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totally ineffectual I'm sure
Here's the text of a bitchy email I sent thru Xcel's online contact form:
Just got off the phone with a customer service rep. There's some changes you could consider looking into regarding bill paying. I don't know what you're telling your people but there's also some tweaks that could be made in the messaging or delivery style for your reps.
First, I was calling to ask about changing the date of this months payment because it's going to make it too tight with regard to our bank account. Since the bill comes tomorrow, she told me that's a no-go because the request has been made to the bank already. Ugh. What century is this? If you're serious about this online payment stuff, please consider some system that can change payments at the last minute or allows payments by multiple means--what do you care if I want to pay with a credit card or by check? The money doesn't know where it came from. I can arrange payments by ACH to various creditors that come out on the same day I arrange them. Why is yours so complicated?
Second, I asked if it was possible to move our payment date for the account over all, so as to line up better with payday. She was convinced it was not--she said "Oh no! You can't do that. The payment comes out on the due date then it's issued the day after the meter gets read. You have four weeks to pay that bill." The tone of condescension was positively thick, like I'd shown a pattern of paying awfully close to the edge of lateness or something. Yeah, I have four weeks to pay the bill but I signed up for AUTO pay so why am I being "reminded" that I have all this time to pay my bill? When I remark that we'd like to manage this closer to our pay dates, she says "When I get my bill, I just subtract it from my checking account." This isn't me asking you to be loosey goosey with my payment dates like some wayward teenager. Please do not lecture me on the perceived failures of my money management system. We do our banking online, period. Seriously it's 2007! How we use (or not use) a check register is way way below the line of what your reps should be commenting on.
Finally I got her to understand that I'd be all right with moving the auto pay date to an EARLIER date. Suddenly she doesn't care so much about managing my private business for me and is more worried about how "sometimes it skips a month and I don't know how but it gets out of alignment and it can get really confusing." If and when that happens, I'm sure I can work out the details with you, don't you think? By this point I'm thinking, if you can't move my date, then cancel my auto pay! She moves it and we're done.
Seriously. Lots of your customers manage their money totally online. If you only asked them, you might be shocked. But more than that NONE of your customers need your phone operators getting all up in their grills about how to manage finances. Please.
Regards,
Jon Olsen
------
What do you think? not strong enough?
Just got off the phone with a customer service rep. There's some changes you could consider looking into regarding bill paying. I don't know what you're telling your people but there's also some tweaks that could be made in the messaging or delivery style for your reps.
First, I was calling to ask about changing the date of this months payment because it's going to make it too tight with regard to our bank account. Since the bill comes tomorrow, she told me that's a no-go because the request has been made to the bank already. Ugh. What century is this? If you're serious about this online payment stuff, please consider some system that can change payments at the last minute or allows payments by multiple means--what do you care if I want to pay with a credit card or by check? The money doesn't know where it came from. I can arrange payments by ACH to various creditors that come out on the same day I arrange them. Why is yours so complicated?
Second, I asked if it was possible to move our payment date for the account over all, so as to line up better with payday. She was convinced it was not--she said "Oh no! You can't do that. The payment comes out on the due date then it's issued the day after the meter gets read. You have four weeks to pay that bill." The tone of condescension was positively thick, like I'd shown a pattern of paying awfully close to the edge of lateness or something. Yeah, I have four weeks to pay the bill but I signed up for AUTO pay so why am I being "reminded" that I have all this time to pay my bill? When I remark that we'd like to manage this closer to our pay dates, she says "When I get my bill, I just subtract it from my checking account." This isn't me asking you to be loosey goosey with my payment dates like some wayward teenager. Please do not lecture me on the perceived failures of my money management system. We do our banking online, period. Seriously it's 2007! How we use (or not use) a check register is way way below the line of what your reps should be commenting on.
Finally I got her to understand that I'd be all right with moving the auto pay date to an EARLIER date. Suddenly she doesn't care so much about managing my private business for me and is more worried about how "sometimes it skips a month and I don't know how but it gets out of alignment and it can get really confusing." If and when that happens, I'm sure I can work out the details with you, don't you think? By this point I'm thinking, if you can't move my date, then cancel my auto pay! She moves it and we're done.
Seriously. Lots of your customers manage their money totally online. If you only asked them, you might be shocked. But more than that NONE of your customers need your phone operators getting all up in their grills about how to manage finances. Please.
Regards,
Jon Olsen
------
What do you think? not strong enough?
Still you keep o’ the windy side of the law.
I wonder where the letter will go - to whom it will be delivered? Sometimes it seems that customer service has become completly automated.
"Press or Say 1 if you want to issue a complaint using Irony, Slang or Sarcasm"