Before I tell the latest Chrysler Fail, I want to explain how to do customer service the right way. Chrysler could learn a thing or three from WOW!
I spoke to my Cable Monopoly Provider yesterday, the customer service representative couldn’t have been nicer. We had been experiencing intermittent service glitches, where the HD signal would “freeze” or slow down considerably, to the point that we could not watch whatever program we were trying to watch. She lowered our monthly cable and internet bill by approximately $11/month, and sent three vouchers for free pay-per-view movies.
And they lived happily ever after.
+++
Chrysler Financial called me this afternoon, and the following message was repeated probably 25 times before the call abruptly ended:
All representatives are still busy you may contineu to hold or you may hang up at any time and we will attempt to call you back later. thank you.
There was no pause between the loop. No music. No messages urging me to go to the website (which I can’t do anyways!). Just the repetition of that message. I called back:
In response to the launch of our redesigned website, we are experience longer-than-usual wait times.
The lady with whom I would eventually speak was irritable (this is the best I can say about her). They wanted to know why I hadn’t made my payment a few days ago, and when I would be making it.
I told her in no uncertain terms that I was willing and able to make a payment (like I had made the previous 25 payments), but that my previous attempts to do so had been thwarted by their technology “upgrade” (news flash: if it’s a monumental inconvenience, it’s a downgrade). I explained the facepalm experience, explained that I was through wasting my time, and if they decided that they wanted the payment, I’d just wait for them to call me, flippantly adding “And here we are.”
I even told her that I’d be happy to make a payment immediately, over the phone, if they were willing to waive the $12.95 “phone processing fee”.
They weren’t.
I continued, suggesting that forcing people with 45 days until lease/contract termination to jump through hoops as the Company migrates to a new web-server, rather than A) grandfathering them or B) allowing them to “upgrade” based on their old credentials is stupid as a football bat, and a waste of my time, and I got tired of wasting my time for the privilege of sending them $326 dollars.
So I waited for them to ask for it because that’s how I roll.
She took offense to this, repeating (as though I were a common deadbeat) things like “That’s not how it works…” or “You made the decision not to pay…” and “Nobody forced you to not pay…”
Indeed. But some ass-hat who decided that my username needed to be changed from 7 characters to 8 characters ultimately set in motion a chain of events that resulted in Chrysler wasting money, and wasting my time.
I have now “registered” for the new Chrysler Financial website, but I haven’t received my confirmation e-mail yet…
