Yes, Virginia, Customer Service Is Dead!

It's amazing how dead customer service really is. I've tried calling the billing department of a healthcare provider yesterday and today and sat on the phone for 15 minutes before finally hanging up. The computer voice told me to have all this information ready to aid the person who I would speak with to resolve this issue. Unfortunately, no one ever answered in 30 minutes.

And it's not just healthcare whom many believe are overburdened. I tried to buy a new cell phone last week from my AT&T store in Conroe, TX. I arrived around 9:30am on a Friday morning, had to sign in on their computer and stood in line for 5 minutes before one of the customers there, who was first in line, told me that it might be a long wait. He was going on a cruise and needed something changed on his phone and told me he had been there 35 minutes while one sales person helped one person buy a phone. I asked the sales person if there was another sales associate and he said he was in the back doing inventory that had to be done before he could come onto the floor. Well, 5 minutes more and now the line was up to nine. BTW, I was #7. I started doing some calculations in my head and figured that if even 2 people in front of me were going to buy a phone, as I was, I would be there for at least 2 hours before I was helped. That was a deal breaker. I left the store sorely disappointed in AT&T, the staff of this store and me for putting up with it.

Is AT&T so broke that it can't afford to staff their stores? Does AT&T not have policies in place to take care of customers or is the almighty dollar/inventory the first to get taken care of? If I am in the grocery store and the line gets longs, the person calls for help and another person arrives to check people out. If I am at the Post Office, the same thing happens. Maybe it's time for AT&T to revisit their customer service policies. When there's a line and it takes 1 sales person 45 minutes to sell a phone and 9 other people are waiting, there's a problem. Why couldn't he call for help and help arrive in order to serve the customers?

We might have to put up with that kind of service from our health care providers but why do we have to do it with a commodity such as cell phones? I didn't, I left. What would you have done?