Customer Service Winners and Losers

Had several encounters with companies today, and I think it's important that they companies be held accountable for how they treat their customers.

First I called Geico. Even though I have a clean driving record and am no longer some young aggressive driver (by their rules), my rates still go up every 6 months, with the excuse that it's because of NY State medical coverage costs. I called today and they offered me two ways to lower my bill. One was to take a 6-hour online defensive driving course for $24 and save $100 a year for 3 years, and the other was to pay via checking account debit instead of automatic credit card payment, which would save $3 a month. It wasn't much but the lady was friendly and I felt fairly pleased. I still want to get rid of my car altogether though. I still don't believe that there's not a manager there that can't just make a decision to lower my rates for once out of fairness and the general desire to keep me business. I don't feel incredibly valued by them and will jump ship at first chance of a lower rate.

Next was TMobile. I called them mostly to learn about how I can get a new cell phone (dump my nearly broken Blackberry and get the new Samsung Galaxy). I was told a couple weeks back that I didn't qualify for an upgrade, this and that, and I wasn't too excited with that. I learned I could get a better deal with Verizon, and I called TMobile for one last crack at it. The woman not only helpful, but she was friendly and wasn't reading from some script, so she sounded genuinely interested. Not only did she help me with a deal to get the phone for $400 off, but she lowered my monthly payments as well. This woman went out of her way to make sure she kept my business, and I was upset when I learned that she doesn't get commission on that. She deserves something. The thign was that I didn't even get the phone...but she put the deal in my account and I can take advantage of it at anytime (maybe within the next month). This is why I will stay with them for another 8 years.

After this I went to Subway for a sandwich on Steinway St in Astoria. I thought Subway had gone out of their way to show that they aren't skimping on the items that make up a sandwich, but I was wrong. On a foot0long, he put 5 slices of turkey and 4 slices of cheese....leaving big gaps where my bites would consist of just bread and a thin slice of turkey. I asked for just one more slice of cheese to close the gap and he said he'd have to charge me extra. I shared my disapproval and when he was done making it, he asked "Would you like anything else?" and I said "No, you'll probably charge me up the @$$ for that too." I actually had a Subway gift card to use, otherwise I'd have told him to go screw and just left the store. Really annoyed me.

On top of that, I gave the guy the gift card after he told me the balance of $7.50. I gave him the gift card, which I thought only had $5, and then I gave him a credit card for the remainder. After getting home, I realized he never applied any of the gift card (which actually had a $15 balance) and he put it all on the card. I'm pretty furious. $7.50 for a crap, nearly empty sandwich that wasn't supposed to cost me a dime.

You folks have any experiences with any companies? I'd love to hear some stories, and in turn, base who I give my business to on who is being treated like your business is wanted.

I'm leaving for Oshkosh (via Chicago) early tomorrow morning and just discovered my debit card isn't working. Just tried calling Capital One to find out what's wrong...and they no longer answer the phones at night. Really unacceptable nowadays when people rely on debit cards 24/7.

You will have a tough time finding a cheaper rate than Geico. Subway sucks, the one near me does the same thing and puts next to nothing on sandwiches and when you gripe they tell you they have to charge you for more lettuce and things.

Only way is to stop going there. Not much more you can do.

Oh hey, a captive audience for my Orbitz story!

In April 2010 I booked a flight through Orbitz from Newark to Rome for our honeymoon. The online process didn't have a step for picking seats, and we ended up with seats in completely different parts of the plane. I called Orbitz that same day and asked if they could change the seats to get us together, which they did...sort of. The website reflected the new seats, with a "These seats are confirmed" message. So imagine my surprise when I get to the airport for checkin and we're assigned to the original seats.

At that point, there were only two seats together left on the plane, which we took. [They were terrible seats, right next to the mid-cabin lavs and in front of a row with enough legroom that people would cut through but not enough room to do that without banging into the back of our seats. It was a miserable flight.]

While we were waiting to board the plane, I called Orbitz. I got some runaround about how "sometimes the airline needs to change the seats", without getting any attempt at an explanation about how they ended up being the exact seats we originally had (same for the return flight) or any explanation of how "These seats are confirmed" actually meant something more like "Some seats are confirmed."

