https://upload.democraticunderground.com/100210493860Oh my.
<<<bets the primitive's a racist, the way he keeps stressing "accents."
grumpyduck (221 posts) Sat Apr 14, 2018, 08:13 PM
I detest AT&T customer service
Like a lot of people, we have moved among cell phone carriers now and then, mostly due to special offers. Right now we're with AT&T.
Now, our expectations from a cell phone carrier are very simple: we expect to be able to make and receive calls, send and receive texts, and download the occasional app. That's it. As long as we can do that, we're fine; no issues with the carrier. However, every time I've had to call them for the past few years, which has been (thankfully) maybe once a year, I've wanted to throw the phone through the wall. Over the past couple of days I've had to call them three times.
First, we received a text message that they hoped we were happy with Smart Limits, and that our free trial would end on such-and-such a date, after which we would be billed $4.95 a month. Problem is, we didn't sign up for this service. So I logged on to their web site to see if I could delete the service, but I couldn't find where to do it. I could find everything else, but not that one.
So I called Customer Service. The first thing I got was their electronic voice asking what I wanted. From previous experiences, I bypassed this, which took some doing, but finally I was able to talk with a real person. Now, I just wanted to do something simple: get rid of Smart Limits. But for some reason we had to go around and around before she finally accepted what I wanted to do. She even asked me about other services I had; she sounded ready for a sales pitch, which I turned down. So we took care of the issue, but all this time I had to listen to a very thick accent and ask her to repeat herself a few times.
I thought that was the end of it.
This morning I get an email from them confirming that we changed our passcode. WTF???? So I tried to log in again, and the system wouldn't let me in. So I said something rather... ummm... strong... and called them again.
After working around the automated voice again, I ended up with a rep. This guy had an even stronger accent than the lady yesterday and kept asking me for IDs and other stuff. Basically, he said he could only talk with the owner of the account. I explained that both our names were on the account, but he wouldn't accept it. Back and forth. Finally I said I would call back and talk with someone else.
Called again, got through the electronic voice, and asked for a supervisor. The rep I spoke with (another heavy accent) asked me for ID and found us (didn't say anything about only talking with the account owner), so he transferred me. A bit later, someone came on (he also had a thick accent) and asked me for ID all over again. This time he couldn't find me: he said none of my passcodes (or whatever: the same stuff I had just given to someone else) worked. So he sent me a text with a number, and blah blah. Finally we straightened out the passcode issue, but then I asked why I couldn't log onto the site with my usual password. His response (as far as I could tell) was that sometimes their system "does that" with customers who have more than one service. So I asked, are you telling me that your system deleted my password because we have more than one service with you? As far as I could tell, he said yes. We reset the password. This time the call took maybe twenty minutes including wait time.
Okay, I said above that my expectations for a cell phone service are simple, and I think they are. But my expectations for a customer service department are also simple, and one of the few things I expect is to be able to understand their reps. I couldn't care less if they are from the U.S., or another part of the world, or Mars, as long as I can understand what they're saying. It makes getting to the heart of the issue, and fixing it, much more efficient. And it takes less time.
On the other hand, I have to wonder if AT&T does it this way on purpose to discourage customers from calling in.
Hopefully everything will work okay for the next year or so and I won't have to call them again. In the meantime, I'm going to start reading reviews on other carriers and seeing what we can do about moving to one of them.
Agschmid (28,001 posts) Sat Apr 14, 2018, 08:37 PM
4. God forbid someone have an accent huh?
GaYellowDawg (3,626 posts) Sat Apr 14, 2018, 08:43 PM
7. Geez...
God forbid customer service be fluent in English and be understandable over the phone.
Uh oh. That primitive affliction, reading miscomprehension:
oberliner (49,707 posts) Sat Apr 14, 2018, 08:44 PM
9. You didn't say they weren't fluent in English
You wrote that they had accents.
GaYellowDawg (3,626 posts) Sat Apr 14, 2018, 08:51 PM
11. I'm not the original poster.
But I've been on the phone with customer service reps with thick accents and none of them have ever been fluent in English. It's not an unreasonable expectation for a customer service rep to be easily understood. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with being annoyed when that expectation isn't met. There's also nothing wrong with mentioning it when recounting an episode.
liberalhistorian (20,513 posts) Sat Apr 14, 2018, 09:04 PM
14. Oh, here we go.
Some accents, especially heavy ones, are VERY hard to understand even if the person speaks good English. It's incredibly frustrating to try to communicate when you CANNOT UNDERSTAND SOMEONE. It has nothing to do with racism or bias or anything else. When you're paying good money for a service, you want to be able to actually understand and communicate with their customer service when you have issues.
I have a hearing impairment and accents of any kind are extremely difficult for me to understand. It doesn't matter who it is, it could be a white southerner or New Yorker with a heavy accent. I have sensorineural hearing loss, which means you have a lot of trouble discriminating words; you can often hear something's being said but you often have trouble making out the words. It has nothing whatsoever to do with bias, and it pisses me the hell off when I'm called racist because I can't understand someone with a heavy accent. It's especially upsetting when I'm screamed at and have the phone hung up on me because I've had to ask them to please repeat themselves, I'm having trouble understanding you.
<<<knew Lisa ^^^ when she was young and had black hair, but that was a long time ago.
<<<imagines she's got grey hair and old-age arthritis now.
It's a funny thread, medium long, and well worth reading in the original, as the primitives bicker back-and-forth, wiggle-waggling their armpits at each other.
