with all the cell phones for the company. luckily by the time i inherited the cell phone albatros we were down to 2 cell phone companies. verizon and sprint, which was nextel which was...oh who the hell knows. anyhoo, i have to occasionally call these companies for different issues. adding a phone, cancelling a phone, suspending a phone. with verizon i have a rep that can handle some of the questions like “i need a global blackberry and a global sim card by tomorrow” my rep says no problem.

if i have to call verizion, which is more than i call sprint “thank goddess”, after a few prompts i am answered quickly by a customer service person who is able to handle every issue i have. they are always nice and courteous and always act happy that i called. they act like your friend. go figure. a customer service person who actually wants to do their job and offer you service.

when i call sprint, after a few prompts, i always have to wait and wait and wait for a human to pick up the phone. all the while listening to ear piercing on hold music. and after the “i don’t want to be here” customer service person picks up they always talk way to fast and can’t ever seem to do the job that i need done. so back into call pergatory i go to wait and wait and wait for someone else to pick up to complete the issue. and they are just as unfriendly as the last person.

i am pulling this story from my experience today. i had to call sprint (which i had been dreading) to disconnect 3 numbers that would no longer be needed. so the first "i'm so happy to be here" guy picked up the call and of course couldn’t help me. even though i had all the pin#s correct and my blood sample matched. no #1 i'm so happy to be here boy couldn’t disconnect the phones so he sent me to #2 i'm so happy to be here girl. #2 girl really just didn’t want to be there. she acted like she would rather be sand papering her eyeballs than answer the freaking phone.
after saying no a thousand times to “would you like to consider only suspended this phone or instead changing this phone over to a broadband card” or whatever people call those things that hook into a laptop so it can get internet. i said “NO NO NO i don’t want to prolong the service in any kind of way on those #’s...please. i also wanted them disconnected on friday.”
#2 girl, “i can’t do that, your cycle ending 2 days ago and it wont be prorated”
“i don’t care. they need to not have service after friday”
“well i will be able to stop all incoming and outgoing calls, is that what you want?” #2 girl said with disdain
“no i just wanted to call you and be on hold for 10 minutes and have you talk to me like i was the hired help” no not really. i really said “yes that’s what i would like to happen but not until friday night”.
“ok i have that set to stop all incoming call and outgoing calls as of tonight” dumbass chirped
“NNNOOOOO, it needs to happen on friday night” sweet little me
so after i finally felt that me and “happy to be here in hell” girl were on the same page she of course has to do the ending dialogue of her speech.
“have i answered all you questions and met what you needed?”
“yes” i said in my nicest voice
and then the best question of all that i love to answer. it’s that last question, that if you have in someway not catered to me being that your job is customer service, that i will be truthful about.
“and one last question-on a scale of 1 to 10 please rate your experience with us today”
she was shocked when i said “6 and most of that is for being on hold for too long” cause i thought 6 was being generous but i refrained from being completely blunt. i need those numbers to stay connected until friday.