Hey Road Runner, meet my BIRD!

Abbreviated chat transcript from my online conversation with Time Warner this afternoon while inquiring about why they raised my internet rates without notification:

Image by chris jd via Flickr

TW: I checked your account to see that the revised rate for internet has been applied.

Me: So, you just raise rates without notification?

TW: You might have received an email.

Me: Might?

TW: Don't worry, you'll get more promotions and offices on your account.

Me: Offices? What the heck are you even talking about?

TW: Sorry for the typo. *offers

Me: Let me get this straight... you raised my monthly bill $5/month, but I shouldn't worry because I'll get more promotions and offers?

TW: Please let me know what you want.

Me: I want you to tell me why you think you can raise my bill without notification.

TW: Please check your SPAM folder for notification.

Me: I don't have a SPAM folder. I run my own mail client.

TW: Contact your local office for a new promotion.

Me: As far as I'm concerned, you ARE my local office.

TW: I apologize, but I don't have appropriate resources to apply a new promotion to your account which will reduce your bill.

Me: Why does the submission form for the chat client ask for my ZIP Code so it can connect me to a local representative if that local representative can't actually help me?

TW: I apologize for the inconvenience.

Me: You've done that about 4 times now. It's not helping.

TW: Is there anything else I can help you with?

Me: Yes, please remove me from all USPS snail mail direct mailings. You are spamming my mailbox about once per week.

TW: You will no longer receive any marketing email from us.

Me: LOL. Are you a robot? I don't get marketing email as it is. I DON'T WANT USPS DIRECT MAIL!

TW: Done.

Me: ***disconnect***

Who do you think you are... Bank of America? Just add $5 monthly fees wherever you like, we don't care!

2 Great Service Examples This Week

A quick note to thank two companies that did something right this week. In a world where service seems to have gone by the wayside, I appreciate it when an organization does what it can to remind me or help me through a challenging process. As my friends at The Agitator would say, "You deserve a raise!"

• Northwest Airlines: for reminding me that my old WorldPerks number had expired and that I needed to create a new account in order to get credit for my trip (a month ago) from Alaska to Chicago.
• YourOnlineBookstore.com: for taking my word that a book that I sent to a friend via Amazon never arrived and immediately refunding the charges to my credit card.
  

Keep up the great work!

CSGK: Wild Coyote Wines

You, my reliable and wonderful readers, all know about the CSBK (Customer Service Bad Karma) that seems to follow me around everywhere that I go... no, no need to dig up the past. You can find a billion examples if you just scroll through the blog (no, Pizza Hut never delivered that pizza).

Today I come to you with a story about CSGK (Customer Service Good Karma) that an amazing family vintner, Gianni Manucci of Wild Coyote Estate Winery, gave to me today.

My friends and I take an annual wine trip back to Paso Robles, CA, an area that we know well because several of us studied at Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo, which is right down the road. For the first few years of our trip, we had the same cool, fantastic, fun limo driver... a gentleman named D-U-G, Dug, yes Dug. Because he drove the area frequently, he always knew the up and coming wineries which is a huge plus because so many of them have sprouted up in the past 5-7 years.

Dug said, "You guys have got to go to Wild Coyote. Gianni is making some incredible wines in a beautiful winery."

"Lead the way!" was likely our response.

Well, I became a Wild Coyote wine club member from the first visit and have taken every opportunity to stop in to grab more or call Gianni & family to replace empty soldiers. Many of my wine group are members of this wonderful little winery that concocts wine for the spirit, literally, on this incredibly beautiful piece of land with a California vineyard view. The Manucci's put their heart and soul into every single bottle that they produce... they care that much.

So last week when @tessk, Steve and I opened a bottle of 2006 Zin, which I wouldn't typically be drinking so young--I had to leave a lot of bottles prior to my move to some very lucky friends--it was carbonated! Carbonated? Yes, carbonated!

Strange.

I decided to check to see if one of my other 2006 Zins from Wild Coyote was carbonated tonight and, sure enough, it was. Hmmmmm.

Here is where CSGK kicks in. I emailed Gianni and got a very quick reply where he offered to replace all 3 bottles that were sent in that shipment. Gianni is definitely the man.

But, instead of just replying to his email to say, "Send 'em on out!" I decided to give him a call and add to the order... heck, if you're going to ship me free replacement bottles, I might as well buy a few to fill up a box and then everyone feels good about it, eh?

Gianni explained to me that he knew that the timing on when to bottle the '06 Zin was questionable, but he took a chance because he thought it would be an out-of-this-world wine... which is what we members look for from him. He didn't want to filtrate it before bottling because he didn't want to take from the flavor--the high standard of work that he has created for himself--in hindsight he wishes he would have done just a bit of filtration.

A large winery would never take this chance. Never.

But, in a wonderful gesture, Gianni made up for it in spades. Here's to Gianni, his family and Wild Coyote Wine. I urge you to visit their site or give them a call and order a few bottles for he told me that they are nearly out of their '06 vintage!

Wild Coyote Estate Winery
805-610-1311

Customer Service Bad Karma: Post #847

Yeah, most of my regular readers know that I get terrible customer service. In this economy, as Steve and I were discussing last night, I'm willing to go out and eat or pay for things more so if they go out of their way to help me. Otherwise, I'll drink MY wine at MY condo and pay much less.

Case in point, M&S Grill on KC's Country Club Plaza last night went out of their way to open up a bottle of wine just so I could have a taste of it. I ended up purchasing the bottle, of course I did!

