Beware the danger of low expectations

I blew it.

Not only did I blow it, I did what they would do: instead of reading the letter, I skimmed it, assumed I knew what it said and provided a quick, terse, stock response before breezily clicking 'send'. Why? Because I thought I was reading a quick, terse, stock response from a minion paid to copy, paste and send quick, terse, stock responses. I was wrong.

I'll explain in a minute what this is all about. But first, a little more self-flagellation. I HATE it when customer service people don't listen to what I'm saying, but instead frame my words within their own idea of what they already suspect the problem to be. I feel like I'm writing in hieroglyphics here. Try this: When I say "Waiter, there's a hair in my soup," the waiter may hear "Waiter, I ordered this soup, tasted it, and have now changed my mind." If he's a good waiter who's used to fussy customers, he'll take the soup away and take it off the bill. If he's an excellent waiter he'll recognize that a hair is gross and send the manager by to apologize and start an  investigation into the origins of the offending fiber, even if it's all just for show. The first waiter frames your words in his own idea of what's happening, while the second listens to what you have to say. Today I was the first waiter. And I HATE the first waiter. He solves the immediate problem, but does nothing to address the root of the issue and prevent it from happening again.

The story

Back in January, I wrote to John Baird, Canada's Transport minister, because of ridonculous rules surrounding carry-on baggage on flights to the USA. You can see the letter here. There was no reply until today, when an email from one Laureen Kinney appeared in my inbox .

After the usual salutation, it started:

"I am writing in response to your correspondence of January 6, 2010, in which you provided comments regarding enhanced security measures for passengers and their carry-on baggage."
Blah blah blah blah blah.... blah blah blah... blah blah blah.
Sincerely,
Laureen Kinney 

I made two mistakes when I read this. The first was to think of how typical a name like "Laureen Kinney" was for some poor junior bureaucrat who was handed the stack of files to respond to. Under pale green fluorescent lighting, no less. This set my expectations nice and low, providing the frame for my reading of the letter.

The second mistake was to not pay attention to the words that followed the author's name. It's not just Laureen Kinney, office flack. It's Laureen Kinney, Director General of Aviation Security. Big difference. The office flack gets an email that goes something like this:

Dear Laureen,
Thanks for the reply. It's appreciated.
Letterman 

The Directors General of anything, though, have their hands on the sticks. They make the decisions, they make the calls. They're the deciders. I had the opportunity to fill the DG's ears with my cool, rational arguments for more sane air travel, and... I blew it! Laureen Kinney, Director General of Aviation Security, replied to me personally, and in return got the word-for-word reply you see a few lines up (names changed to protect the retarded). She's probably, rightfully, pissed, and I effectively cut off any further dialogue and any further chance to nudge air travel policy one way or the other. My vapid response tells her that I just wanted to yell and be heard, but that I don't really care about the details one way or the other.

That's not what this blog is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about effecting change. I do care. I'm mad at myself for letting an opportunity slip through my hands.

The rationalization

It's not all bad. The rules governing carry-on, in fact, changed two weeks after my first letter. I like to think that I had something to do with the speed of that change, if not the substance. The DG's letter affirms that people in positions of power do take note when the masses grumble, and that there is communication between the Transport Ministry and its departments.
I suppose if I really wanted to I could re-establish contact by posing as my own PR flack and sending a more well-thought out reply. Busy people delegate stuff like this, right?

Dear Ms. Kinney, it would start. It has come to our attention that you recently replied to a letter sent by our client on January 6, 2010. Please note that our client's policy is that any response received after 60 days of waiting will be handled tersely. We appreciate your understanding in this matter and look forward to providing you with input on matters of air travel security in the future.

The Sundry Thought Group

It's no coincidence that a bell says 'Ding Dong'

Ahhh Bell. You purveyor of telecommunications services and perennial pisser-off of customers across the continent. You are the gold standard of crap service so today, my blog is devoted to you.

The telling of this story was inspired by reading George Vaccaro's account of his run-in with Verizon.

We had a run-in with the machine called Bell in 2005. At that time they were providing our local and long-distance calling as well as high-speed internet via their Sympatico arm. Phone and internet bills arrived and were paid separately and all was good. Then in a fit of organizational reoganization Bell decided that it would merge bills for phone and internet. No complaints from us, since one bill is easier than two. This was in June.

