

8 companies that nail Customer Service - kevin_morrill
http://refer.ly/p/kevin/collections/show/best_customer_service/4d8cb3d0d83111e1817f22000a1dc0b5

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rogerbinns
Compare and contrast with a US cell carrier - tmobile for example. In three
months they have sent me 3 bills all of which are wildly wrong. There are
columns of numbers and rows of numbers. None of the numbers add up to any of
the other numbers. I got charged 6 regulatory fees in two months. There are
numerous credits and unexplained charges. (BTW every single "error" has been
in their favour.)

They just sent me a text message saying my last bill was calculated wrong
without further explanation. I'm online only (save the trees etc) and I see it
has increased by about 10% without any explanation as to how. When I call them
up, there is an automated system you have to say what you want 4 times to
which it will say it doesn't understand 4 times, before letting you talk to a
person. The person doesn't have caller id and will ask the same question the
automated system did (eg last 4 of ssn). After 30 minutes they couldn't even
figure out what was going on, and said to call back a day later. Presumably
the hope is that someone else will have to work it out.

The call a month ago took 90 minutes. It took the rep who worked for them
1h15m to work out what the bill was trying to say. It also turns out that what
they show customers and what they show the reps differs. We had established
that the final total was wrong, but she couldn't work out what all the numbers
were or why they didn't add up to total, or why the total was more than it
should be. They eventually gave me a credit I think mainly because everyone
was just worn down.

And then we get back a further month to when I signed up online. They will not
let you select the plan until you pick a SIM card first. They mail you the SIM
card. They start charging you the moment their systems accept the new account.
This is before the SIM is mailed, before you receive the SIM card in the post
(4 days later) and before you actually put it into any device. The reasoning
is that you could call up and provision a different SIM card, and you are
somehow supposed to deduce that from being forced to pick one and receive it
in the mail.

It is like they are trying to have the worst customer service possible. Or
maybe they are hoping to wear customers out with bogus charges and confusion
since these shenanigans are only discovered after the initial trial period is
over and you are stuck with the contract.

My experience with Verizon Wireless about 10 years ago was somewhat similar
except nowhere near the same degree (they only screwed up two months of bills,
always in their favour, and quicker/easier to resolve).

~~~
kevin_morrill
Yeah it's very hard to have good customer service if you do it over the phone.
I mention USAA in this list, which I love. They do most of their business over
the phone, and are an absolute joy to work with.

~~~
rogerbinns
On the contrary it is significantly easier to do it over the phone (unless
that is what you meant). Web sites etc can only do what they have been
programmed to do, but are horrible at dealing with exceptions which is what is
happening to me non-stop.

My opinion is that the best customer service is the one that people have no
opinion of because they never needed to use it in the first place.

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KeepTalking
I recently had fabulous customer service at the home improvement retailer
Crate and Barrel.

The experience was completely outstanding: \- The sales person was never
forceful and carried a sense of desire to help us pick the best furniture for
our apartment. \- The delivery was precise on the clock to the minute on the
day and time specified. \- The fabric had a very very minor thumb print when
it was unpacked. All I had to do was to mention to the sales lady on our next
visit. She knew my contact details, setup the exchange and made sure the
furniture was out of this world. \- Granted C&B charge premium rates but it is
this sort of service that blows my mind.

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klochner
Title submission guidelines? The "8" should be removed, for:

"Companies that nail Customer Service"

I'm guessing that's why you were bumped from page one so quickly.

~~~
ojiikun
Does anyone have any insight about the basis for this rule? Most of the
guidelines seem pretty understandable, but this looks very arbitrary to a non-
veteran.

~~~
klochner
HN disapproves of linkbait, the subject should stand on it's own without
sensationalism.

[http://www.blueglass.com/blog/how-to-compose-a-compelling-
li...](http://www.blueglass.com/blog/how-to-compose-a-compelling-linkbait-
title/)

~~~
ojiikun
That article is refusing to load for me, but I found a cache and the answer
we're looking for is: "numerals at the beginning of an article are one
possible heuristic to identify linkbait, as top-N or list-style writing are a
common approach to such articles".

And now that I've seen that heuristic, I can't help but chuckle that many,
many articles on TechCrunch seem to be list-style. :)

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dmor
whoa, didn't realize you were going to do this _with_ a Referly collection,
not just on our blog. Is this a new way to blog? Happy accident!