In short: Orbitz is terrible and no one should ever use them. Whenever someone asks me about what site they should use to book a flight, I get to tell this story to get them to use somewhere else. So, good job guys.

Im between patients but the only thing that resonates with all this is that you are dealing with big companies, some of which have limited competition.

I HOPE the trends continue and spur more companies and more competition. it takes very little to make me leave.


Have i told you Phil about my Verizon story?

Last summer we flew to Germany for my girlfriend's brother's wedding. Our Virgin flight out of Kennedy was 3 hours late due to a mechanical. By the time we got to Heathrow we had missed our BA connection to Hamburg(actually we were there in enough time, but they claimed they couldn't get our bags on the second plane in time, which to me is bullsh*t). So they rebook us on a Lufthansa connection. Before leaving London we try calling the hotel in Hamburg(called "Hotel Village") to say we're delayed, but the call wouldn't go through. So we end up getting to Hamburg a few hours later than we anticipated, her parents pick us up and drive us to the hotel. The owner proceeds to tell us that he thought we weren't going to show up so he gave our room away 50 minutes ago, despite that we had given them a credit card to hold the room and we had confirmed via email the week before leaving. I should also mention that we just happened to be there in the middle of "Harley week", a huge biker convention, and all the hotels were booked up.

Well, after an entire day of "I'm sorry, sir" and "there's nothing I can do" after having flown halfway across the world I totally lit into the guy. The fact that we tried calling was totally lost on that assh*le. The lobby was full of people and they watched me scream my head off at him. And then he had the nerve to say what I had been dreading hearing on my first trip outside of America, "What can I do? You Americans are all the same! You don't show up then you don't pay then I'm left with empty room!" I had hands on me pulling me away from the place and apparently I freaked my girlfriend out pretty badly. Needless to say once I got back home, I left as many negative reviews of that hotel as I could on different travel sites. Fortunately the rest of the trip more than made up for this incident.

Having been a customer service supervisor for a major corporation for many years, I am very sensitive to customer service failures. I have had hundreds of supervisor calls in which I would do whatever I could to forge an amicable solution to someone's complaint, and to have people not even lift a damn finger when they know something is wrong on their end...well that just irks the hell out of me.

Phil -

I had an accident (my fault) a few years ago and went to Geico when Allstate dropped me from the policy. Geico wanted something like $4,000/yr for my coverage. I went to AAA for the SAME coverage (I've since changed again and don't recall the exact details of the plan) and AAA was something like $1,200 for the year. I never had any incidents with AAA but from everyone I've known who has used them, they're supposedly fantastic. In setting up my new policy with them, everyone I dealt with was nothing shy of phenomenal.

And Subway sucks...unless you like a salad on bread with a little meat and tons of bread.

so in october, I made the leap to a smartphone.

WEnt into a Verizon store simply b/c I had the day off on the Iphone 4S's pre-order date and I said to my wife, I'f there's no line, then we'll just get it done."


walked in at 11 am, no line, and signed up and was told I'd get delivery the foloowing Friday.

Got the phone shipped on Friday with a hairline crack on the camera lens. Verizon blew me off, sent me to Apple. Apple said they would do it but would have to order the phone and that Verizon should be taking care of it. WEnt back to Verizon brick and mortar store (after calling their corporate office and having Apple's staff talk to them!) and still got BS results.

Finally dermanded i see the district manager. He came out and took care of it.


For a first time customer who walked in off the streets, not at all enticed by any advertisements but purely the fact that the buttons of my ghetto phone were falling off, that I needed a new phone and the 4s pre-order date co-incided with my day off (AND THERE WAS NO LINE), I was an EASY customer.

For them to put me through the ringer and have me waste 2.5 hours of my life to replace a phone that came defective was absolute BS.

I told the DM I would use Verizon this contract and see if they do better by me. I doubt it.

Speaking of smartphones...a few months ago, I decided I wanted to upgrade from the old iPhone 3 I was using. I stopped in the Apple store at Walt Whitman mall one Sunday afternoon, and spoke with a sales person who explained the differences between the 4 and 4S, then asked what I use my phone for. When I told him it was mostly for calls, calendar, and stuff like that, he asked "If you don't use all the features, why do you want an iPhone?" Clearly, he doesn't work on commission. I thanked him for the information, then stopped at the AT&T store near me. Sales rep went through the same explaination about the phones, and I decided to get a 4. They set it up, transfered all my stuff, and I was ready to go.

