Cingular's Systematic Customer Destruction Process

This is an instructional story about how to destroy customers, follow along for fun, it is long, but there is a learning message at the end, I promise.

After working with Cingular for two weeks, I feel like I could write a whole book on their very obvious customer destruction process.

Before I tell you about Cingular, let me give you some background. After traveling to New York City with two of my clients who develop Avotone, a line of anti-aging skin care products I was finally envious enough to buy a Blackberry of my own. Now I've been watching everyone else on the plane with me use their Blackberry since they came out, but it wasn't until I spent a week with these two guys that I saw firsthand how powerful the tool was and sat out to buy one.

The first place I turned was Cingular, my current wireless provider. Turns out they had exactly the phone I wanted, the Blackberry 7100g, but here is where they start the process of doing whatever they can to alienate the customer.

I was an AT&T Wireless customer for nearly ten years, during that time I've spent in the well into the mid five figures for my phones and service. AT&T wasn't without fault, but for the most part any issue I ever had was resolved within moments, by a real and knowledgeable person. So it was with trepidation that I switched to Cingular at their prompting, after the buyout.

I should have known it was going to be trouble when they charged me a $18.00 fee to switch from AT&T (now owned by Cingular) to Cingular. Then, I had to buy new phones too (even though not 90 days before I'd used my loyalty credit with AT&T to buy new phones) and I had to sign a two year agreement. So, $200 later, I left Cingular with the assurance that if I wanted to switch back I could at any time if I felt my service was not as good on their all GSM network.

Two months later, I'm on the edge of switching to anyone BUT Cingular where more than 30% of my calls are dropped and where I can't get reception in my local Wal-Mart. But, they have the phone I want and I'm on a contract. So, I go back into the Cingular Wireless Store to buy the phone only to find that because I'm already a customer I have to pay $400 for the phone that is listed at $249 if I were a new customer (including a customer having to switch from AT&T). When I told them that I was assured I could switch my service back or upgrade my phone at the upgrade price or switch back to AT&T service with no penalty, they told me that I was given incorrect information and that no one in the store would have told me that.

So, I had to do the math, I'm now pretty ticked off and of by the way, to switch service, I have to pay a $300 early termination fee. So now if I want the phone, I pay $400 or I pay $300 to get out of my contract and going with another carrier pay about $200 for functionally the same Blackberry phone. It is very tempting for the extra $100, but I decided to make a call to Cingular and see what they would do. After a literal 2 hour conversation with everyone from the Customer Service rep to the shift supervisor at two different call centers, they decide I can have the Blackberry 7100g at the upgrade price so I agree to take it. Turns out there is a $49.00 rebate as well so the price is now only $200.

This is where it gets even more fun. I receive my phone with great anticipation only to find that I was charged $300 for the phone. I promptly call customer service who tells me that it is $249 after the rebate. I direct them to their own website and show them where it says $199 after rebate. They say that there is nothing they can do unless I send the phone back and they send another one out billed at the right price. Pure genius. I tell them no and go through the process of being switched through 4 call centers, 7 customer service reps and 3 supervisors, the last of whom finally agrees to credit my account back $50 for the overcharge on my credit card. This process too nearly 3 hours.

But wait there is more and a lesson in all this I promise!

So, I start trying to program my Blackberry and they are quite a bit more complicated than a normal phone to set up so I reach for the users guide . . . and it isn't in the box.

Now I call Cingular back and ask them if they will send me a new guide. They can't they assure me because they don't have them, I'll have to contact RIM, the makers of Blackberry and buy one from them or my second option? Repackage the phone and send it back and they will then send out a second phone with a manual. After fighting with them for an hour about sending me a manual including (and I would not recommend this tactic with Cingular) reasoning with them by asking what would happen if their CEO called and asked for the manual, to which they said their CEO would never call them . . . maybe the only thing they've said to date with which I could possibly agree. Because if he did, he'd have to get off his incompetent, lazy butt and fix his company.

After all of my run arounds with Cingular, and over 7 hours on the phone with them, my Blackberry now works and boy do I love it (when I have service, I'm hoping that this phone has better reception than my Nokia and will work inside the mall or Wal-Mart).

What I don't love is Cingular. What I will do the very day my contract runs out is abandon Cingular with a great deal of fanfare, I'll also do all I can between now and then to make sure anyone I can influence does not get a Cingular phone or Cingular service. In fact if you are reading this and are considering Cingular, DO NOT DO IT. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way simply by doing a couple of quick Google Searches like this and this, which show thousands of people who hate Cingular who've had very similar experiences.