July: We got the first bill and paid it. Nice.

August: The second bill arrived. It showed that we had a credit for $40 or so on the internet portion, while we still owed $40 for the phone portion. Since this was clearly Bell's own internal accounting error, we called, waited the typical 30-45 minutes on hold, and spoke to a customer service rep who told us not to worry... he'd take care of it. Done.

September: The third bill arrived. The credit on the internet account had doubled, as had the balance owing on the phone side. They also kindly threw in a late payment penalty. Back on the phone. Hold for 30-45 minutes. Re-explain everything. Apologetic customer service rep. Bill-merging project not going as smoothly as expected. Won't happen again sir. Problem solved.

October: Guess what.

November: Our phone line goes dead with no warning. My wife was working from home at the time and relied heavily on the phone so this was a big deal. The internet still worked, so we knew the physical lines were OK. We had received some mail from Bell saying we owed such and such but each time we got one we called, waited, and were told to ignore the letters. Using Skype (and don't forget the wait on hold!) we found out that the line had been cut because of amounts owing. Before we could explain ourselves Skype dropped the call.

At that point my wife gave up. I called from work the next day but of course since it's my wife's name on the account and Bell can see that I'm calling from a strange number they wouldn't deal with me. "Have your wife call us," they tell me. "From what phone?" I ask. "From your home phone," they suggest, helpfully. Arrrrgh!

That evening after work I have wifey on standby to deal with Bell's security concerns while I dial them up on Skype. Of course now it's OK that a strange guy is calling from a strange number, and they hear me out. They offer no apologies but say they'll try to re-establish service within 48 hours. Finally! Phone service established the next day. The first call on our reborn line was to Primus, who have provided us with great prices and service ever since.

The full depths of Bell's schizophrenia were only revealed after we left. On one hand, they felt we owed them money and sent bills for services rendered after Primus took over, even though I had provided them with the required one-month notice. On the other hand, they sent us monthly letters saying - no joke - "Missing you. Things just aren't the same without you as our customer." Amen to that, brother.

We still get bills from Bell once in a while but now they just go straight into the shredder. Unrequited love? Not sure. Don't care. We have already spent at least four hours on the phone, most of it on hold, trying to help Bell pull its tiny head out of its stinky bits. We're done with them.

Bell: Don't call me. I'll call you.

Next post: Thirty two easy steps to getting fair treatment from Air Canada. 

George, I feel your pain.

George Vaccaro's blog will resonate with anyone who has ever had a billing issue with a big telecom. George was quoted a roaming rate of .002 cents/kB of data by Verizon, but was billed at $.002. It's the difference between $71 and $0.71. After trying to teach basic math over the phone to increasingly senior Verizon employees he gave up and posted a recording of his conversation which seems to have helped in greasing the wheels: Verizon offered him a 50% refund the next day, then offered the full refund two days after that. 


Here's an excerpt of the conversation. George is speaking to Andrea, a Verizon floor manager:

A: I'm sorry that you um, already talked to a few different people here..

G: ...Let me cut to the chase.. Well

A: ...and they've all explained to you that you're being billed .002 cents, and if you take...

G: I'm not being billed...

A: ...and put it on your calculator.. it shows you that..

G: No it doesn't, I can do...

A: We never said that you're gonna get billed .00002 cents.

G: That's right, you said I was gonna get billed .002 cents per kilobyte, and I'd be happy to pay that. Now, why don't you bring up your calculator?

A: .002 cents, yeah.

G: Take .002, and we're talkin' about cents, right?

A: Right, .002, and if we multiply that by the amount of kilobyte usage that you have...

G: 35,893.

A: ...35,893, that comes out to what you paid, $71.79.

G: Cents. You never did the conversion from cents to dollars.

A: Cuz we're talkin' about cents, we're gonna multiply the amount of cents by the amount of kilobytes that you used...

G: Okay, ya know, ok... 

There's 27 minutes of this pure gold, and George is a lot more patient than I am. I'm impressed that he got a solution in three days. When we had a billing issue with Bell it took us months to (almost) sort out. I explain that one in a separate post.