I took it home, and I couldn't connect to my home wireless router - it wouldn't even see the router, unless I was with 10 feet of it. I called Fred, and he said to make an appointment with the Apple store. I planned to just take it back to AT&T, since that's where I bought it, but on Monday, I headed to the Apple store at Grand Central at lunchtime. I explained my problem, and within 5 minutes a technician was looking at the phone. She went in the back, came out and was checking the phone. I asked what she was doing, and she said "I have to run some diagnostics before I can give you a new phone." She went in the back again, and came out with a new phone. In all, it took less than 15 minutes, and when I got home, it connect to my wifi immediately.

Not that I'm going to trade in my PC, but I certainly was satisfied with Apple's customer service.

I'm not going to lie here... and this is after having worked for the company for a good part of my life, but everything revolving around customer service and SEARS just sucks.

For those who are familiar with my flag caps that I wear a lot, I received one recently from Blackhawk.com and the front patch area was off-center. I made a casual tweet about it, and they were quick to want to send me a replacement. I appreciate that.

YEs, Moose, in direct contrast, Apple has my business.

I got my Macbook the day Obama was put in office and the warranty was due to expire this past Jan.

I had an issue w. the video with a month to go on the warranty. First they replaced my entire screen. When that didn't fix the issue, why replace my 2 video cards, which were integrated into the motherboards. So I got 4 Gb Ram cards replaced and a new motherboard and a new screen with a few weeks left on warranty.

And that was after they replaced my iPhone as well for a sep. issue.


They dont bust my balls.



Also, Honda customer service.....at the dealership/long island district level, it sucked. Again, they pissed me off enough to go to corporate to fix my issue.

That ticks me off and makes me now want to buy another Honda...

that's interesting about the Honda Mario, the Honda dealership I use here in South Jersey(Burns) treats me and my '98 Civic like I just bought it there, very courteous and professional. A few years ago my side window stopped moving on my way up to NY so I took it to South Shore Honda, where I bought it, and they wanted over $700 to fix it. I told them to forget about it and just roll it back up and I would have it looked at elsewhere. I took it to Burns and they fixed it for about $350, new motor and everything. In fact they even commented that it was obscene how much South Shore would charge for the same thing. Obviously it depends on the culture at the dealership level, explaining why you had to go through corporate.

Being a vet you should try USAA. I switched to them from geico a few years ago and saved almost $150 a year. Then switched my homeowners to them and they gave an even bigger discount.

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Originally Posted by njgtr82

Being a vet you should try USAA. I switched to them from geico a few years ago and saved almost $150 a year. Then switched my homeowners to them and they gave an even bigger discount.

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I've been with them since 1984. Simply outstanding service, great rates, hard to beat. I've insured and financed cars and homes with them, use their credit cards, and invest with them. Since most of what they do is by phone (well, I guess a bunch is on-line these days, but back when I started with them...) they have telephone customer service down to an art form. I remember one time I was out somewhere - a mall, a fair, or such - and they had some information booth pushing some service. When I said I used USAA, the guy said "Oh, never mind, we can't come close to their rates..."

If you qualify and don't already use them, you should be.

I developed a technical issue yesterday afternoon in which I was unable to connect to the Internet. After trying to resolve the issue myself, I called Linksys tech support to see if they could assist me since I had a linksys router. They were more interested in profit as they wanted me to pay for tech support since my warranty ended last month. I called Verizon, my internet service provider, and they were able to resolve my issue in 7 minutes and get me back online.
A tale of two companies.

I flew home on Sunday in a US A321, so naturally, I wanted to try Gogo (wi-fi). US was running a free 30 minute trial promotion as part of 30 days for DC. The internet pretty much sucked. We're talking .3 MBits down and like .8 up. I emailed their customer service, and was promptly given a free voucher for up to $17.95 of Gogo. Pretty awesome customer care. Today, I received another email from them, this one a mass email:

Hello Gogo Customer,

Yesterday, we experienced a temporary issue with our network that likely caused intermittent or very slow Internet connectivity during your flight. We have worked hard to correct the problem and we’re happy to report that the issue has been resolved.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience that this might have caused during your travels. Below you will find a promo code to receive a free Gogo session on your next Gogo equipped flight.