I promised a lesson in all this that you can apply so let me get to it:

1. If you own a company, do call and go through your own customer service process, if you are too small a company and will be recognized, have a friend or family member do it while you listen in.

2. Train your customer service people, on any one of the occasions that I talked to a customer service person at Cingular, any one of them could have taken responsibility for my problem, but none of them did, in fact their biggest issue was to get me transferred away from them.

3. Be sure your people know what they are talking about. There is no excuse for lying to customers or for not knowing what offers are currently available to them.

4. If you create a situation where your customers must change and they stay with you, do what you can to ease their transition. A smart thing for Cingular to do would be to give me a 90 day number that goes directly to highly trained specialists on par with the old AT&T specialists so that I could have all my questions answered and my issues resolved.

5. Understand that this is a very connected world and whatever you do to any customer good or bad will be repeated for all the world to see.

6. DON'T USE CINGULAR!

Comments

[Dale Wolf]

Woe. Woe. Woe. How much I wonder does Cingular spend to advertise its quality service? How much of that value have they destroyed by not living up to their value proposition or to any decent level of customer relationship service? Thanks for sharing. I will avoid Cingular, but my experience with Verizon is only better by degrees. I am drafting a book on simplifying business and would like to include your tale of woe in it. If this is okay, please send me permission. Enjoy your Blackberry.

[Dale Wolf]

Dave, I should have pointed you to a posting on my site about the chairman and chief exec at Verizon. As customers, we don't have many options where we can find what matters most to us. The Verizon debacle is all over the news media ... I chose to cite the article written in St. Petersburg Times. Run, duck, hide. The sky is falling. My article is at http://contextrulesmarketing.blogspot.com/2005/04/marketing-arrogance-gets-curiouser-and.html#comments.

[Paughnee]

Dave, I can understand your disappointment, frustration, and antipathy toward Cingular. You really had a rotten experience. (I can't believe they made people pay to switch from AT&T.) I've heard other people complain about Cingular as well, but my experience has been different.

I've been with Cingular since way back (originally SBC), and I've never had any complaints about the service or problems with upgrading. In fact, I was considering upgrading my phone a few months ago and the in-store rep. told me that my current calling plan is actually better than what I would have to change to if I upgraded my phone. My phone is still meeting my needs, so I decided not to upgrade. The Cingular rep didn't make a sale that day, but he certainly increased my loyalty.

I hope the Blackberry is worth all the hassle you went through.

[Tim O'Keefe]

Dave-

Can I throw Sprint into the cellular companies that suck category?
I have three services: two cell phones and a wireless internet connection.

As you know I am somewhat a techie guy and neither I nor their robotic service/tech folks can seem to get the wireless to work on my machine.

I too have spent a total of two to three hours between being elevated in support to getting called back.

I love how they basically read off of a manual and have zero power to think or make decisions on their own. Therefore if it is not dealt with in the manual it is not fixable. The way the call ends is the best. It is where they really stick the knife in and twist.
"Thank you for calling Sprint, have I answered all your questions satisfactorily?"

'Um, Gee let me think about that for a sec. I guess the answer is no, since you are elevating me to the next bumbler.'

Although somewhat laughable, their robotic question proves that they are not listening and they replace common sense with sticking to the script. They finally, after all this, had someone call me to survey me and try to help.

I can tell the real "bad" customers get the survey treatment that I got.

They called and asked a few dumb questions and then tried to fix the problem, without having power to fix it.

As far as the phones. Those are another story. I don't use them much as I am typically in my office. So it just sits next to me periodically beeping. I couldn't figure why it beeped repeatedly until I realized it went in and out of cell reception. AMAZING! It works one second and not the next, and I have not even moved it at all.

Anyway, I think the problem with these companies idea of service is to make themselves feel good as priority number one. I guess if they create a giant infrastructure of a service department in order to be proud of it's size. While the CSI or customer satisfaction should be the goal.

I hope all is well with you.

Tim O'Keefe
Spider Juice Technologies
Online Realtor Marketing
"Where Real Estate Websites Become Businesses"

[Dave Lakhani]

Tim, you make a great point above about trying to make themselves feel better.

There is a real opportunity here for someone to crush the big boys at their own game if they want to simply focus. Even though I'm particularly NOT fond of cignular at this point, I'm not too confident any of the other service providers are any better. Again, all signs point to an opportunity ripe for the picking.

