Waiting for Godot

Finally called DirecTV today about the HD problem, and of course, it can only be fixed by a technician. So we have to wait for Dec. 15 for our service appointment.

The local channels come off a different satellite, so that's why we get them. And he's not sure the installation was done correctly, so they might have to do some of that as well.

IF THEY SHOW UP.

So close...

They came. DirecTV. They came. The guy called at 11:15 and said he'd be here in about 45 minutes. It was an hour and fifteen, but hey, he came.

He proceeded to spend over 3 hours switching out the dish. Apparently the guy who hooked us up was a hack, which we knew. But really, we kinda had places to go.

Anyway, so the guy leaves like his pants are ablaze because he is hours late for his next appointment in FARMINGTON already (for out-of-towners, this is at least a good hour from my house) and I turn the channel from the annoying DirecTV informational channel to an HD channel.

And... nothing. They did the whole install, but did something wrong. We get local HD channels, but none of the cable channels.

So now we have to wait for another service appointment for them to come fix it. Aargh.

Wrong:

• Being half an hour later than you quoted, which was outside of the service appointment time we had anyway. I distinctly remember Orlando saying we were to be the first appointment.
  
• Taking so damn long to do it.
  
• Not checking the channels before you left.
• Leaving the old dish for us to throw in the trash.

Right:

• I guess you get a pass for actually coming. It's sad that service should sink this low that this is the best you can do.
  

Waitin on DirecTV

When we last saw our intrepid heroes, they had been denied 2 (3?) times for an upgrade to HD service. Can they overcome the satellite giant to live an HD life?

So I called Premier after the last post to get my appointment "pushed", or moved up to a closer date, as the best DirecTV could give me was December 3. Premier informed me that they were so busy that they weren't "pushing" any appointments for any reason. And the girl informed me she just had a customer yesterday that had been screwed over even worse than me, and they wouldn't push their appointment either. Yes, thanks, I feel so much better. Oh, and Premier can't give me a credit, I have to go through DirecTV.

And Dec 3? Not on a Saturday. I called back to get my appointment moved to the next available Saturday. I tell the operator, "If I take a day off and you stand me up again, that's a whole new kind of mad." I get scheduled on Dec. 15. And they submit a claim for the "On-time guarantee credit" and someone will call me in 48-72 hours about it when it's been reviewed.

Cut to Thanksgiving. It's been 10 days and I have not heard anything. I'm figuring I will have to call tomorrow to start the complaint process back in motion, when lo, the phone rings. It's DirecTV and they want to come this weekend. They want to come tomorrow (I'm on the cancellation list). Yes, I say, we will be here tomorrow between 8 and 12. Please come and upgrade my dish.

And no, they didn't come. They called at 3 and rescheduled me back to the Saturday I had before.

So I called DirecTV again and this time I actually got to speak to a supervisor. The kid who answered was so scared of me he got a supervisor immediately. I wasn't even being mean! I was actually laughing.

The supervisor offered me $10 off monthly for the next year and Showtime for 90 days for free, which I took. There was some technicality under which I could not get the On Time guarantee, but the money off is even better.

And then something strange happened. At 5:30, the doorbell rang. ("Pizza, mommy, pizza!) It was DirecTV! They're here!

"What seems to be the problem, ma'am?"
"Uh, no problem, we just need an upgrade to HD."
"We were told there was a service problem. You don't have a service problem?"
"No, just an upgrade."
"Oh, we're really sorry, we were told this was a service call that had been rescheduled 5 times, so we don't have the equipment for an upgrade. Let me see if we can get someone out tomorrow."
They call around and say someone is coming tomorrow.

This morning. 8 or 9. It is 9:06 as I write this and no one has come yet. I really thought they would come this time.

So let's go over what went wrong this time:

• Refusing to push my appointment after they messed it up.
• Not calling me back after my complaint was registered for the On-Time guarantee.
  
• Coming out for a "service problem" when I just need an upgrade.

And here's what went right:

• Getting me to a supervisor immediately.
  
• Giving me the discount when it was clear I couldn't get the On-Time guarantee money. Also giving me the free movies.
• Giving me a number to call if it happens again - personal voicemail!
  
• Having someone come out, even if it was for the wrong thing.
  
• Them calling around to get someone to come for today - although this will move into the "wrong" list if they don't come.
  

So, it's starting to go better. Even the Showtime will just drop off the account after the 90 days, we don't have to call to cancel.

The saga continues in our quest for... HDTV.

Screwed again

So, we have a new BF TV. Which is lovely. But we want digital satellite to go with it, because you should get to enjoy the quality, right.