More free Gogo. That's customer service and making sure things are right. Thumbs up for Gogo.

I've had a great experience with two companies recently.

Cameta Camera (Amityville): So yesterday I go to put my 32GB Trascend SD card in my camera and it wasn't "clicking" in, I take it out to put it back in and it still wont fit properly. I take my maglite and I look inside and a shard from the card is stuck in the ejecting mechanism. I was able to get piece of the SD card out with a pin and some compressed air but the card was toast. Today I brought it to Cameta Camera and explain what happened and the associate looked at the damaged card, went to the shelf and grabbed me a new one and gave it to me. No hassle, no BS. Not the type of service you would get at Best Buy or trying to RMA something online.

Duracell: âA couple of weeks ago I went to use one of my flashlights and when I was done using it smoke started coming out of it and it started to melt. I took it outside and it turned out the cells were expanding. I cooled it down, took pictures and then I threw the cells out. I sent Duracell the pictures and explained what happened and a CSR emailed me and said they were going to mail me a coupon for a free pack of batteries and other P&G products. I received it along with an envelope to return the damaged batteries. When I emailed them that I threw the damaged cells away they said no problem and they wanted to know the price of the flashlight to reimburse me.

Chase Bank finds new ways to serve up fecal sandwiches.

I mysteriously received a new debit card in the mail, 5 years before my current one expires...odd. Nothing in the envelope explains why.

I call Chase and the first rep says it was due to a breach of security and I am passed to a fraud rep. Fine, cool, let's see what happened. The fraud rep tells me that my card was compromised because Visa accessed my information. What? It's a Visa debit card, aren't they supposed to have my information? The woman, clearly reading from a script, talks about the security process. I know the process, and I actually do feel safe with Chase's security, but I just want to know what happened.

Then I got angry, because I asked her "Wait a second...who has my information?" Her answer was "Yes," which isn't even a possible answer to me question, and the woman was still just not giving me info....with big pauses in between everything I said, which I assume is so she could find what she needed to read to me next. I asked for another rep, saying it didn't need to be a supervisor but just someone else, and she interrupted me, glad to put me on to a supervisor.

The supervisor explained finally that Visa found the breach, but they have no additional info. A letter should have been in the letter that came with my card, but I didn't receive one. After requesting one, they said it is impossible for them to send out another letter (which shocks me), and that I need to go into a branch to learn more.

I was fine with the fact that I at least received some information, but I wanted to share that I was bothered that I had no idea that my card was compromised, and that I didn't know that I should be expecting something as important as a debit card int he mail to replace my current one. I explained that, and saying that I suggest they modify their procedures with regard to their mailing process, and she says "Mr. Derner, here at Chase Bank, security is important us, and we monitor your account 24/7 with..." which was not only, again, from a script, but didn't even pertain to, and therefore basically ignores, everything I had just said.

What a waste.

So...does anyone know of any banks out there that actually value their customers' business?

There's a bank that values its customers? It's funny, I just switched from BoA to Chase for pretty much this exact story.
I kept getting new debit cards issued to be from BoA, which was annoying. They never tell you where the breach is occurring, so even if it's at the same restaurant you frequent often, you will never know.
Anyway, about a month after being issued a brand new card, I see a $500 purchase at Aerosoles.com, obviously not me. Call up, but I can't dispute it because the charge was still pending. Also find out that there was an $800 charge from QVC which was denied...only because all my money was already gone.
BoA never alerted me, never stopped any (very) odd purchases, and just let me account bleed dry.
And then there's Aersoles. They obviously had all the info of the person who frauded me, but refused to either cancel the order (which would protect themself, as well), or divulge the persons info.
So, here I am. New bank, never doing business with Aersoles.

I just had that new credit card thing happen a couple months ago. I think it was BoA. Had the same experience, some poorly-trained and poorly-trained sap reading from a script. It's the WORST when you ask a question and they just repeat a part of the script. Having worked as a call center supervisor I have had to take many escalated calls like that. The only thing worth doing in those situations if I couldn't explain something to their satisfaction was to assure the person I would personally research their issue and get back to them, as well as give them my direct extension. You know, basic human decency(and that wasn't even a banking environment).

