Category: Customer Service

  • $200 Asterisk for the iPhone 3G


    iphone 3g $199    If you are like me you didn’t notice the tiny asterisk in this image. But there is one. Do you see it?

    This morning I intended on lining up at the Partridge Creek Apple Store to upgrade both of my AT&T phones to the smoking hot iPhone 3G. 

    Since I’ve been a loyal AT&T customer since 1998 I knew I needed to call their customer service and make sure there weren’t any surprises. And boy am I glad I did.

    Not pictured here with Steve is the asterisk. You have to be a new customer or have an expired contract with AT&T to get this price. In the dozens of articles and videos I’d watched about the new iPhone I somehow missed this little detail. Stupid Adam, fooled again.

    So, people like me who have been loyal to their wireless company are getting hosed. No love for us on the iPhone. The loyal customer price is $399. Even on the Apple site I can’t find $399 mentioned as the price, but that’s how AT&T has always treated loyal customers… horribly. 

    So, I talked to customer service. If you are like me and are looking to get an iPhone 3G for the advertised $199 instead of the loyal customer price of $399, here are a few tricks the customer service agent told me to try. 

    #1 Cancel your existing account. Yes, she told me that! After 10 years as a customer, I was told the best service I could get with AT&T was to cancel my account. 

    #2 Add lines, suspend lines. To get the $199 I could add 2 lines to my family plan for $10 per month and suspend my current 2 lines for free. Eh? She even told me I should just give away my other 2 lines “to anyone.” 

    #3 Keep calling AT&T until you get someone to agree to give you the upgrade price before your current contract expires. (Mine is in September)

    #4 Open a new account under a new name. If you are like me and have a family plan, just close your account under one name and start a new account under the other. 

    Of course I am not going to do any of these. Next month we are moving across the country and I know from experience with AT&T that they’ll offer me a new two year contract than. This may also be our time to try a new company, like Verizon. 

    AT&T has always had the worst customer service in the mobile phone industry. I’ve long held that AT&T is a great company as long as you never call the 800 number and that is re-confirmed every time I talk to “customer care.” 

    Here I am, a customer of 10 years that would like to re-up his contract for 2 more years at a rate nearly double what he currently pays and I’m told I can do one of 4 “tricks?” 

  • Online Car Buying Stinks

    fast eddyKristen and I are in need of a car. We haven’t completely decided on the model, but we are fairly certain our new car in San Diego will either be a compact car that gets good gas mileage or a hybrid. 

    Since we’ve not bought a car in over 10 years I was expecting that the car buying industry was a little different. 

    It isn’t. Not a thing has changed. You can find limited information online. You certainly aren’t invited to do most of the transaction online. And overall I think car dealers websites stink. It’s as if car dealerships have no idea that people regularly buy things over the internet simply to avoid the unpleasant “Fast Eddie” experience.

    In my ideal world I would test drive the 5-6 cars we are interested in a single location, then negotiate and purchase my car online. The only time I’d have to walk into a showroom filled with stale coffee, ugly ties, and worn out office furniture would be to pick up my keys, sign some stuff, and tell them to take that license plate cover off.

    But I live in a fantasy world. There is no way I’m going to be able to buy my new car without hearing “I need to talk to my manager” followed by “Can I get you a coke?” 

    Hey Fast Eddie. You’re fired homie. 

  • 2 Weekend Retail Annoyances

    Just thought I would share two annoying things that happened to us over the weekend from local retailers.

    1. Ritz Camera I’ve not been shy on Twitter about my desire to buy Kristen a killer camera. We finally decided on a lens/body package and headed over to the mall to pick it up. This wasn’t a small purchase and I expected the clerk at the store to treat it that way. What we ended up with was a gum chewing mall rat. She was very nonchalant about the whole thing and a little snobbish. I kept thinking to myself, “We’re spending more in 15 minutes than she’ll make in 2 months.” When we were checking out she repeatedly tried to upsell me. An extra couple memory cards? An extra battery? An extra lens thing? A bag? And my personal favorite… a 3 year replacement plan which costs 75% of the item! So I was annoyed already and ready to leave. Then we went to pay. And then she asked for my drivers license. I thought, “Kind of odd, but whatever.” Then she pulled our some 1995 looking binder and proceeded to start calling the bank. My blood pressure shot up as my blood boiled. We were spending some money, but not THAT MUCH money. After about five minutes of announcing to the small store all sorts of personal information like my bank account numbers, drivers license numbers, home address, phone number… you know, everything someone would need to open a credit card in my name. I was annoyed enough that I had wandered to the front of the store to calm down. Then she hung up the phone and loudly said from the back of the store, “Mr. McLane, you’ve been declined. Do you have another form of payment?” Right in that second I had to make a decision. Lose it or let it go? I chose to let it go and we left the store. The account we were drawing from had 3x’s the amount of cash needed to cover the cost… she was just a twit that couldn’t complete a simple transaction. Want my advice on buying a nice camera? Ebay. I came home, went on Ebay and got a better package deal for $200 less. Forget Ritz. They will be out of business soon anyway.
    2. There is a gas station in Romeo deserves some exposure. They’ve been running a little scam for a couple of months and it’s time someone says something. They very intentionally advertise their prices at $.10 lower than the gas station across the street. So right now the new station (with the Tim Hortons going in) is $3.99. The offending station has advertised $3.89. The trick is simple… they are actually charging $3.99 but you won’t know that until you put your card in the pump. It’s a scam. It’s stupid. And I hope they get fined for it.