We made an appointment for an upgrade of our dish, and we waited 3 weeks because we needed a Saturday appointment.

Then, last Saturday, when our appointment time (8-12) we by, we got a call just after 12 saying they were still so busy with calls they didn't finish from Friday that they wouldn't be able to get to us. They would reschedule us for this week. Seethe.

They were supposed to be here between 8 and noon this morning. Pants and I both called separately to confirm our appointment. At about 1:00, I called DirecTV to complain and was transferred to Premier Communications, their outsourced tech company, where they "left the tech a message" and said they would get back to me when he checked back in.

I called them again at 4:00 because I had heard nothing back. They apologized profusely and said the tech would call me and let me know when he would be coming. They said I had an appointment "today". I confirmed it was supposed to be this morning and that they had not called or shown up. I think they said something about crediting my account, but I'm not entirely sure.

I received a call from the tech at a little after 7:00 tonight, telling me if he can finish the job he is on in 20 minutes he will come. If he can't, he will call. Again, I get nothing.

I called DirecTV again this evening after 10 p.m. to complain and to set up another service appointment, since clearly this one wasn't working out. Apparently, there is a $100 service guarantee that says if they aren't on time, we get paid $100. But then the guy tonight also said the tech was coming in the morning at 7:30, that he had confirmed that with me. I think he's trying to get out of the guarantee, so he's lying about confirming 7:30 in the morning, hoping I will think I misheard him.

And here's how we stand now - I am supposed to call Premier early in the morning and verify if the tech is coming tomorrow or not. I will also be verifying when my $100 will appear. We might get hooked up this weekend still, but I'm not betting anything on it, at this point.

Let's go over the service errors in this one -

• Calling at noon when they are supposed to be here between 8 and 12. If they are so busy from Friday, didn't they know that at 8?
• Not calling either week the day before to confirm the appointment, as they were supposed to do.
  
• Not calling and not showing up today for the appointment.
• Not calling me back as promised, even when the tech did not return their call.
• Not calling me back again as promised.
• Promising me to come or call in 20 minutes, and not doing either.
  
• Asking me to call the tech company prior to 7:30 in the morning tomorrow, as if that's how I would like to spend my time on Sunday.
• Not telling me about the On-time guarantee until my 5th call to the company today.
• Not offering me credit on my account (I think?)
  
• Routing all of my calls to India (oh, and they were definitely routed to a call center in India. Cyril, my ass. The calls kept cutting out and it was hard to understand them everytime I called.)
• Sticking me in a voice recognition system that kept deciding I wanted to make a payment.

They still haven't completely gotten this one right. We'll see what happens.

Sheer brilliance

Instead of a horrible customer service experience, I actually have a really good one.

I went to Lane Bryant last weekend to buy bras and I ended up trying on a couple of other things. They were having a trouser sale and if you bought three pair, you got $20 off each pair. But one of the pairs didn't fit and they didn't have it in my size.

"Do you want to try them on in brown or gray? If they fit, we'll just have the black ones shipped to you." And they shipped them to me free. Of charge. Free.

Lane Bryant has instituted this new program, LB2ME, and if you want anything they don't have in stock in the store, you pay for it with your purchase and they ship it right to your door for free. Clearly this is a bonus for me, the customer, meaning they will always "have" what I need. I also always get the sale price that's going on at the time. Like the pants deal, I still got the $20 off the pants they had to ship because they were the third pair.

But if you think about it from the company's perspective, this is so genius it's amazing all stores don't do it. The company's benefits:

• They get a guaranteed sale - you pay for it right away, in the moment, so there's no changing your mind on the way to the other store to buy your merchandise.
• The store you are in gets credit for the sale. This is big in retail, since the stores compete against each other in sales for a region. And they really did the work to sell it.
  
• Headquarters can track what items and sizes sell out in each store, which can help them stock appropriately.
  

Plus, they get more business because, who doesn't want to go to that store? Where they appreciate that you came out so they're going to promise their stock or ship it to you direct.

I want to give that store my money.

You are on the list

I am looking at you, Northwest.

The plan for getting there was to fly into Boston, then drive up to Maine with my parents. This went pretty well, actually.

The plan for getting home was the same in reverse: drive down to Boston with my parents and fly back home. We set off at 9:00 to ensure we got to the airport with enough time to check in, get through security, etc. Didn't want anything to go wrong, you know?

But as soon as we got there and got in line to check in, we found out the flight was delayed 1:15. Maintenance issues. We get down to the gate (after driving the strollers down a flight of stairs because we could find no elevator to the lower level of gates) and set the children free - free-range children. Wear them out before the flight. Get them some food, milk, etc. We wait out the delay and board the flight.

