Customer Dissatisfaction

'Against invincible stupidity, not even the gods themselves shall prevail.' - Roman Proverb

By Joe Celko

As most of my regular readers are aware, I moved from Atlanta to Austin in 2000. During the moving process, I canceled all my accounts - including the phone lines and utilities - in writing, and my wife, Jackie, also canceled them by telephone.

But I continued getting bills from BellSouth for my old Atlanta residence. In each one, I would enclose another letter and check the "correspondence enclosed" box on the bill, explaining I had moved in November of 2000. However, they kept billing me.

Hello? Are you there?

As of the end of March, Jackie and I had phoned or written BellSouth six times to close this account. I hate using telephone customer service systems, but it seemed to be the only way to contact th company.

So after several frustrating minutes of punching buttons, I reached a so-called customer service representative. The customer service person I talked to in March 2001 was told three times to close the account, but I am writing this column as I look at yet another bill - the account is still open! She wouldn't give me the name of her supervisor or her name, nor did she respond to my questions; I don't mean she gave me bad answers, I mean I kept having to ask her if she was still there because of the silence.

I grew so frustrated with trying to talk to her that I ended up paying the $184.45 that I physically could not possibly owe. The only positive thing to come from the experience is that I get to use it in one of my columns.

Internet Irritation

When I received yet another bill this week for the account, I tried to go to their Web site and send in an email, because email leaves a trail that they can't deny. Think about the advantages of customer service Web sites:

• When you are expecting a wave of complaints or requests, you don't need to suddenly increase staff.
• You can provide links to useful documents, such as missing sets of directions or special forms that the customer might need to print out.
• You can sell products and parts, such as missing screws.
• Unlike call centers, where training is time consuming and irregular, you have time to design a Web site, and you know that everyone will get the same level of customer care.

Now read this email from "customer service" at BellSouth:

"Dear Celko,

Thank you for visiting our BellSouth Web site.

We apologize for the problem you have had in handling this matter.

We have tried to call you at the contact number several times today. The receptionist was not able to put us through to you. We are setting up a disconnect order and placing it on hold pending a verbal okay from you.

We need to talk to you as a security requirement of BellSouth to prevent unauthorized changes by others.

We are available between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and if you will let us know where we can call you between those hours, we will do our best to confirm with you the request.

It is not the intent of BellSouth to be difficult, but we do try to protect the account."

A receptionist? I have a voice mail system at work. Okay, so they want me to call them. But read the email - it does not give their telephone number.

After reading all of this, your exercise for today is to go to your customer Web site and see that it is not this screwed up.

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Joe Celko [www.celko.com or 71062.1056@compuserve.com] works at Trilogy Software. His opinions are not necessarily those of his employers. He is the author of Joe Celko's SQL for Smarties: Advanced SQL Programming (Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, 1999).