Sprint Clarifies How Annoying Is Too Annoying > Mmm, I see

reply to exocet_cm

Re: Mmm, I see

reply to fAcEtIOUs
I have to call Sprint every month because of a billing issue. Today I've been on the phone for 2 hours to try and resolve an issue that I've had since I got the phone 18 months ago. When they set up the account, they neglected to remove the previous owners' County information, so I was being charged tax in two different counties. For months they were trying to tell me that it was my fault, I set up the account incorrectly (went to a Sprint store and had them set it up, exactly how did I go wrong here? Oh yeah, I went to a Sprint store, I should have gone somewhere else). They have finally stopped charging me, but I still can't get refunded for the past 18 months of erroneous charges. They keep telling me it's some other department, or I have to get the money back from the County, or anything else they can think of besides actually taking care of the issue.
I also had issues with Roaming (why do I need to roam when I'm on Main St. in Frisco, 5 blocks from I-70???). Those seem to be resolved after about 10 calls.
I am out of my contract and as soon as I find a better provider (iPhone?) I'm so done with them.

reply to Jeffrey
the customer signs a contract. Sprint holds your feet to the fire in regards to your obligations, why not hold their feet to the fire when they screw up?
Or are you just the type of idiot that Sprint wants; A non-questioning direct-billing recipient of bad service that does not scrutinize your bill whatsoever?

reply to fAcEtIOUs
Indeed, having worked in a call center, I know which ones are trying to work the system.

"Hi, my bill has jumped 40$ why?!", Customer
"You were on a 12 month promotion, which discounted the cost. If you dont like the cost, we can trim services, make changes and get the bill to a level that works for you?", CSR
"No, I dont want to make any changes, I want what I originally agreed to", Customer
"What you agreed to was a 12 month promotion, which ended last month. You do have options, we can make changes and lower the bill", CSR
"I want to talk to your supervisor!", Customer

It happens quite alot, when the customer doesnt want to cut services to lower the bill, all they want is an extension of the promotion. They are basically working the system and they know it, they just do a bad job at pretending they are shocked. Occasionally they throw in the "IM ON A FIXED INCOME, I CANT AFFORD THIS", and the monthly bill is basically 120$ a month for all bells and whistles services. If your on a fixed social security income, you can barely afford TV.

For billing abuse, I do deal with alot of customers who refuse to understand what pro-rating is. Since our company bills for the month in advance, major account changes require us to re-rate or re-bill them. So whatever they upgrade or downgrade to, they get billed for a month and a few weeks worth of service. They think were over billing them, they dont even bother to look past the 1st page where it FULLY details the cost of each service and the dates they were billed for. They call, and call, and keep calling trying to get us to credit them a few weeks worth of billing because of the changes they make. It happens and the customers typically are rude or abusive.

We would never drop them, but with some customers, they basically have to be transfered to the manager immediately when they call. They don't want to do because they know the manager will clearly define the terms of their service. Explaining everything so that there can be NO confusion later on, and still they keep calling.

TOTALLY DUDE!

I'm a supervisor for a terrible cable/hsd/tel company. I was going to write a piece, but you nailed it.

I just like to add that our service, is bottom barrel shit. I can understand why our customers call. The idiots we herd to handle the phones, they can't handle simple task, much less being berated by the general public for 8 hours.

The techs we use are the worst. Always running off at the damn mouth to the sub about shit they know nothing about.

We have new leadership at our supervisor queue and it is rough now. Most of the agents are dumb asses, the public has seen in the media how poor our customer service is. So, when they call, they immediately want to bypass the regular agent, who may be able to help them.

It is a sad, sick vicious cycle. Thats why, when I saw this article after work, I was like "Hell Yeah! Thats customer service!". A guy said we had poor customer service today, because "you did not call us and let us know our promotion was going to expire". WTF!?!

reply to elister
Then again, there's my case where they kept billing me double the cost of the Wireless Web service which I was told was 10 dollars flat when I signed up. Magically, it jumped to 15-20 dollars and NO it wasn't a promotion. Next, I kept being charged extra on my repair plan. The best one, 60 dollars in a month for roaming that was included in my package. Ah yes, the countless hours on the phone with the incompetent techs who kept promising it to be fixed and only made things worse. Hell, I got the same song and dance as this woman. It took almost a year to finally get our billing correct. I finally said screw it, contacted the State Attorney General and Better Business Bureau. It was only then did my matter get any real priority and corrected. While I am sure you are a good tech, there are plenty who flat suck at this job. If you aren't trained properly or don't know the system, maybe a career change is needed. Thankfully, for the last 6 months, I've had a correct bill. I am sure 95 percent of people calling are like me. Sick and tired of telling them to fix their stupid mistakes. There might be the other 5 percent working the system. Who knows. Yet, that's not the majority.

In defense of the reps who promised to fix it-- hell, they probably honestly thought they could/did fix it. Then, if/when they find out they didn't/couldn't, they can't or don't want to give you a call back to give you the bad news.

Yeah, I speak from experience. I've -been- that agent before. I've seen every permutation of I did/will fix it but didn't/couldn't and didn't know it/found out after-the-fact.
--
Think outside the fox...Seamonkey

reply to maccentric

reply to elister

reply to Jeffrey
^"I clearly stated I don't have Sprint and I have never had a problem with any bill as far as over-charging, for as far back as I can remember."

Seems you overlook the fact the news item isn't about you...?

These guys felt the need to call in an clarify problems they thought existed. Seems ENTIRELY LOGICAL that if Sprint manned up to the problems, be it a real problem or p-noid customer, they MIGHT have found a concise way of telling their paying customers "you know what, your wrong and here's why" or "we'll fix that for you, sorry" (cold day in hell that last word is ever used by them).

One lady found many monetary problems in her bill, and so called to have them change it. Yet they shafted her. Why? Was it that her calling-in spree took up to much bandwidth(?), choking up the queue line? Or do they only do bizness with people that don't scrutinize their bill?

That's the problem right there. Don't offer free call in support numbers if you gonna get ya friggin panties wet when people 'call in'...lol. Otherwise, man the eff up. The money machine ain't stopping cuase of these few thousand people...

reply to Anub1s
Dude you Rock this is totally true and funny

reply to sivran
Well good intentions often go bad. There are suppose to be logs to show whats been tried. However, no one seems to look at those. Everyone has a tendency to do the same thing over, and be surprised when it fails. Call it lack of training, understaffed, or simply not caring. I am not sure which it is. However, for the consumer, it equates to a headache when you got to call multiple times a month for the mistakes THEY create not you. Hence, sprint canceling customers for calling up too much is a joke.

reply to FiL

reply to tc1uscg
Yes, I'm quite aware that the iPhone isn't a service, it's a phone provided by AT&T, I just assumed there was a certain level of intelligence here that could make that leap (since there's only one carrier that has the iPhone, it implies that I'll be using that service, no?). Also, as I noted in your quote, I'm out of my contract, I'm just waiting to see how things pan out with the iPhone or if I should go with Verizon, who seems to have the best service out here.
Likely it is people like you who are manning the phones at Sprint which is the reason my bill is wrong practically every month (can't comprehend simple English, can't make rudimentary logical associations, etc.)

Newsflash?---yeah, thanks. Though you did provide some decent info after trying to make me sound like an idiot.