Due to a busy couple of weeks I’ve neglected the blog, but feel it imperative I offer a follow-up to the Rogers cell phone story. I’d like to say my own behaviour with Rogers was of the utmost grace and decorum, but the truth is by the time I spoke with someone in authority I was pure ‘ticked off’. What really struck a chord is the fact it took a public blog before any attention at all was called to this very frustrated customer.
Timeline of Events:
- 5 Customer Service Representatives who never once clued -in that escalation would be a good idea. When I asked if there was nothing more I could do, they ALL said ‘yes’.
- Initial tweets were not picked up by social media ‘watchers’ on Twitter before I posted a blog.
- The Blog drew an enormous amount of attention- many similar negative stories and offers of help from Roger’s competitors.
- I purchased a phone privately from Kijiji –Rogers “sent it to them for free at their upgrade time but that they did not need it.” (I found that fascinating.)
- Unfortunately because I had a smart phone I only had a data plan, not a Blackberry plan. I then spent another entire morning with customer service reps 6 & 7 finding out that I needed to change my plan before the phone woud be operable.
- I was still on hold with customer service when Rogers finally called in response to the blog (Toronto office).
Talk about your “Shaggy Dog” story – it just seemed to go on forever. I’ll stick with the phone story and try and avoid going into the ‘lost revenue and business time” saga! (I consult by the hour – can’t get that client time back)
What Worked:
- When I finally spoke with someone who could help, they recognized the change in data plan would cost me additional funds (more even than a new phone already cost me). A discount of 5.00/mo was given for the additional cost.
- I got to vent a bit about how this is customer clean-up NOT customer service based on the fact I needed to go public before I EVER got attention.
Things I would never say to a customer:
- “We go to great expense to provide those free phones up front, we cannot give everything away” – hmm, then you should not be in business, because good business people build their costs into a package.
- “Our customer service people have to deal with 10 more people just like you once you hang up” – last time I checked, customer service was about caring about the customer you are serving at the moment, especially if they are frustrated.
- “If you go to our website you will find our escalation policy and could have done that before posting a blog” – That is going to take a LOT of training to get the entire Canadian public to understand how to best escalate an issue. I wonder if a company might be better off limiting that training to the customer service representatives and offer them clues as to when THEY can escalate an issue. I struggled to connect with the right CSR multiple times, my expectation was they would indicate a process and simply ask, would you like this to be escalated? I had no idea it was MY job to find out their escalation policy.
No answers or conversations seemed to focus on the real point. I bought a data plan with Rogers. The LCD on my data phone stopped functioning correctly. At no point during my plan was I told my data phone would be obsolete and I would be forced to upgrade to a $4-600.00 BlackBerry and a different plan if my phone was broken. Nor was I informed that even though I HAD a data plan, the only phones available to me would be non-data phones. I’d like to think if I worked at the company, I would recognize the real issue.
If you offer a service/product (in this case a smart phone data plan) and within that contract your lost or broken program cannot provide the same service or product as agreed to in the beginning, you as a company should be liable to take the lead in finding a solution. Rogers did not provide any smartphones for my data plan at this point in my contract. BUT according to Rogers, the problem is all mine. I am stuck with THEIR provision of this service (even though they can no longer provide what they agreed to in the beginning) and any solution is a new phone at full (or close to full) cost at my own expense or to downgrade to a non-data phone but still pay the data fee as per the contract. If I try removing myself from the contract I pay a hefty penalty – but they hold no such accountability.
I am still with Rogers only because I did not wish to pay that penalty and throw my money in the trash. The loss of time, money and patience is now history – but serves as a great model of what NOT to do in my own company and with my own clients. Will I renew with Rogers? Time will tell, I will definitely ask many more questions of any provider next time I agree to a contract. Do they need a better customer service solution – indeed I think they do.
In this case, a free phone was only a ‘hook’ to gaining an initial contract – certainly discounted phones are not used as a solution to maintaining service and keeping a customer who likes to be loyal to the companies with whom she has chosen to spend her money.
(Update: August 31, 2009 – Call from “Office of the President” at Roger’s with additional discount to account to say sorry for the experience. This individual was polite, considerate, wants to use these posts as an example for continued front-line training and apologized quite a few times. It is clear that they are doing what they can in the aftermath of this particular situation. I hope his optimistic description of the changes they wish to make on the front-lines does materialize for the benefit of other customers so they can avoid an experience like this altogether.)
I’m with Rogers and wanted to apologize that this experience was so frustrating for you. I understand a colleague of mine reached out to you on Twitter in late July, but it was too late to be of assistance to you. I will be passing on your feedback within the organization and we will also be following up with you directly about your experience. We want to make it easy for customers to do business with Rogers; your experience does not live up to that standard.
