Credit Card Collection Calls – a customer service review

Credit Card Collection Calls – a customer service review

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A Business Analyst Turned Stay At Home Mom offers Free Consultation to Random Businesses

I seem to have these odd urges to give out business advice to businesses I don’t work for but have to interact with.  Today during nap time, I had some thoughts on a recent trend in this economic SNAFU: the credit card collection calls.  I love the alliteration, but that’s about the only thing they have going for them.

Here are some tips to you credit card companies on how to deal with your customers and end users.

1.  Have a real, live person make the call.

I picked up the phone last week and said “Hello?”  Nothing.  “HELLO?”

A mechanical female voice said “please hold for the next available customer service rep.”

Click.  I hung up.  I have to work myself up to deal with voice mail systems of companies I initiate the call to.  I don’t need the voice mail calling me and immediately putting me on hold.  I have not allotted a time frame to sit with the phone to my ear and I have no personal reward in waiting for the customer service rep.  The CSR can call me when she has the time to have my account up and ready on her computer.  I’ll talk to her – I won’t sit on hold because a computer told me to.

2.  Don’t insult your customer

This should just be common sense.  Really.  If you want customers, then you should – I don’t know – maybe value your customers?

“You just trying to buy stuff to show off to your friends when you have no intention of paying for it.”

“What kind of man goes and buys himself a big ass TV then can’t even work hard enough to pay for it.”

This astounds me because not only did the company agree to extend the non-collateral-based loan, they saw something in this person’s credit history that made them approve it.  If someone doesn’t pay their creditors, then why would you loan them money like you got a cousin named Bruno who has never failed at collecting the return.

3.  Don’t sell the customer something during the call

My goodness, people.  A collection call’s purpose is to get money.  It’s not to sell the customer a “Job Loss Protection Plan” for only $2.50 a month or “Life/Disability Insurance” that pays off the c-word if you should encounter something that would make you unable to pay.

Just get the payment and hang up.  Let the sales force or the CSRs who handle the non-delinquent account handle the extra products.

4.  Don’t insist on a payment over the phone but refuse to waive the fee to make the payment over the phone

This is a great way to get me to hang up on you.  If I can pay the balance over the phone, great.  I’m not going to pay you a fee for the “convenience.”  That’s not convenient – you can wait for the check I’ll mail out or for my online bank bill payer to transfer the money over.

5.  Don’t insist on knowing why the payment was late

Because I really don’t want to go into it so you can choose an option from a drop down menu on your account management software.  It’s also none of your business.  Your business is my payment history and whether or not you got your money.  You don’t need the sordid details of my life just to collect data for your analysts.

More than likely, in this economic climate, the customer had a choice.  Pay the electric bill or pay the credit card.  I’ll bet you they’ll pay the utility every time that choice comes up.

Moral of the story:  Your customers are everyday human beings.  Very few of them intentionally charged up the account with no intention of paying for it.  Deal with it and make sure your policies reflect it.  An amazing thing happens when you treat grown, civilized people like grown, civilized people:  they act like grown, civilized people.

Home Management Reviews

When I left my job, my resignation stated that I had received a promotion to VP of Home Management or something like that.  I have had co-workers who now work for Homeland Security, so my boss thought that I’d landed a kick-ass, high power government job.

After he put his eyeballs back in his head, I explained that really, I was just going to be a stay at home mom.  Since then, I’ve used my extraordinary problem solving skills to get the house running smoothly so I can spend time with the kids and my computers.

I tried out two new products today, hoping to make my life easier, lessen the clean-up time, and start delegating responsibilities to the kiddos.  One was great, the other was not so great.

For the great one:  Pledge Multi Surface Cleaner

I used it in our sunroom/dining room today and wow.  It cleaned my antique wood table, the glass and the wood on the china cabinet, and the glass end table in the little conversation nook.  I like how the lid is built into itself – it just turns to open and close – because lids ALWAYS get lost, then fall to the floor, then get crunched by a dog or a shoe.  Also, it’s not stinky.  I got the Lavender scent because Rainstorm anything makes me shudder.  It still smelled like cleaner, but it wasn’t that overpowering “I can taste this in the back of my throat” kind of smell.

