Some years ago, after wrestling over whether to replace an ancient, borrowed answering machine, I flouted the gods who choreograph human patience, and hurriedly purchased its successor. I avoided, of course, the savvy of other buyers, and, with time, the cost of that quick purchase exponentially exceeded the time I had saved in skipping research. Looking back, the gods must have been howling and slamming their mugs on the bar as I stepped up to the cash register to pay for my choice, selected because the model looked attractive and because I had previously seen its name advertised.
After I had spent two years frustrated because the answering machine didn't live up to its manufacturer's claims, my hasty purchase thankfully went belly up. I decided it was time for a refund-and a replacement. I had already spent a luckless 18 months trying to get through to customer service to correct what I originally had thought was my inability to interpret the Owner's Guide's "instructionese." Whenever I dialed my number from another phone and entered my access code, the answering machine sat there mute, refusing to give up, even once, my callers' messages.
Is anybody there?
We don't encounter the busy signal much in these days of advancing telecommunications. Was I daft in my surprise at being stopped by the busy signal instead of getting through to even a digitized greeting from a manufacturer in this industry? In dozens of tries, I would have gratefully begged the scratchiest recorded voice for the opportunity to leave my name and number. I had begun to wonder if the repeating tone was a new voice mail feature. Maybe I didn't know how to access it either?
I recalled stories of people who finally got their problem cars serviced after protesting for a week outside a dealer with their car decorated as a lemon, or who had ultimately given up and parked their loathsome carriage in front of the show room window and sledgehammered the beast to scrap. I was empathizing with these consumer heroes. Fortunately, my financial loss was limited to 80 bucks. Yes, the unit did take messages successfully. But contrary to the "remote access feature" claims on the package, the only way to ever hear those messages was to trudge home and push the "play" button.
It is easy to regard the voices of warning and complaint as emanating from shaggy, deranged iconoclasts ranting alone in the wilderness-and ignore them. Ignore them, that is, until some infuriated soul threatens to herd every dog and cat from the local animal shelter through the organization's facilities. I decided to confine my disruptive desires for retribution to my fantasies, and simply ask for a refund. At the least, I could make some noise and determine if the manufacturer had any intention of satisfying this customer. I abandoned the telephone and relayed the history of my problems in a letter to the customer service manager.
"I am returning this Phonetag answering machine in its entirety, along with a copy of my original receipt, for a full refund. Never in the two years that I used it was I able to retrieve a single message remotely from the more than 15 phones which I tried!
"Yes, I tried to contact your customer service line once or twice a month for approximately 18 months. It became a game after a while, albeit a losing one. I tried both numbers and was met with a busy signal every time. Except once. During February 1991, I finally got through-after a 10-minute wait-unfortunately to an uninspired and terribly uninformed customer service representative. Her only suggestions were: 'Make sure you are using a true touch-tone phone.' 'How many do I have to try,' I responded, 'from major manufacturers before I begin to conclude that the problem lies with your product?' Next, she suggested mechanically that I try a different remote access code. The unenthusiastic tone of her voice conveyed little hope that this would work, but I could not get any other information from her other than, 'Yes, it is hard to get through to customer service on the phone,' and 'No, technically trained people are not available to help you with your problem.'
"I tried the new remote access code-10 times or so-from different phones. Guess what? No success. After 18 months of unsuccessfully attempting to access my messages remotely, while trying to contact customer service only to get a defeated voice that indicated none of these answering machines worked anyway-and nearly memorizing the Owners Guide-I gave up.
"This past fall, one of the spindles in the machine which spins the cassette's tape came apart, rendering the machine useless. As the one-year warranty was up, I decided that I would be damned before I would pay for repairs to a machine that had never worked as it should, especially to a manufacturer that provides such wretched customer service. Tired of being hamstrung, I bought, instead, a most satisfactory competitor's model, after much recommendation from my associates. Even the salesperson where I bought the new machine eagerly mentioned that he 'never recommends Phonetag.'
"Please, a full refund is the only solution acceptable at this point. Should you prefer another response, please just keep the unsatisfactory unit, and I will continue to bad-mouth your products at every opportunity."
Mr. Postman, look and see...
Nine days later a postcard arrived from Comm-
Comm Corp. informing me of their warranty and out-of-warranty repair policies (of which I had long been aware). Included was a schedule that said the unit was being repaired under the out-of-warranty policy and would ship within 15 days. It ended with a request to phone them (at my cost) if I wished to stop the repair and COD return of the product.
Three days later the repaired unit arrived COD. Naturally, I refused. The driver and I had a good laugh over the story. The same day, I received a letter from CommComm Corp. with a "genuine" apology for any inconvenience the product may have caused me and another explanation of their warranty policies, which included no provision for refunds. The letter ended with a subtle suggestion that the manufacturer was doing me a favor by repairing (and "fully testing!") the machine and returning it to me at my expense.