Phil Chase totally SUCKS ASS if you want a great banking experience TD Bank has been really great for me. I was originally with Commerce even better then TD acquired them. Not as many branches as Chase but worth it just the same, give um a try !

I recently had a run-in with American Airlines, and the situation was an example of both good and bad customer service. I'll try to keep this as short as possible ...

In June, I had an assignment in Spain, and booked American. The routing would be BWI-JFK-MAD-JFK-BWI, with the BWI-JFK-BWI segments being operated by AmericanEagle. I got a great Y fare, very competitive for summer travel. So far, so good.

When the day of travel came around, the AmericanEagle experience at BWI was standard. Flight boarded on time, took off slightly late, and arrived nearly 30 minutes early into JFK, thanks to a 32-minute flight, a long block time, and a miraculously short taxi at JFK. Once we got into T8, we had slightly less than two hours to kill before our MAD departure.

Upon arriving at the gate area, it became apparent that my JFK-MAD flight would be full or nearly full. A quick conversation with one of four (!) agents at the podium confirmed that the flight was, in fact, full in both cabins. Anyway, things were still running smooth at this point. The inbound aircraft had arrived more or less on time, and was in the process of being serviced and refueled. However, as boarding time drew closer, it became apparent that the flight would not board on time, and that there was likely to be a departure delay.

Many of the passengers appeared to be Spanish, and apparently many were connecting in Madrid. Once our scheduled departure time passed by, and it was clear that we were not going to arrive on time in Madrid, (with no announcement by any of the agents, by the way), hordes of angry Spanish passengers approached the gate agent inquiring about connections. To make matters worse, the four gate agents that had once been at the podium had scattered, leaving one poor agent there to take the fall.

This is where American's customer service really broke down. The agent could have made things much easier for herself if she made an announcement, at least updating the passengers on an estimated departure time, or giving a reason for the delay. The first semi-detailed announcement made was at 8:30 pm, nearly two hours after scheduled departure. She said that a maintenance crew was "working on" the plane, and that operations would "make a decision" around 9:00 pm. The latter comment sounded very ominous, and, being that I had somewhere to be the next afternoon, a cancellation would not have made me happy. So I pulled out my phone and tweeted @AmericanAir.

This is where I have to applaud American for their customer service - within minutes, I had received a detailed response from @AmericanAir, citing a maintenance delay, giving an estimated departure time, and promising to keep me updated. It was a promise that they followed through on. Every time the flight's status or ETD changed, which I observed on the gate's FIDS (the agent, again, made no announcements during a status change), @AmericanAir would tweet me, relaying the information.

Finally, at around 10:00, 3.5+ hours after scheduled departure time, we began to board. In the nearly four hour fiasco, the lone agent had made only about two announcements relating to the delay. I appreciate that she may have been overwhelmed, but you'd be hard pressed to tell me that it's impossible to make an announcement to a full plane of passengers when faced with a delay.

Once onboard, the captain came over the PA and gave a detailed description of why the flight was delayed, and also apologizing for the breakdown in communication. Turns out that one of the exit door emergency slides' inflation mechanism was showing a low pressure reading, and it was a lengthy process to replace and retest the mechanism. To me, that's a perfectly good reason to delay the flight. It wasn't the delay that made me angry, it was the lack of information during the delay. American's JFK staff had an opportunity to impress (or at least mollify) customers that night, and they failed. It was American's Twitter team and the flight crew that really rallied, and salvaged the entire experience.

The crew on the MAD-JFK sector made up for any shortcomings, though.

ON the banking thread:
I dumped BofA for the same reason a lot of you all did: I kept getting new debit and credit cards – sometimes at the rate of once every several weeks. I figured that if they kept losing my information at a rate of every other month that they were doing a piss-poor job of keeping it safe. Switched to US Bank, haven’t had a problem since.