I like that you can use it on electronics.  Remember, kiddos, stay away from putting glass cleaner on your LCD screens.  This is what made me choose the Pledge brand over the Endust brand.  It’s not too sticky and doesn’t saturate a paper towel with just one spray.  I used a total of three paper towels to clean the sunroom.

The total flop:  Scrubbing Bubbles Flushable Bathroom Wipes

Wow, there are so many things that make this not worth the money or effort.   I’ll just list them numerically:

1.  The top is hard to open

2.  The threader (wet wipe style) shreds the cloths

3.  Unrolling a cloth to get it to a wipe sort of shape is nearly impossible

4.  I get the feeling that they found already-biodegraded paper to make these out of

5.  They definitely aren’t strong enough to wipe down the bathroom

6.  The cleaner leaves a weird soap scum feel on your hands and it doesn’t seem to wash off

7.  It smells icky

8.  Regular old TP with nothing on it cleans up the toilet seat better than this

I think I’ll stick to castille soap, vinegar, and a washrag to clean the bathroom.  I’ll probably let Shaun have a try at it and see if he can get a single wipe out without shredding it into little bits. I don’t think he’ll be able to since it looks like they come pre-shredded.

Personalized Sharpies: A personal review

I have a dilemma here in this review.  I’m really upset at not receiving what I wanted for something that may well be the biggest day of my life.  Normally, in that case, I’d just fuss at Customer Service a little bit and tell everyone that company X sucks over Facebook and Twitter.  Then I’d vote with my dollars and buy their competitor’s products until I wasn’t mad anymore.

With this product, though, there is no reasonable competitor.  I keep a large box (like a 6in x 9in x 9in) of Sharpies right next to my desk in every color they’ve offered.  I even have the Cafe Colors and the Bold Colors.  I have fine tip markers, extra fine tips, Sharpie pens, all the way up to the poster sized markers.  I have all the Sharpie paint pens.  I have EVERY Sharpie product I’ve ever seen.  I use Sharpies on all my “modifications.”  I even have Sharpie detailing on the cabinets and windows in my BATHROOM.  I probably have $500 worth of Sharpie products in my bedroom and bathroom alone. I can’t just boycott them for their competition – there is NO COMPETITION!

If you’ve read this blog before this post, you’ll see that my husband and I are not quite… mainstream.  We are both tattooed young people who are also foster to adopt parents.  The adoption is very, very soon.  We don’t fit in, we’ve never fit in, and our adoption celebration is planned to celebrate our non-traditional family.  How perfect is it that we have party favors of personalized Sharpie markers – get it?  They’re PERMANENT, like we are. Hehehe.

Shaun and I started planning this months ago once we first got to sign the final intent to adopt papers on our children.  We wanted personalized markers so that every time our friends would use them they’d laugh a little at our stupid pun.  We worked and discussed and argued about what to write on them.  Then, finally, I told him we have to do it.  We have to order now so that we’ll have everything in place before I go into crazy nesting mommy mode.  I was expecting it to take two weeks to receive them:  7 – 10 days for the order to be processed and 7 – 10 days for them to be shipped.

Twenty days came and went and on day 21, I called the only number they have listed on the site.  It was not for the Sharpie people but they happily transfered me.

Problem #1:  The wrong contact number is on their website.

I spoke to a customer service person who called over to s0me other department to find out what happened to the order.  The only person who could find out was at lunch.

Problem #2: The customer service division and the production division do not have an account management system that both departments can see.

Problem #3:  There is only one person who can use the computer, and she likes to go to lunch.

I left my name and number with the customer service person and they promised they would call me back when the only person who could look up my account was back from lunch.

Problem #4:  They did not already have my name, phone number, or email address from my order.  I expected to hear “Mrs. Dollins, please let me verify that this is the best number to reach you at.” and then hear the number I either called in on (caller ID!) or the number I left when I placed the order online.

Hours and hours later, I called back.  I was told that my order was not fulfilled because the message requested on the marker appeared to be for a business looking for marketing supplies.