Two weeks later I received a form letter asking me just what I wanted CommComm Corp. to do with the machine: reship, or dispose of for charges? In neither letter did they list what problems were tended to. I stifled my impulse to suggest just where they might dispose of this beauty, wrote a second letter, this time to the president, and sent it with copies of all the correspondence to date.
"What are you folks smoking?
"P.S. By the way, my (competitor's name brand) replacement has worked from day one just as indicated."
The national service manager graced me with a second "genuine" letter of apology. He also treated me to a discourse on the company's "reputation for integrity in manufacturing and marketing products which excel in performance, durability, and reliability." (Translation: "Our products are only average. But, here, we goose-step to the tradition of shooting all messengers who bring bad news by trying to make you think that you are the only slob who has ever had these problems.")
He then added that time-honored tripe, ". . . every conceivable precaution is taken. . ." For what, he doesn't say, but anyone who has ever stumbled toward quality as a strategic weapon has begun to wash this cant out of his or her working vocabulary.
Our service hero continues the knuckle-rapping with the conclusion that my unit did not require maintenance until after the warranty period had expired. "I have given your request for an exemption to our warranty every consideration. However, in order to have a meaningful warranty, and to be fair to all of our customers, we must adhere to the terms of the warranty. I regret that you must assume financial responsibility for service on your out of warranty. . ." As I read this confused, spineless guano, visions of an automobile slowly, violently crumpling outside a showroom window returned to mind.
Customer service is very, very busy
An offer to hold my unit for 30 days was repeated, should I change my mind. A regular service, I presumed. The muddled discourse continued: "As an industry leader. . . CommComm's customer service line processes thousands of inquiries monthly. CommComm has taken steps to assure that our lines are staffed with sufficient operators to handle the workload during peak periods. Even though all reasonable precautions have been taken, problems may occur."
Huh? Thousands of inquiries monthly? I'll bet this customer service group is no stranger to despondency and cynicism. How many of them quit each year to bag groceries or join the homeless?
The letter's conclusion was not unexpected: "It is Comm-Comm's policy to attempt (italics mine] to satisfy all of our customers' reasonable requests and expectations. However, we do realize that this cannot happen in every case." By now, the dying automobile in my vision was nearly unrecognizable. My frustrations with this manufacturer had only grown with each contact. I tried to comfort myself by imagining how different this entire interchange might have been had the internal response been:
I had to pen one final letter, if only to clear up the issues for myself. For fun, and hoping to catch the attention of someone who might read a bit less selectively, I copied it to every officer of the manufacturer and parent company.
"Having just received your national service manager's knee-jerk collection of chest-thumping, weenie excuses, and passive apologies (attached), I'll try one last time to get a straight response to my original complaints about your product.
"Surely, someone on your staff understands that the post-warranty mechanical failure of your machine is not the issue, but the catalyst that prompted me to trash that dog (via your customer service department). Does no one have a clue that the problem, and thus my request for a refund, was that from day one, and for over two years, I was completely unable to retrieve messages remotely, and after trying for 18 months to get through to your 'customer service,' I gave up in exasperation?
"Your national service manager explains to knuckle-dragging cretins such as I, that, 'CommComm's warranty is expressed in terms of time, so that the customer has a ready means of determining its point of expiration, and can take action to use the benefits of the warranty.' Oh? But, if during the warranty period I get nothing but a busy signal month after month, does your warranty cover the cost of flying to L.A. and breaking down his door before the warranty expires?
"What more do you want from a customer who wasn't fortunate enough to time his calls so that he could be one of the 'thousands of inquiries processed' monthly? Let me be blunt: Your product never worked as claimed! Thus, I wish a refund.
"If you weren't so busy defending the fort, you might notice that there is a bit of a quality revolution brewing within our battered U.S. economy. It has been increasingly implemented by worried manufacturers who have realized that quality is necessary to business survival, that it is cheaper than the alternative, and that ignoring customers and then deflecting them with rubbish discourages loyalty.
"You might also tell your national service manager, when he isn't dictating whiny excuses for his inability to meet 'reasonable requests' instead of picking up the phone and calling customers to resolve their chronic problems, that, surprisingly enough, I had four opportunities during the past couple of months to influence the purchases of answering machines. All four of my acquaintances were grateful for my steering them away from-guess who?"
Justice will be mine
I never heard from these folks again. Among success-chasing savants, avoiding the inconvenienced, and especially the dispossessed, has long been de rigueur. I decided that I had expended enough energy knocking on the door of a customer service group that appeared to spend most of its time crouched on the floor between upturned mattresses and the wall, furiously answering the phone and spitting letters out of the computer while repeating the mantra, "Customers are jerks, customers are jerks. . . "
Doubtless, my case was cast into the file cabinets of lunatic customers: the unreasonable who desire acknowledgment, support and satisfaction. Many times during, and since, those two years, I have pondered the difference in cost savings and company reputation if the customer service department were accessible, if they were trained to do whatever it took, in as few transactions as possible, to meet customer's expectations of-the q-q-q-word.