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!