Keith,
I certainly appreciate your response, thank you. Yes a colleague (after seeing the blog posts on Twitter) did DM the Twitter account and ask for my cell phone number, that is how the Toronto rep. contacted me, and yes, it was too late as I’d done what I could with your organization and simply took care of what I needed to in order to ensure I had a working phone. As I use it for my company the delay was affecting my business.
As a consultant who works with companies in Leadership and Customer Service I know the difficulty in a multi-tiered organization that is spread to the far reaches, however, there are key strategies that aid in front-line delivery so that a customer never experiences frustration to this level. I made certain several times to give calm, clear and concise messages for escalation. I told each CSR that I was trying very hard to be a loyal Roger’s customer and asked them to help me stay that way, it was unfortunate to see they were as frustrated as I was in their inability to help – yet not one mentioned escalation.
I am glad to hear your organization is working at creating a better customer experience for people who have signed on with Rogers. There is certainly an obvious commitment to following the Rogers name within Social Media. A very wise mentor of mine when I was working in an International IT organization once told me that to make a customer feel ‘served’ you need to build the relationship in the front-line of business. If you are trying to ‘serve’ at the complaints side, you have already lost their business. I believe that to be true.
Patti
Patti
– thanks for sharing your experience with Rogers here.
My stress level rockets any time I have to call Rogers. Their “Interactive Voice” response answering system starts the stress. After jumping through “menu hoops” I often find that the department I need is only open during business hours (usually blackberry data plan issues). Of course as a busy entrepreneur, like you, I don’t have time to make these calls during billable time periods. I have 4 cell phones on my plan. Nearly every time we call to adjust one phone’s plan they seem to impact all of the phones.
I would be more than happy to go to the local Rogers store to have my plans reviewed and adjusted, but my understanding is that they are not permitted to do that… you have to call customer service.
What Canada needs is more competition. We pay a premium for our cell phone plans and related data plans – but we don’t get a premium service. I wrote a bit about this some months ago when Koodo showed up on billboards – http://tinyurl.com/mxgnax
Cheers – David
I have had similar issues with rogers, yet i am still with them. Interesting fact, rogers actually has the highest customer retention rate amongst cell phone providers in canada. Something to note; in the future purchase your phone from future shop or best buy (they carry all canadian cell phone provider phones). Secondly pay the extra 40$ and get the extended service plan (3 years or what not). Reason being with future shop or best buy even though they carry rogers (etc) phones if your phone is not working exactly as the box advertises you don’t have to go back to rogers you can go to future shop with the advantage of them giving you a new phone over the counter no questions asked. No loner phones or anything, they simply replace your phone, or give you a new phone at the cost of which you originally paid for your phone.
This applies to other electronics as well. ex: a year ago i purchased a 4gb microsoft zune for 120$, 11 month after my purchase the zune wasn’t holding as much of a charge as originally. Previously i would get about 24 hours of continuous play out of a charge, and at the 11 month mark i was only getting 20 hours. Therefore i brought it back in to futureshop and told them it wasn’t holding a charge as it was originally, thus no questions they replaced it. And because after the 11 months the 8gb was now only 120$ they replaced my 4gb with the 8gb version.
Patti
I have my own frustrating ROGERS stories as well, the only challenge is that ALL three of the major cell phone companies suck equally. And the smaller firms like SOLO is owned by BELL.
This is a “necessary evil” service and ROGERS, TELUS and BELL know this, thus service goes out the window.
Stuart Crawford
Bulletproof InfoTech
http://www.bulletproofIT.ca
Stuart,
I have been shocked of the number of emails and contacts I have received regarding the Roger’s post. The popularity pinpoints on the commonality of experiences across all service providers. (and reach far past frustration to sheer anger)
The telecom industry is not in it’s infancy, I know – I worked with a telecom company many, many years ago. What fascinates me quite a bit is how as the industry has moved to improved access, more developed technology and more robust wireless connectivity, the companies and the manner in which they are run have not significantly changed to keep up.
One cannot run a wireless/cellular industry in the same flavour and manner that static phone line businesses were run in the past. The consumer is far more technologically savvy and more technically educated. Companies will need to learn the kind of flexibility required to shift their service departments as equally as fast as the technology moves.
All the attention recieved from this post proves to me there are many things broken within that particular industry and customer service is definitely a place to lay some money down. Imagine what one of those companies could do if they threw down the gauntlet and took on customer service in the eyes of the customer!
Cell phone companies, want market share? – stop playing as a monopoly biz and make a clear difference for the customers who honour you with their hard-earned cash.
WordPress attached a link to your post on my rant about Rogers today. I’ve emailed them to let them know about my post and the fact I’ve linked it to facebook and Twitter too. We shall see if I ever get the issue resolved!
http://purplelara.com/2009/09/17/iphone-love-rogers-loathe/