I wish you could handle all my fios BS.
They seem to purposely have no internal understanding/communication with each others departments as to drag out things for as long as they can until the customer either stops complaining due to VZ's circular nonsense and neverending frustration or they simply cancel the service.
Mistakes happen but these companies never make mistakes that favor the customer which is why I think they're BS and the FCC needs to clamp down on this type of racket.
It's a long story and the headaches are ongoing...
This is true. The separate departments not communicating seems to be on purpose but actually isn't, they
are that effed up. Them being obscurantist in their billing and almost always making a "mistake" in their favor definitely
is on purpose, though, imho.
Comcast is even worse -- much, much worse, in my experience. It helps to take note of which routes in to a company's bureaucracy are more fruitful than others.
If I were a skeevy little asshole like DJFuji or whatever that industrious little piker in L&R's name is, I'd set myself up as a CSR Whisperer and go around the country promoting myself and taking money from the lame and gullible . . . NOT!
As for what works for me, if I tried to boil it all down it would be something like patience, persistence, complete date/time/CSR name and number/Call center record taking, plus a warm, confident, direct and professional but not uppity tone and . . .
really and truly liking people.
I'm naturally endlessly curious about people's personal stories, and I know a little bit about a TON of subjects. If you connect with low key respect with a CSR on a personal level they're gonna' be more willing to go that extra mile for you.
You also have to know and respect what any one CSR can and can't do for you in their system, and be ready and willing to go up the line, but not in an asshole, peremptory manner.
You got cut off, hung up on, promised something that wasn't delivered? Have the names, dates and times and when you
do get to a supervisor who has the latitude to actually
do something for you, they will be impressed and less likely or able to blow you off.
What's amazing to me is not the number of dimwits on the phones, though there are plenty, it's the number of fairly intelligent and capable people there are . . . often caught in a system that hamstrings them from actually helping you.
To me, it's a game -- yeah, like I'm in the Special Olympics -- and I'm competitive, I keep score and like to win, sue me.
All of these traits, plus some retard level of utter fearlessness, is what made me a great PI. It's AMAZING what you can get complete strangers to tell you, and, once you've calmly talked down a jumpy guy who's just stuck a pistol in your gut, dealing with a recalcitrant phone monkey is cake.
Luck and good fortune also enter into this. Nobody "wins" every time. This is where persistence and thoroughness come into play. Branch Rickey, the GM of the Dodgers back in the sixties when they were a preeminent model franchise coined the phrase, "Luck is the residue of design."
Craftsmen and you guys in the hard sciences know the value and absolute necessity of a patient, prepared and thorough approach. Measure twice, cut once, that sort of thing. Also, lateral thinking, being able to shift your approach on the fly and examine and discard any assumptions that aren't working for you.
But most of all, for this shit, stay loose, it's just a game. If you let your anger and frustration dictate your tone you'll get nowhere, and fast. Treat the guy on the other end of the line as an ally, even if he isn't. And treat him like a person, because he is.
If I calculated what I've saved on a per hour basis it'd be FAR less than I get from even my lowest billed clients but I just look at it as a game. I play to win, and I get more personal satisfaction from it that any invoice I send out.
Did I mention how ***cool*** I am yet? :biggrin:
Look back a few posts. If my total bill including all taxes and fees actually
does go permanently under $95 from the now stratospheric $96.50 you just KNOW I'll be back in this thread next month yodeling and goose-stepping like Adolf after the fall of France!