I replaced our Replay TV when the old unit failed and Sears could not repair it. So I purchased a new unit with the refund I obtained from Sears. This is not bashing any "company". It is more a diatribe about how customer service can't be performed by people here in the US anymore.
I guess that throws the whole "Dianetics" theory out the window.
I wrote a paper in a university class, (about 15 years ago) that a service based economy would not work here because the American makeup was not capable of supporting it. Americans of this new generation are too self absorbed. They could not withstand the onslought that the World War Two generation did. Anyway, I digress.
SIDEBAR: People wonder why I buy stuff at Sears?!? Because they do what ever it takes to make the customer happy. That, and the fact that with as many times we have moved, there has always been a Sears around to help out with repairs, parts or such.
Ok, something you need to know about Replay TV's customer service. You have two possibilities for assistance. You either get support from a person in the US (they would not tell me where they were located, i.e. city/state), or you get a person in Delhi India. There are several instances which clearly are different in how good your support is.
Here was my question and the startup of the conversation(s) which I used for both calls. You will understand once you read the next two sections:
"Hello, I have a Replay TV unit which was replaced by a new unit. I called a little over a month ago and spoke to a representative there and finally to a manager to get this resolved. The problem was I wanted to get the final word on if the roll-over of the lifetime service would be carried over since I purchased a replacement unit for one that failed and could not be repaired. I originally purchased the unit at Sears but since they do not sell Replay TV anymore, I had to get the new unit at Best Buy. What I need is the fax number to send all the information the previous manager said I needed to fax in. She said I would need to call again to make sure the fax number was correct because she was under the impression it would be changing in the then near future. So, can you give me the correct fax number so I can send this in?"
This is where things were completely different in how I was treated and what the responses were.
United States Support:
If you get a real clear call with classical music when your on hold, you have a US support person. a The person who answered was as follows: I have to assume was a Caucasian woman, about 19 or 20. She sounded like a California woman from her disdain at me actually calling in the first place. She had a tone with a strong "valley girl" inflection in everything she said. All I could envision was a picture of a very young Fran Dresher, when she played the secretary in FM (the movie).
You could tell right off that this person was really going to be able to help me. (hint-hint-nudge-nudge-say no more). As soon as I relayed my question, her first answer was "Well, we can't do that" which BTW, gave me the clear impression that I was going to lose a (previously won) battle of wits to someone with an IQ of about 85 and an attitude of a spoiled brat working for their parents so they would continue to pay for her college education, gas money, and birth control pills.
OK, so after explaining the situation again, she puts me on hold (for over 10 minutes).
That is where I notice the clear classical music. I think it was a piece by Chopin, but I could be wrong. Well the piece of music was on a loop that repeated every 55 seconds so I was getting pretty good at humming it when she returned. Anyway, the woman comes back and said "I am sorry, but I can't transfer the account over." immediately I say "I need to speak to a manager. I have already been through this whole thing a month ago. The answer then was that there was not any problem in doing this. So I went out and purchased a new unit on the word of a manager there, so let me talk to the manager."
OK. So now she puts me back on hold for another 10 minutes. Once again, the cute little tune returns and I am now watching the second hand on the clock above me on the wall slowly rotate around the clock face. I was just about to precisely know when the click-repeat was going to occur when she returned. You know, by now I was getting pretty steamed.
So she comes back on the line and says "We are going to go ahead and transfer your account over to the new machine. I need you to fax the information to blah-blah-blah. It is a voice-fax, so you’re going to have to call and tell the person you’re going to fax something." So after three times trying to get her to give me the number correctly and letting me repeat it back to her to confirm I wrote it down correctly, she says something about "Thank you for using replayt .........." in a fade out as she is putting down the phone and then she hangs up on me before even completing the sentence. Makes you want to take the thing back right then.
Now this is one of the interesting parts. The number she rattled off to me, which I read back to her (twice) and she confirmed.... was a dead number. (Automated phone recording) I'm sorry, but the number you dialed is not in service....... " I dialed this number three times to make sure it was not me who dialed incorrectly. OK, 24 minutes on the phone and about 20 or so were left waiting on hold with the repeating tune. This was really beginning to be a very bad situation.
At this point, I looked up the customer service number again and dialed it again.
India Support:
I called back to the number on the website. This time it rang about 8 times and I was just about to hang up when the automated answering system started. It sounded kind of funny at first. But the volume was way down now. The sound was rather like listening to a radio in the bottom of a well. The echoing and reverb was making the exact same recording sound rather difficult to understand.
Dehli India Support:
OK, completely different attitude now. The woman who answered the phone gave me her name and some ID number (Which I could not understand because the call volume was much lower). I told her "Hold on, I have to turn up the volume here, can't hear you" and once back, she gave the impression she was not annoyed that I made her wait 5 seconds. She once again told me her name and a number for something or other. I went through the whole speal as I did above, with the exception of telling her that "the number the first woman gave me was a bad number and that I still needed to fax the information to you.
She then said I had to hold on while she spoke to the supervisor. By this time, I was ready to take the damn thing back to Best Buy, but I kept my composure and stayed on the line.
4 or 5 minutes later, she comes back online and gives me a number where I can fax the documents. I asked how long it would take to get this setup. I also asked how she was going to get a fax in India when the number she gave me was in the United States? She told me that the fax was immediately forwarded to them there and it should take a day to get everything authorized properly. I said thanks and that was that.
You could really tell that the people here in California were never going to get anything done. I think it was more the thought that they didn't give a crap in the first place that made me think about why we are losing so many jobs to overseas concerns. Just with this simple example, would you want to buy an item from this company?
Who would want to run a business with a bunch of snotty, ignorant workers? When a business could open here, and have their entire staff overseas, where it is much cheaper to operate, and the people are going to do that extra 10% which you could never get people here to do?
If anyone wants to discuss this, I would be happy to. I can see from this experience, that it will be the US who is going to end up being that third world mass of unemployed people. And if things don't change soon, that future might be sooner than even I foresee.
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