I am on hold. I’ve put off a call to Anthem Blue Cross for weeks because I never could stomach holding longer than twenty minutes. After that threshold, I was done. I hung up the phone. It was clear my call wasn’t “important to them.” And their “longer than average wait times,” are really, really long. I’d love to know the “average” wait time. But today, I vow to wait them out.
Curiously, as I use more health services than normal, during my pregnancy, none of the service providers seems to be getting paid. After an endless number of claim denials, I’m calling today to try to put an end to the deluge of random unpaid bills that keep appearing in my mailbox. I promise, however, this is not a column about the disaster that is the American healthcare system, or my feelings on Obamacare. You can get enough ranting on that topic from every news outlet imaginable.
I’m writing about customer service. As I read endless newspaper articles, columns and blogs prognosticating a dismal holiday season, the writers and retailers all have the same essential question – why aren’t Americans buying more? Other than the obvious answers of double-digit unemployment and the technically concluded Great Recession, my main reason for not purchasing stuff is mostly the awful customer service.
Service Starts Poorly and Declines
The bad feeling starts when I go to most stores or try to get services completed around the house. Few people are interested in actually serving you. Sure they want your money. But if you want minimal service – suddenly businesses are missing-in-action.
This weekend, I received two calls from Dell Computer. Did I want to buy an extended warranty – their cheerful, English-speaking telemarketers asked? I kindly informed them that the customer service I received from the dour, non-English-speaking representatives when the two computers they sent me failed, was so poor that I would not like to pay to replicate that experience. Despite asking politely, it took a stern request after two solicitation calls for them to remove me from their call list.
I have very small desires, really. I’m willing to part with a few dollars of my hard-earned money, and in return, I’d like a working product or satisfactory service. I don’t need a smile or anything that ambitious. A job well done, without grumbling, is all I require.
But even that little bit is harder and harder to come by. Today, after I get off hold, I’m going to fire my pest control service. The one thing I hate about living in Los Angeles are the relentless ants. Give them an inch, or a crack, or a crumb, and they will invade your home. I gave up trying to fix the problem myself years ago. Instead, I decided to hire an exterminator. For a monthly fee, I’d be bug free – or so I thought.
The first year of our relationship was lovely. Juan would call me, come spray a toxic concoction, and I saw nary an ant. Then something happened. I couldn’t get the regular service to continue consistently. Suddenly, I stopped receiving courtesy calls, the visits became spotty, and the dreaded ants returned. I tried to salvage the relationship. I called, I wrote, I even ran into the exterminator at the post office and implored him to return on a regular basis. For the last two months, zero, nothing, nada. So they’re off my list. I’ll have to start the dance with some other company. The courtship, the promises, and the hope that the relationship is not another one that deteriorates.
When a Higher Price Is Worthwhile
As my pregnancy progresses, I find that despite my protestations, friends and family want to buy you gifts. Taking the advice of other parents I know, I started scoping out local stores looking for items to add to the elusive registry. A few Sundays ago, I was cruising around the store looking at various strollers, blankets and toys when a commotion stole my attention. New parents had registered with the store, and well-meaning relatives had purchased two of a certain item. The hitch – the items were shipped directly from the manufacturer. The box included no receipt. And the store, the only one at which they were registered, refused to take the items back without a receipt – even though they had a record of the item being purchased twice.
I hedge my bets, though. As customer service gets worse, it’s easier than ever to avoid the stores known for terrible service. Recently, I needed an extension cable for my high-speed internet. My husband was ready to speed off to the mega giant superstore to get the cable that would solve the problem. I vetoed the idea right away. Just the thought of parking in a three-story lot and hoping against hope the mega giant superstore corporation would have hired someone who could answer my cable compatibility questions shook me to the core.
Sure, I love the low prices you can get in the big box stores. But unless you come armed with your own information, research, and bloodhound – good luck finding what you need. Instead, I ran down the street to the small store I was sure had gone out of business. I asked the guy for what I needed. He pulled the items off a dusty, obscure shelf, and I paid way more than I would have at the superstore, but the problem was solved with a minimum of fuss.
Sure, there are moments of brilliant customer service. They make me long for more: the mall store manager who drove to two other stores on his personal time to get me enough curtain rings to furnish my living room, dining room and family room. The art store employee who dropped off an easel that wouldn’t fit in our car, or the L.A. city employee who helped me resolve my dog license dilemma. Unfortunately those instances are few and far between. The rest of the time, I wrangle, often fruitlessly for common decency from companies large and small.
Wait, I have to go. After only forty-three minutes, Anthem Blue Cross has answered the phone . . .
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