We wait aboard the plane and try to keep the children occupied until we begin to taxi. We start moving, and miraculously, the children both doze off. We taxi, and taxi, and keep going, making at least two rounds of the runways in Boston. At one point, I ask Pants if they are driving us home. And then we pull back up to the gate. The children are still asleep and we don't know what's going on yet. We wait, the kids wake up, and we wait some more. At least 45 minutes.

The pilot comes on and says there is a maintenance issue with the landing gear that is more complicated than they thought. They are going to have to replace a tire and a rotor and it will take around an hour, give or take. If we get off, we should bring our boarding passes.

We get off and head straight to the bar. We get some milk for the kids and Jack and Cokes for ourselves, and we take the kids back to the gate and let them loose. After about another hour, I get in line to find out what's going on. While in line, I start hearing that the flight is canceled until the morning. Someone in line says their mother just called and sees this flight online as taking off tomorrow. And the gate attendants, talking to each other like we either aren't there or are all deaf and blind, are saying there are only enough seats on the next flight for half the passengers on this one. I get booked on the 6:00 p.m. flight because I am already in line. The original flight was supposed to have left at 1:15. We have been at the airport since 11:30.

We go upstairs, sans strollers because they are on the plane that is not taking off (gate-checked), and the upstairs is not nearly as nice, new, clean, or carpeted. So Pants holds Meimei and walks in circles while I take Kitten for a walk. We find a McDonald's and get some food and go back. We all sit down and have some dinner, as it is now 5:30-ish. My phone is dead, so we find a plug-in to set next to on the floor while I charge it. During our little meal, the airport announces that the jetway is inoperable for our new flight, so there has been a gate change. Back to where we were. So we finish our meal, gather up our bags and our munchkins, and head back downstairs. The flight leaves late and we are all completely done by the time it takes off.

Everything goes downhill from there. The kids try to keep it together, but the last half hour of the flight is a complete melt-down. Kitten just starts crying uncontrollably during landing that Pants justs unbuckles her and holds her. It doesn't stop, but we feel better. It takes about 3 years to put the plane on the ground and I have these irrational thoughts of standing up and yelling at the pilot to just land on the freeway, for crying out loud.

We finally get down and we have to wait to taxi into the gate, and we're way in the back, so we have to wait forever to get off. And apparently they have driven us home, but we have to walk all the way back through the airport to get our luggage. This must have been why it took so long to taxi. And we wait for our baggage, but the baggage coming out isn't even for our flight - right carousel, but apparently they can't use any of the other 7 open carousels for our flight, they have to wait for this one to be done. So we decide to take the kids to the car, and we know we are in the green ramp, but there is a green ramp for short term and a green ramp for general parking, which is about the dumbest thing I ever heard. So we end up in the wrong green ramp and we just turn on each other.

Now, it takes a lot for the two of us to really go at each other, but we hit the end and went for each other's throats. It only lasts about two sentences and we just stop speaking after that. We both know it's all the tension, that neither of us meant any of it, so we try to pick up and go on, stop the madness and try to be nice to each other. We apologize later.

We find the car eventually, Pants takes off to get the luggage, I get the kids and carry-ons into the car, pick up Pants, and we finally get home. Kids go into bed as is, Meimei gets a bottle, and we sit down and have a beer.

This isn't even all of it. I skipped some of the other insults, like one of the beers on the plane getting kicked off the seat-back tray and falling into Pants's lap, and the same partial beer getting somehow kicked out of the seat pocket and dousing several toys. When I went back onto our old flight to get our carryons, after we got booked onto the new flight, there were several people waiting to get off that weren't being allowed off by the flight crew, who apparently had gotten a different story than the gate crew.

And the reason the flight got canceled completely? Not because they couldn't fix it. The pilots were at the end of their "flight day", meaning they had started too early to complete the late flight, according to federal regulations. Which is all fine and everything, you don't want a pilot falling asleep on you, but didn't they know that an hour before? When they announced it was going to take an hour to fix the plane?

Does anyone care about customer service anymore?

I struggle to come up with direction for my woebegotten little website. So I come up with labels and other items, but often, after reading everyone else's blogs, which I always do first, I forget what I was going to write about and I just tell you all what's happening with the kids. It's a direction, but it's audience is limited.

But here is my new passion - customer service. One of my goals this year is to create a complete customer service training package (reps and managers) and website with continuation training, etc. etc. And here's what I am now noticing - customer service really sucks in this country.