On to airlines:
First, the loser:
Delta Skyclub JFK T2
As many of you know I recently went to Ethiopia to cover ETH’s first 787 delivery. It was pretty awesome, but we’ll just say that the process of getting there, staying there, and getting back was not exactly – well – smooth. So knowing that I could be in for a (potentially mis)adventure I figured that I’d at least pick up my own tickets from Dulles back to Seattle. Having a Skyclub pass that I’d very much wanted to use I bought tix on Delta and routed through JFK – figuring that no matter how wrong things went I’d at least have that pass to look forward to (everything ended up going well, but trust me when I say that was not at all clear when I left Dulles several days earlier). I ended up utilizing the pass at the skyclub at T2 (probably my first mistake)…I wanted to go to T3 but didn’t have enough time and my plane left from T2 anyways. In any case, I walked up to the desk and presented my pass. A very disinterested person at the check-in counter took it, looked at the pass, then looked at me, then back at the pass. She asked me where I got it from, with a tone suggesting that perhaps I should not have had it and maybe mugged someone somewhere to get it. I told her, and she asked for my boarding pass – which I discovered I had left on my last flight. She printed a new one for me but not without adding a sort of unnecessary quasi lecture about not losing them. Then, seemingly reluctantly, she stamped the pass and let me in. I did not get the impression I was welcome. Continuing in the service experience a bit later I could not figure out what the wireless network was and after looking around for something that would tell me gave up and approached the same checkin desk staff. They were talking amongst themselves and after trying to interject to get my question through they tersely told me which network it was and then proceeded to go right back to their conversation. Perhaps they were that way with everyone, I don’t know, but I did not get the impression that my presence was welcome…or at least that they had better things to do than deal with me. Needless to say they left a negative impression that contributed to feeling as though I wasted my pass. At least I made off with a few handfuls of Biscoff cookies (I adore them).

Second, the winner:
Pinnacle / Delta Flight 4150 IAD-JFK
In direct contrast to the disappointing experience I had minutes after completing this flight, this one went very well – even with a delay. And it was pretty much all related to one very professional, very cheery, very awesome flight attendant. One: she greeted everyone warmly as they board the CRJ2. It was obvious she enjoyed her job and was happy to be at work today. Two: after the first delay (engine wouldn’t turn over) she kept communication lines open – she was honest with her information and went up and down the aisle as we returned to the gate (granted it was small) talking with each passenger and assuring them personally that everything would work out. “Well sir, you might miss your flight, yes, but let me see if I can check the gate for you in New York…and if that doesn’t work out you’ll go here at the terminal to schedule the next available one.” She even found an interpreter for some very concerned limited English folks on board (something I feel strongly about, so major bonus points there). Third: once the mx problem was fixed we missed our slot, and weren’t informed that there’d be an additional 35 min delay until after we left the gate…she went up the aisle taking drink orders and giving out snacks while we sat in the middle of nowhere at IAD – once again checking on gate info and helping passengers who might be in a fix to craft a plan upon arrival. Overall it was obvious that she enjoyed her job, and it was really great to see someone not just handling a delay well but really taking control of it and excelling. I was very impressed with how friendly, how professional, and how helpful she was from start to finish with everyone on board. I admit the CRJ200 factor played a role in how realistic that level of service was, but even still…she truly left a solid impression on me. If only the SkyClub would hire people like her.

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Originally Posted by pgengler

Oh hey, a captive audience for my Orbitz story!

In April 2010 I booked a flight through Orbitz from Newark to Rome for our honeymoon. The online process didn't have a step for picking seats, and we ended up with seats in completely different parts of the plane. I called Orbitz that same day and asked if they could change the seats to get us together, which they did...sort of. The website reflected the new seats, with a "These seats are confirmed" message. So imagine my surprise when I get to the airport for checkin and we're assigned to the original seats.

At that point, there were only two seats together left on the plane, which we took. [They were terrible seats, right next to the mid-cabin lavs and in front of a row with enough legroom that people would cut through but not enough room to do that without banging into the back of our seats. It was a miserable flight.]

While we were waiting to board the plane, I called Orbitz. I got some runaround about how "sometimes the airline needs to change the seats", without getting any attempt at an explanation about how they ended up being the exact seats we originally had (same for the return flight) or any explanation of how "These seats are confirmed" actually meant something more like "Some seats are confirmed."

In short: Orbitz is terrible and no one should ever use them. Whenever someone asks me about what site they should use to book a flight, I get to tell this story to get them to use somewhere else. So, good job guys.

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I hate to say it but that is what you get for booking through one of those sites, if you find the deal on that site, look on the airlines site as it should be there too. The airlines don't honor the seats you select 9 times out of 10 cause you didn't book it from the airline them selves.