I honestly pity guys like you and me (and anyone else reading this) who is even moderately technically savvy, it only adds to your frustration to have to educate the people who should be educating you . . . in between calling them on their BS.

It is good to see that at least one person here had a good interaction with Cingular, I'd hate to think that as a nation we've all become so immune to being treated so poorly that we'd keep doing business with them anyway.

I still remain firmly committed to my current stance which is JUST SAY NO TO CINGULAR.

[Gil Friend]

Here's another vote for Sprint. Eight support calls over the last two weeks, an absolutely different story from them every time. Not only don't they give any credence to what the previous support person said -- they claim they don't have any record of it in their system. So much for promises.

BTW, last call, when the guy said "Thank you for calling Sprint, have I answered all your questions satisfactorily?" and I replied "Well, no." he got angry with me!

So it goes.

[Chuck McKay]

Guys, it isn't just the cellular divisions of these companies that run us in circles. Over a month ago I ordered a second ISDN circuit to augment the one I've been using for the last 14 months. For some reason what they installed isn't compatible. I want them to tell me what I need to do to make these two digital circuits talk to each other.
I just spent two and a half hours, was transferred four times, and my call was dropped twice, only to find that SBC is positive the circuit I've been using (and they've been billing me for) doesn't exist.

[Charles Phillips]

Hi Dave,

I too was an ATT customer. In the interest of saving space,
just ditto your blog above concerning my opionion of 80% of the Cingular support people (I did find about 20% of them to be very courteous and willing to help).

In a nutshell, here's my story:
My wife and I both have Nokia phones and her phone recently began to lose volumn in the main speaker. I had her to go to the local Cingular store to see if she could get a warranty replacement for a phone less than a year old. She was told that she had to sign a new Cingular agreement and buy a new phone compatible with Cingular's system.

When I got home that night, I admit to saying few unkind words to my wife, got on the phone and ordered a warranty replacement phone (I spoke to several people in India (I think)). I had her to go back to Cingular the next day to cancel the new contract, they smiled and agreed to do it.

Then a few days later, I check our bill online (suspicious of foul play). I find that they had charged my a total of $258.00, $240.00 for cancelling the ATT service early and $18.00 for an upgrade fee. Luckily, the billing representative that I called was among the better 20% and she corrected my bill.

Well, I then get the replacement phone, go through all of the steps in getting the phone activated, only to wind up disconnecting my old phone and then finding out that they had sent the wrong type phone. Back to the phones again to
get my old phone re-activated.

I was instructed to call the India warranty folks again, and I had to answer each and every obvious question that was asked of me the first time. Finally, about an hour later, they agree to ship me another phone.

The other phone arrives and it seems to have the same volume
problem as the original phone (exactly the same!).

I repeat all of the steps above and get a third replacement phone ordered. It arrives, same exact problem. I have a technical background and know that things like this just do not normally happen. So I begin talking to technical people
about the problem, with not help from any of them.

Then, due to my technical background, I try to troubleshoot the problems myself. I found that the volumn mysterious improved whenever I took the front cover off the phone. I looked at the fine screen covering the earpiece opening with a magnifying loop, it looked clean? I had a friend of mine to call of friend of his who works with Cingular and this guy actually was familiar with this strange problem. He suggested that I simply enlarge the ear holes in the front plate. I was hesitant to do this due to the rigid attitudes that I had experienced with some Cingular people, so I decided to take it to the local store and then get someone there to enlarge the holes. But the night before,
I tried a 'stupid thing',I washed the cover under running water, put it back onto the phone and it was a loud as ever!

The technical problem resolved! Now I am worried about the
three warranty phones that I have returned to Cingular. They have them going to a 'Postage Due' address that the
Post Office could not have a 'signed for delivery receipt' sent back to me (even though I agreed to pay the total shipping fee?).

I sure do not want to have to pay for three warranty phones that I returned with no proof of delivery!

I have heard 'from a confidential source' that Cingular only bought ATT for the towers and that Cingular employees have been instructed to be 'less than cooperative' whenever
the ATT customers refuse to 'upgrade' to Cingular service (I was told that I need to upgrade by several phone support people, this is consistent with what my wife was told in the local store).

Wish me luck with my warranty return phones. I really do not have time to spend another 6 or 7 hours with these folks
(just think how much this type thing is costing Cingular!
Phone support salaries are not cheap). I had to instruct several Cingular support people that Cingular has bought ATT and I could not actually 'call ATT' with my problems.Some were quite arrogant with their responses.

Thanks
Charles