So here's a new direction. I'm going to rant to all of you about poor, and hopefully some good, customer service experiences. Names and all. And if I can help one bored service worker be just a little nicer to the next person, WHO MIGHT BE ME, I will have done my job.

So here goes.

Sunday, we got MIL to come sit with the children while we went to see 300 at the IMAX. Movie criticisms aside, if you're going to see a movie at the IMAX, this is the one to see. It's visually quite beautiful if you can get past all the blood and killing.

Anyway. We got advance tickets to the IMAX in St. Michael, the new CineMagic. VERY nice theatre, and they have a bar. And you know how often I get a sitter, so we went straight to the bar on the second floor and got mixed drinks. They only had one bartender, though, for a sold-out movie that was attended by men about 10-1 over women - big mistake. But this isn't my problem. I'm just saying, bar is to theatre as lightbulb is to home inventions. Brilliance.

After my drink, we still have about 14 minutes before the movie starts, so Pants goes back to the bar and I go downstairs to get an ICEE. I wait in line about 10 minutes, which I know I am in for because the movie is sold out, they have at least 10 other screens, yada yada. Not great, but I get it. I get up to the front and make my order to the teenager behind the counter, and I mistakenly order food because I haven't eaten yet today. The boy comes back a minute later and tells me they don't have mini doughnuts (something about the machine being broken?) and ask if I just want a refund.

Now, this is mistake #1. He could easily sell me something else, but he offers to give me money back. Not a service issue, but dumb for the company. Keep my money dude as long as you can.

Mistake #2. The kid then asks the man behind me (and his friend) to wait while he tries to get a manager to do the refund. It's stupid that he can't do it himself (to all the retail managers out there, figure out another way), but to ask the guy to wait? He's obviously not as forgiving as I am about the line and he's already pissed that his movie (MY MOVIE) starts in 2 minutes. He waits about 90 seconds before he angrily asks how much a soda is so he can just pay and leave and the kid can ring it up later. But the kid rings it up like there is really no problem at all. Nice cover, kid. He is then so nervous he forgets a dollar of the guy's change and just gives him the coins. So now the guy is angry, not just annoyed, his friend gets out of line completely (lost sale), and he harrasses the kid to give him a dollar out of the next guy's money before he even gets it near the cash drawer. Something about a "black hole".

Mistake #3. The manager, another very young kid (girl, maybe 20), is running around trying to get everyone change because their registers are low. The kid asks for his change and, as an afterthought, says he needs a refund. She says, no lie, "I don't have time for that right now." I'M STILL STANDING RIGHT HERE. Boy, do I feel like a special customer. I'm still not saying anything because my food isn't out yet, so I have to wait anyway. But I watch the manager come and go two more times and not only do I not get a refund, Junior doesn't mention it again. I guess he should have made everyone else wait so he didn't forget.

Mistake #4. When my food is brought out, I still haven't received a cup for my drink. So, admittedly sounding very snotty at this point, I ask the little food girl for a cup for my drink. She looks just a bit scared, goes and gets the cup, and starts to make excuses as to why she couldn't have known that I needed a cup. Don't take it personally, babe, just take it for the company. In the end, she didn't even apologize, just got defensive and started making excuses. This was a prime opportunity to win me back over by saying something like, "I'm sorry." Or, "I'll get that for you right away. Is there anything else I can do?" But no, she was more interested in herself than me.

Mistake #5. So now I have my food. I have my drink. But I still have no refund. After about another minute or so, Junior looks at me and asks (I kid you not), "Are you STILL waiting for your refund?" When I say yes through gritted teeth, he says, "My manager keeps running off on me." Can you feel the empathy? Just close your eyes and feel the good vibes flowing from him to me. In a matter of another 90 seconds or so, he comes over and gives me the money, although I saw no manager come again. Hmmm.

I would love to complain, but I know I am already late for my movie. And even though I am told the movie started about 7 minutes late, I come in about 5 minutes into it. So the entire ordeal took more than 25 minutes.

So if anyone from St. Michael Cinemagic is reading this and would like to give me a free movie so I can have a better experience at their concession stand, please leave a comment. I paid a lot for the movie and the food and although your theatre is beautiful, I'm smuggling in treats next time. Your loss. Had any of you, at any time, tried to say something to win me back, this might have been a different story.

The truth is, people expect bad things to happen. People expect crappy service these days. It's only when everyone tries to pretend it isn't happening that you start to lose customers. If just one persons crosses that invisible canyon into human awareness instead of trying to maintain some idea of professional (read: chickenshit) demeanor, the whole situation could be saved.

Be human, people. If your friend were having a bad day, wouldn't you say, "Wow, that sucks." You can say that. It's okay.