Problem #5:  If the requested text was denied, why wasn’t I called within the first 2 business days to either confirm a mistake and submit different text or to be notified that my order was cancelled for a pre-arranged reason.  I totally understand policies where they would not want their company logo on the same text as something vulgar or racist.

Problem #6:  There was no “appeal” process for me to go “wait a minute, Dollins is our last name and not a company.  We do not violate the terms of use.”  I was not even offered a chance to change the message.

I finally got too frustrated to talk and asked that they just cancel my order.  We wouldn’t have gotten the markers in time anyways, and I have much more interesting things to be pissed off about.

Problem #7:  The customer was allowed to hang up angry after canceling an order.  Ouch.  When AllState took some Scientology business course and started allowing customers to cancel without the company grovelling to make it better, they lost (I believe the number is) $3 million dollars worth of revenue in ONE YEAR.  Why was I not told that they’d do everything they could to get the markers here in time and hey, let us throw in another half dozen for free to show how sorry we are?

Then, I received THREE promotional emails from Sharpie.com about how I should order their personalized Sharpies to give to my dad for Father’s Day.

Problem #8:  Sharpies should come with a happy Xanax scent.

Fast forward to today.  I still did not have a confirmation that the order was canceled.  I called the number again, got happily transferred again, and talked to the same customer service agent AGAIN.  She recognized my name which left me with the impression that I was the only person dumb enough to actually call their customer service center.  She told me that it had been canceled because it had never been started (implication that they never intended to fill it anyways) and that my credit card had not been billed (but I assume they have THAT somewhere on file in some database where some hacker can get to it.)  I asked for this is writing and she told me that someone would type one up and send it to me.  At this point, I asked for a manager or supervisor or director or SOMEONE who would tell me something useful instead of “I’m sorry for your inconvenience.”  (imply: I’m sorry you interrupted me filing my nails, you stupid bitch.)  I asked that I be removed from the email list and I was told that was another division and it could take several days for the request to go through.

Problem #9:  Their account management system does not have a preset confirmation for cancellations.

Problem #10:  My requests to speak to the powers that be were ignored.

Problem #11:  I still won’t have any stupid Sharpie markers for my kids’ adoption party.

Problem #12:  I do not want apologies!  I want actions!

An hour later, I receive an obviously non-form letter email from someone at this “division” that includes a link to a satisfaction survey that I AM NOT ELIGIBLE TO COMPLETE!

Oh. My. Goodness.

Now, if you don’t know me and don’t know my history – the job I left to be a stay at home mom was as an Operations Analyst at a very large dotcom.  Before that, I coordinated the production department.  Before that, I worked in order fulfillment.  We turned $4million dollars in revenue a month.  I know how this should work.  I helped design the computer systems we used.  I know this, I know this, I know this.

And I see one of my favorite products failing at this and I’m not gonna let it happen.  I’m e-mailing everyone I can find who is associated with this company this blog entry .  I’m doing it for free.  If they want to call me at home while I’m doing dishes or putting the kids down for nap, I’ll tell them how it works and how to organize themselves.

Then, they can create an email segment for spam and fraud listings with an auto-reply that sends a “we think you’re violating the TOS” email with a promise that a real human being will look at the order and call them within 72 hours if the reasons are dubious.  If its obvious asshattery, this real live human can send it to the delete file where another email will be sent to the order-er that says they were deleted for TOS violations.

THEN, they can create a TOS with spelled out “what’s not cool.”  Do not use curse words.  Do not be racist.  Do not reference eBaum’s world.  Do not ask for a custom clip art man with a fro and the words “pool’s closed.”  Ya know?  I know they get fraudulent orders – I’ve actually read about some online.  There has to be a system to deal with those, otherwise, the good customers with good money like me are going to get treated like criminals.  (Another entry is when I was denied to open a pet social networking account because my black cat is named Spooky and that’s a racial term.)

So, Sharpie, I’m not going to boycott you because your product rocks.  Please fix your customer service, though.  Please!  It sucks!