    I don’t wish ill-will on anyone or any company. But I just can’t stand bad customer service or false advertising. In the end, the consumer will not be deceived. They may get a sale or two… but business in retail is about repeat business and not single transactions.

    There are a lot of businesses going out lately. The difference between winners and losers right now is obvious. And these are two companies that don’t stand a chance.

    p.s. For those whining about gas prices. Gas is over $11/gallon in Northern Ireland. And I paid $4.88 in San Diego.

  • Bank Robbery: Why banks rob consumers…

    bank robberWalking into a bank is like walking into a casino. You walk into the building and think to yourself, “Where did they get all of this money?” The answer is simple: They make it from people like me.

    (more…)

  • CSR: Youngers Irish Tavern

    CSR GoodIt’s St. Patrick’s Day! So it’s time to cover the only “Irish” place in town. We’ve lived in Romeo nearly 5 years and this location, 120 S. Main Street, there has been at least restaurants. Younger’s is the only one good enough concept to truly make it.

    Location: Downtown Romeo. With ample parking in the rear and street parking, access is never an issue. As far as Romeo is concerned this is prime real estate.

    Description: The first time I entered Younger’s I was blown away. I really felt like I had stepped into a place on Rochester Road in downtown Rochester. The owners of Younger’s completely transformed the space. And it looks great. Inside there are two completely different environments. The high top bar area (which I prefer) and the more traditional booth and table seating. It claims to be an Irish bar. And the main bar area could pass for such if the interior were less spacious and featured local football or rugby club decor instead of the “old Ireland” photos. But a noble attempt nonetheless.

    The food itself is very good. I particularly enjoy the sweet potato fries and the bleu cheese burger. Soups are also quite good there.

    Service: Holding Younger’s back is its service. The upscale feel, decor, quality of cuisine, and price are not always matched by the service of the staff. While they are appropriately friendly they tend to lack knowledge of their products and the food comes very slow. (Plan on lunch taking 70-80 minutes) This is probably fine when one is on a date… but when I’m on lunch or going after church this is simply too long to wait for food.

    Cost: These are golf course prices. Typically, a lunch for one will cost $10-11. (burger, fries, pop, tip)
    While the quality of the food makes up for that, I am normally so rushed to leave by the time the food arrives that the cost vs. quality equation pushes me to the “don’t come” at the moment of decision. (No such problems with two competitors in the same strip.)

    Rating: Gosh, I really love the food here. And I am confident that Younger’s is going to make it. But this is a customer service report… they are “good.” I hope that they address these basics concerns to move on up towards excellence. (Speed, knowledge of product.) They can do better. And with lots of competition for food service business in Romeo at this price point, let’s hope they get it right soon.

    Sidenote: I think I’m going to start giving lower ratings for local businesses who don’t have a web page. Heck, I’m willing to barter for food!

  • CSR: The Crazy Loon Cafe & Pie Company

    CSR GreatWith Pepper’s, the Doghouse, and Sempre` now out of business, I am looking for a new spot for my lunch rotation. This gives me the chance to revisit some old favorites that just didn’t make my rotation before.

    Location: 66850 VanDyke Washington Township This is one of those diamonds in the rough kind of things. The strip mail just south of 31 Mile, Woodland Plaza, may not look that appealing but there are a few good spots in there. (Juliet Chocolate being another)

    Description: If this were in a city I’d call it a whole in the wall. It’s a small store front that serves interesting, upscale-like sandwiches and pies. The decor has kind of a cabin feel to it with pictures of Loons and other water fowl. But overall, it is clean and simple… two things that typically don’t bode well for the long-term life of a small eatery in Romeo. They do their two main things very well, sandwiches and pie. Both are outstanding and you shouldn’t leave without trying both. Another bonus is that they make their own potato chips. They are awesome!
    Service: The thing that sticks out to me is that they aren’t afraid to be quirky. Every time I’ve been in there the folks who worked the counter gave me a hard time and left me with a smile. This is atypical for Romeo! For some reason most servers are kind of shy as if they are ashamed to work there or wouldn’t work at all if it weren’t for mom and dad breathing down their neck to get a job. This isn’t the case at the Crazy Loon. They are fun. If I had to find a negative, it’s actually a positive. Food is a little slow since they make every sandwich to order.

