articles.baltimoresun.com — More businesses are subtly discouraging calls to customer service agents by charging for the conversation, as well as directing people to automated phone systems. Banks, computer companies, travel agencies and satellite television and cable companies are adopting this practice.
Jun 14, 2010 View in Crawl 4
eikon89Jun 14, 2010
@ acknotSWThey die of starvation and the economy shifts to a new equilibrium.
spuddufferJun 14, 2010
We should reward companies that have good customer support, call them, email, or mail them, tell them you like there support, tell them why. Tell your friends. Punish companies who do not serve you well, tell them exactly why you do not like their support and terminate your relations with them if possible. Don't just fire them without telling them in detail why they are fired. If I get a support person whose accent is too strong to comprehend, I kindly tell them that I cannot understand them because their English is so poor, ask to speak to their supervisor and hope you can understand them to complain about hiring unintelligible personnel.Complain to the Company they are working for for maximum effect.I have cousins in the Philippines who recently were hired to work in call centers serving American markets for customer service. English is spoken exclusively in the classrooms and by the teachers and students, they have excellent English when compared to the Indian market. I hope this catches on, they will tell you where they are located most of the time if you ask.
agent13xJun 14, 2010
@jftitanHate to break it to ya but the cause of your bill going up actually IS inflation. From 2009 to 2010 the Federal Govt's GS Payscale went up about 1.5% Starting with $75, over 5 years, with the same inflation rate used by the US government for paying its employees, your bill would be up to about $81 due to inflation. Figure another $20 for HD programming and I'd say you have nothing to complain about. Every company from the TV studios to your TV provider had to pay millions to upgrade their cameras, cabling, tv switchboards, computer systems, and satellites to provide HD to you. You're just paying the downstream cost of that.
honukaiJun 15, 2010
Where I live theres only one option for cable/dsl
kuzotzJun 15, 2010
woah a great system? they'll gut it completely just you watch!! YOu see anything that benefits people doesn't belong, and we should all take it up the ass while a CEO drives the big one in us.
carlososJun 15, 2010
The companies don't want customer that cost them more money than what they bring in. It makes sense in my opinion to charge for some of the services.I work, for example, for an ISP and when we believe the issue is most likely with the customer and we tell the customer that and tell him what to check on his side, but if the customer still wants someone to dispatch than we inform the customer that they could be charged for the dispatch if the technician can prove that the circuit works fine. The customer also gets charged if we dispatch and nobody is at the site. About 90% of the times a customer gets warned about the charges, they will get charged because it was an issue on the customer's side.The ISP, I work for might do some charges but at least we got in my opinion the best customer service because you talk to a technician directly who knows what he/she is doing instead of just a person opening tickets and reading them to you. (no "what is your phone number so a technician can call you back within the next 2 hours" like you get with most ISPs)
Closed AccountJun 16, 2010
I put my computer together and it runs fine, any problems I have are usually my fault or are caused by third-party software, and I fix them myself, but that's not the point. The point isn't Mac vs Windows. It's about the price, you mentioned that you don't need to use customer support so much because it's an Apple product, but you paid more in the first place, so it's not as though you're saving money. You can pick up a Dell pc for 400, but that's going to be buggier, have more bloatware, and you'll have to pay for customer support when those bugs cause problems.
barbaraleuinJun 16, 2010
I can concede that when it is on the customer's side, perhaps it is reasonable to charge a client for help. But when I get told they are having trouble on their side and I can't access my Blog or publish my web site for days on end, I don't feel they have a right to charge me for wanting that fixed, and that they should offer some compensation for the business I am losing by not having a site that is accessible by my customers or myself.