UPDATES:

• Yahoo! is going on about 6 months with no response since I told them that I can't FTP to my web site.
• Match.com, when I told them that my email threads were all twisted up with various ladies' profiles, sent me the generic response, which didn't address my needs and has not gotten back to me since they said they would forward it to the tech team. That was about 3 days ago and my subscription has since expired. No need to renew when I can't read email.
• Pizza Hut, oh Pizza Hut, I foolishly tried to redeem the $20 credit that the Area Coach gave to me after an order never arrived. No one that I could reach on the order line could find my credit. I tried three times. In fact, the first guy said that he didn't know what I was talking about and straight up transferred me to another agent. Absurdly ridiculous, which is why I went to M&S Grill instead.
• DirecTV, the bane of my customer service world, after getting transferred all over the country (or so it seemed) and getting disconnected twice, I finally got to a woman that said I was in the right place, but she couldn't help me because I'm not the building owner.

And that, is your CSBK update for November 12, 2008.

Updates on Latest Customer Service Woes

1. LOWE'S: Once I figured out that they thought I'd purchased a clearance fridge vs. the new fridge that I actually purchased (I got a good deal, what can I say... 30% off), then they realized that they needed to get me one that worked and wasn't disfigured. That sparkly new fridge was delivered today.*
2. PIZZA HUT: 141 hours later, I've still not received my pizza pie. The email that I took the time to send to corporate headquarters must have fallen on deaf ears, for no reply has come this way. "Who cares, he's just a moolie in Kansas City!" Didn't the Hut get its start in MO?
3. INTERNET: After 3 visits, the engineers (these guys were really thorough) determined that the line running to my unit was mis-labeled "201." That's way off.
4. CONDO UTILITIES: I still don't have gas to the stove or the fireplace. I've been asking for them to come do this for nearly three weeks. In fact, I was on the phone with the developer this morning and he thought it had already been done... the super on the site said so. WRONG! Lying-ass ^%$^&%$.
   

* Speaking of the super... I called him last Friday to ask that my front door be removed from the hinges so that they could get this new fridge in here. He didn't call me back. I saw him jump into his truck and take off on Saturday... pretty sure that he saw me and split quickly. When the delivery guys showed up this morning (Monday), I called the super once again to ask that he send someone up to remove my door.

"I've given the keys to the management company and you'll have to contact them to arrange that. For liability reasons, I won't take that door off for you."

Liability? I'm the damn condo owner, idiot. I've got delivery guys standing here right now. You want me to sign a piece of paper, fine. Okay, I didn't say all that, but I was pissed largely because he screwed me by not calling me back last week.

So, I called the management company and they didn't have anyone near me. I asked them to call the super, but he still refused to do it. In fact, the jackass said that he didn't have anyone on the property to even do it!

So, I called the developer and got on their ass about how their contracted super was screwing me. There were two men here to remove my door 10 minutes later.

The super is a lying-ass %$#%^$#.

Google Adsense Support Bails in Mid-sentence

File this one under my lifetime of bad customer service karma. I think there's a whole book of stories that I could write about Blue Shield, DirecTV, Bank of America, San Diego Water & Sewer, Prinicipal Financial, Yahoo!... it would go on and on and on about how I get the big finger when it comes to things that aren't even my fault.

It goes a lil' somethin' like this, hit it...

My blog (yes, the one you are reading) has been around for awhile. The Adsense publisher ID that was originally created for it has expired because there was a long period of inactivity a few years ago. Apparently you can't renew an existing, expired ID. I couldn't create a new ID on the Google Account that I normally use because it is tied to a client's Adwords account. So, the Adsense team told me to create a new ID. No prob, new ID created.

Now, all I have to do is replace the old publisher ID on the blog with the new one. Simple, right? NOT!

1. I'd deleted the earlier support email, so I couldn't follow up on that ticket number
2. I couldn't relocate the area on the support site that allowed you to submit an email.
3. Nor could I find the answer to my question.
   
4. I used Google to find the support email address in a third-party forum.
5. Google automatically replies and says to use the help section and support forum.
6. I reply and say that I've already been there and nothing helps me.
7. They reply and say that I need to create a new publisher ID (which I've already done).
8. I reply and say, "Have you even read my support inquiry? Stop lowering your queue response times and please re-read about my problem."
   
9. They reply and say that I just need to remove the existing ad code and replace it with the new ad code.
10. Sounds easy enough, except that everytime I try to change my publisher ID nothing happens. So, I reply to them giving the specific issue, step-by-step, that I'm experiencing.
11. Their reply, "Due to the high volumes of emails we receive, we're unable to individually respond to your inquiry. Please find instant, reliable answers to all your questions in our online help resources."

ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME?

This conversation has been going on for over a month and they are just going to bail on me like that with one of your templated answers?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

"DirecTV Would Lose Millions..."

I was explaining the situation to a friend and as I was going back through the conversation with the specialist, I recall her saying that "DirecTV would lose millions of dollars if they removed charges from accounts that didn't renew their suspension in time to avoid the next billing cycle."

Do you see the problem with that statement? Sure DirecTV, you might contact us to help us, but some of us are going to slip through the cracks. Millions? Are you sure that these millions are yours in the first place?

I guess you can drop me in the bucket with the other saps that are giving our money away to DirecTV. In actuality, it's not about the money anymore... it's the principle.

The story continues...

READ THE WHOLE DIRECTV STORY from the start!