    Cost: I typically get a sandwich, drink, and a slice of pie and that costs about $8. In my book that’s cheap.

    Rating: A great sandwich for a low price with sassy service that leaves you smiling, full, and happy to go back to work? That’s great service to me.

  • K Mart saved Christmas

    kmart logoWithout sounding overly dramatic, K Mart saved our Christmas day. After the service last night I took a gander at our food situation. Let’s just say the cupboards were bare and the day had been so insane that we hadn’t had the chance to get groceries.

    A quick search on Google maps determined that every grocery store in our area closed at 7:00 PM. Unphased by that reality and in search of anything that could be assembled into a Christmas dinner I started driving around.

    If you’ve never had to shop on Christmas eve, plan on doing it in 2008. It’s a trip. A lot of gas stations are closed. Any type of grocery store is closed. Most pharmacies are closed. Specialty stores are closed. Pretty much everything closes on Christmas eve at 7:00 PM. (I know, I checked!) Wal*Mart. Miejer. Kroger. Vince & Joes. Sheenah’s. Everything.

    So this left me with two choices. Liquor stores or KMart. Every liquor store in Michigan was open late last night… but I figured that my hopes of getting mashed potatoes, ham, and other items for a Christmas dinner were slightly better at KMart. (Serving the kids Slim Jim’s and Molson Ice for Christmas seemed a little like child abuse. I wasn’t quite that desperate… yet.) So I pulled into the KMart parking lot at 23 & Van Dyke at 8:45 PM.

    The place was packed!

    And it was filled with tons of people just like me. Did you know that KMart has a grocery section? They don’t have much of one… but they have one. It was getting tribal in the grocery aisle as we were all looking for the same thing, meat! As I contemplated spam and ham cold cuts for Christmas dinner… the aisle filled with people looking for “one thing” they forgot to purchase. A conversation quickly erupted of the places we saw that were open that might have sour cream, yams, or freshScrooge fruit. I settled on pot roast and mashed potatoes then walked around looking for other things. After double checking the store for a spare ham in a can and walking around to snag some last minute stocking stuffers, I headed the check out where a scantly clad checkout girl scanned everything and I headed home. (She must have thought it was Halloween. Brrr.)

    I just want to add. Had a grocery store stayed open until 10 last night they would have done quite well. While I had fun trying to put together “something” for a Christmas feast… it would have been so much better at a grocery store.

    I kept thinking about Charles Dickens’s Scrooge. Where did he get that goose and all those presents on Christmas morning? It must have all come from KMart– open until 10 on Christmas eve.

  • Phew! Romeo Printing Company Saves the Day

    Last night about midnight I shot out of bed. I realized that I forgot to pick up the bulletins for Sunday services. It was one of those days where I had about 25 things to do and the email Jason sent me never made it onto my scribbled “to do” list. Ugh, we kind of need that for services on Sunday.

    I stumbled through the darkness and turned on the computer to try to find the Romeo Printing Company website. They don’t have one. Then I finally found a listing for them on Google with their phone number.

    Wouldn’t you know my luck? They aren’t open on Saturday’s. I went back to bed making a mental list of what I would have to do to fix this problem:

    1. I’d go over to the church.
    2. Print a new batch.
    3. Bring home the cutter.
    4. Cut and fold them myself.
    5. Tell Jason on Monday morning.

    Before our traditional pancake breakfast I ventured over to the church. On the way, I saw a light on in the back of the print shop. (small town!) I thought, “what are the chances that someone is working this morning? Pretty good!” So I go to the front door and bang. Nothing. A few more minutes of banging louder. Nothing. Crap! There is a light on but I don’t see anyone way back in the shop. My last chance is to call the office one more time. (Having flashbacks to working solo on Saturday’s at BlueCross.) On about the 4th ring I see someone going for the phone. Saved! I run to the back door and he gives me the bulletins.

    It may seem like a pretty small thing to be excited about. But it just worked out better that the original set was available. What a relief.

  • Less than perfect Apple experience

    Dress MacSo I don’t get flamed, let me first say that there are a lot of things I like about my new iMac. It’s pretty and it has loads of power.

