I may be wrong but . . . .

Most of us by now have a tale to tell about an irritating experience with a faceless “customer service” representative of a big corporation talking from some outsourced call centre in an Asian country. I’ve had a few relatively minor ones – until last week when I experienced a beauty, “good” enough to share on this blog.

I guess I should have backed off when my first inquiry of this computer manufacturer showed the operator didn’t know what GST was. But I shrugged it off and continued.

I won’t name names, but it was all to do with purchasing a new desktop computer. Until now I’d always bought from a local supplier, knowing there was someone to go back to if there were any problems. This time I was seduced by an advertisement that came in the post from one of the world’s leading PC makers which sells only (in New Zealand anyway) through an online shop. If you think you know which corporation I’m talking about, you’re probably right – rhymes with Hell.

The advertisement, and the company’s New Zealand website, showed nowhere whether the price included GST so I phoned the 0800 number to check. It took three customer service operators before I got the answer I needed, though part of the trouble may have been the inevitable difficulty on both sides in understanding our use of English.

The eventual answer was what I’d hoped for, so I went ahead with placing an order. The website was well constructed and user friendly and it took little effort to configure the machine with the required number of gigabytes, size of screen, storage, etc. The final step was to check out, which I did through successful entry of my debit card details.

Then the fun began, though initially without any real hint of trouble ahead.

Normally when buying online I get a printout of the final confirmation page, but my printer wasn’t connected, and the website told me that details of my order would be emailed to me. I completed the process – or at least I thought I did!

I waited for the promised email. An hour. A day. Two days. Nothing. OK, not a problem, I’ll phone the 0800 and find out what happened and what to do.

The first thing their Customer Support department wanted to know was my order number.

I don’t have one; I never received the email telling me what my number is.

We cannot track your order without an order number. Do you have a customer number?

No, I didn’t receive the email so cannot provide you with one.

Then you must complete the order.

How do I do that?

Enter the website and complete the order.

(I’ll break this dialogue for a theatrical aside to remind us that many of these questions and answers (and the ones to come later in this article) were spoken several times as neither of us could understand all the words spoken and the line was scratchy. My wife was amazed at how calmly I kept on saying with great deliberateness “I’m sorry, I cannot understand what you are saying. Please speak more slowly.”)

But how can I pick up the order so far so I can complete it?

Use the order number.

But …… etc. This little Catch-22 circle was spun out with three operators, after each said they would pass me on to a supervisor. Finally one asked me my name and email address, and soon said he had found my aborted order in the logs and gave me the associated customer number.

So what do I need to do to complete the order?

Just go into the website and place the order.

From scratch? What happens if my first order is processed?

That will not be a problem.

So I went back into the website, configured my new PC (and fortuitously got a better deal on the monitor for just a few extra dollars), and did the debit card thing. This time the order details came through on the promised email, and I thought it was all over bar the wait for the product, the arrival of which was promised within an acceptable 10 days.

Two days later I was checking my bank account online and …. ‘ello ‘ello ‘ello, what have we here? Two debit withdrawals, both for amounts around $2200 but not identical. I checked with my bank and they confirmed they were both executed by the computer maker, and that the bank could do nothing about it – I needed to sort it out with my supplier. They had charged me for both computer orders!! Lucky I happened to have enough cash in there to cover it without going into overdraft.

Back onto the 0800 number, and the start of a conversation (well actually somewhere between 8 and 12 conversations) that took a perspirational 45 minutes to complete.

Order number please?

Well, my problem is that you have charged me and deducted money for two PCs but I only ordered one. I want a refund on the first one for which the order was not processed.

Could you provide the order number for your purchase?

That was done.

Do you want a refund for this machine?

No, the refund is for the machine that I initially ordered but the order did not complete so I did it again. Someone in your workplace there told me to do that.

What was the order number?

I never received one because the email never arrived. I talked with one of your people and they gave me a customer number and told me to place the order again.

OK, what is your customer number?

Fortunately I’d written it down, so told her. That cannot be your customer number – that’s for Australian customers and you’re in New Zealand, right?

Steam starts to build up in the space between my ears. Hopefully you get the basic picture; I won’t repeat this to-and-fro for as many times as it happened – with about 8 to 12 operators (I wasn’t counting at the time). Each time it was getting too far from their working script and testing tempers, or if neither of us could understand each other’s accent, the operator said I would be transferred to someone else. A few times I was told specifically that I would be transferred to the “Refunds” department, but in most cases it was “One moment please sir, I’ll transfer you to someone who can help you.”

As it went on, it became apparent to this increasingly cynical soul that all these operators were in a big room with dozens, perhaps hundreds of colleagues each being paid to clear up issues as soon as possible. Complex issues take too long, and mine required too much off-script thought so they just shoved me onto the next colleague in the answering queue. This tactic became obvious because after every single transfer I heard the standard Customer Service introduction and had to start from scratch yet again.

You want to cancel your order number xxxxxx and obtain a refund?

Not that one; the other order that was never completed. You’ve withdrawn money from my bank account for two PCs but I only wanted one. I want to cancel the order for $2235.16.

The amount you have been charged for your order is $2247.58. Do you want to cancel that order and be refunded?

No, that machine I want. I was charged for that plus the other order that was never completed.

What was that order number sir?

You will be pleased to know that in the end – after about 45 minutes – I was placed with someone who (a) spoke reasonable English and (b) took a few more seconds to listen to me and check through the logic and sequence of the transaction logs. He quickly spotted the problem and initiated the process which, a few nerve-wracking hours later, resulted in an email confirming the cancellation of my initial order and the in-writing promise of a full refund.

Which happened a few days later.

Soon after, I took possession of a fine Dell computer that’s been humming ever since. So … no damage in the end, but perhaps I aged a few extra months in the process.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 8:14 am and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.