    OK, that’s out of the way. Now I can complain about the things I’m not thrilled with on my new computer.

    1. It arrived with the wrong operating system. This cost me more than a few hours of my life. While it’s true I didn’t have to pay for Leopard, Apple shouldn’t have sold me a computer with their old operating system at full price without telling me. When I’ve complained about his to other Apple users I’m basically blown off as if this weren’t a big deal. It’s a big deal. I consider my time to be valuable.
    2. It won’t “just connect” to my Windows network at home. I have fiddled with it for ages trying to get the new operating system to talk to our XP Home desktop and my XP Pro laptop. The only solution I could make work was getting my laptop to talk to the Mac one way. In other words I can use a Windows computer to access the Mac but not visa versa. I’ve read dozens of tutorials and helps and it won’t work. That’s not cool in my book. It takes less than 2 minutes to do this in XP… 4 days and still not working on the Mac.
    3. There is really no introduction to Mac/Leopard available. I would consider myself pretty web/tech savvy when it comes to Windows and it has taken me a week to feel like I know how to do some things. If it weren’t for Patti and a few other long-time Mac users I probably would have just taken it back to the Apple store and went out and bought 2 new Windows desktops. At least with Windows I know how to make stuff work. Seriously, if they are looking for flocks of hardy Windows users to convert they are going to have to make the learning curve a whole lot less. I haven’t even figured out how to install new programs yet… at least not “the right way.” When I booted the thing up the first time I wish there was an introduction I could have watched to teach me most of the stuff I’ve had to ask about.
    4. Customer support is actually pretty average. Other than being American-based and not available 24 hours I don’t see anything atypical about being hung up on, put on hold for long amounts of time, and otherwise not helped. I explained my problem to a customer service person and she actually laughed at me. Way to make me feel like a million bucks, lady.
    5. Too many things that your expected to just know. Apparently you aren’t supposed to put DVDs with paper labels in an iMac. When I discovered this on an Mac users forum I was pretty annoyed. It’s just like the fact that my computer didn’t have Leopard installed… I was supposed to just know that too. So it took me a couple hours but I finally got that disc out.

    I know I sound ungrateful. This is a very pretty machine. My kids love it. Heck, I love it. But my experience is so far is that Mac just proves everything Seth Godin wrote in All Marketers Are Liars. The marketing department created a “lie” (e.g. marketing strategy) that their users believe. And they believe it to the core. Whether or not Mac is better than Windows isn’t even the discussion. The assumption that the user base has is that it is a superior product in every conceivable way.

    My point here is that I want people who are switching (as I am) to know that it’s not as easy as you think it’s going to be. Switching platforms is a radical change in how you use a computer. I am not saying “don’t do it” but at the same time I want potential people for the switch to know that it’s not a matter of taking the thing out of the box and plugging it in either. It’s a big change. It’ll take you a long time until it feels natural. All the time I am switching back to my laptop because I can do something easier, faster, and better on Windows than I can on Mac.

    Put that in a commercial!

  • CSR: Wendy’s

    Wendys_logoCsr_good
    You know you live in a small town when you are doing a customer service report on your local fast food chain.

    Location: This is the Wendy’s here in town, located on VanDyke, just south of the village of Romeo.

    Description: As I’ve mentioned before I go out to eat nearly every day for lunch. In doing so you inevitably will need some days when fast food is the only option because of time constraints. I will say that the local Wendy’s is one of my favorites. There isn’t anything special about the location or the building itself.

    Service: But they seem to make up for that in something I will describe as "almost satanically fast service." For example, if you go through the drive through you rarely wait more than a single car. You order quickly and pull up to the window where the transaction begins. If you aren’t ready for it… it will catch you off guard. Have your money ready! The clerk will tell you the total and you give her your hard earned "I want my spicy chicken bucks." Now here’s the trick… when they give you the change they will also start handing you food! Seriously, you can be in and out of Wendy’s parking lot in under 2 minutes. I’ve actually had people at the office think I had left to go do something in the building and I’ll come back with my food. It’s simply that quick.

    Cost: We’re talking fast food prices here. Lunch is generally $6-7. Maybe a tad more if I accidentally purchase a frosty.

    Rating: I have to be honest in saying that I’ve not always had perfect service at Wendy’s. Sometimes in that blur rush they screw up. I’ve gotten incorrect change back and I’ve even gotten halfway back to the office to discover that I had the wrong order. With that, and the offset for being a fast food chain, I’m rating the local Wendy’s 3 out of 5. It’s good and worth keeping in the lunch rotation.