What the Hell Has Happened to Customer Service?

Normally, I am a very good, polite, respectful, understanding customer. As much time as I've spent in thankless customer service/retail/food service jobs, I do know how it feels to be blamed for things that aren't my fault. But still, these last few days have been agony, and I'm wondering how some people even have jobs...

Let's start with my cell phone issues. For the sake of not getting sued, I'll tell you a story about my cell phone company, ShortFastRun. Now, I relocated here to Colorado just over three weeks ago. Kept my 281 (Houston) area code and number while transitioning, but finally decided if people are going to need to call me for jobs, it's best if I have a local number. So I dial their little "*2" customer service line, and that's when the fun begins. You see, first of all, I have to go through the little automated voice to be directed correctly. Five times, I call. Five times, I hear the "series of tones" that indicates I'm being connected to a representative. And five times, I get disconnected. So admittedly, by the time I reach an actual human being, I'm already a little irritated. After notifying her that someone may want to check on why their system is randomly disconnecting callers, I begin to outline my situation. I've moved from Houston, TX, to Loveland, CO. I would now like a Loveland, CO phone number for my phone. She taps a few keys, and tells me she can give me a number with area code 281, 713, or 832. Those are all Houston area codes. I tell her I must not have made myself clear; I have left Texas and moved to Colorado, and I need a Colorado phone number. She tells me (a mite huffily, I might add) that she can only give me what the computer says she can give, and the computer says 281, 713, or 832. I ask her if, if I happen to call at the wrong time, I will be randomly assigned a Nebraska phone number if that "what the computer says she can give." She tells me again, that the computer will only allow one of those three zip codes. In the middle of attempting to explain it to her yet another time, I finally get upset enough to say, "You know what, just forget it. Give me a supervisor. Give me a supervisor RIGHT NOW." Then I get the backpedal, the ma'am-I'm-trying-to-help-you-but-my-hands-are-tied speech, to which I reply that I don't really care what the computer says, just give me a supervisor NOW. She tells me that she will put me on hold for a supervisor, but not before telling me that I really don't need to be taking it out on her. Normally I would agree, but in this case... So I listen to Muzak for a while, knowing that she is telling her supervisor all about this crazy witch on the phone. FInally, a smooth-talking guy comes on. I explain my situation, and only then does he tell me that when I changed my billing/mailing address online, I did not change my service area. Because their system still had Houston as my service area, the computer was trying to give me a Houston number. Which left me to wonder why, if he figured it out so easily, she could not have done the same thing. After being given my new number and told it could take a couple of hours to take effect, I hang up, satisfied. Four hours later, I'm less satisfied, as the new number is not working properly. I call into customer service again, and hear the voice of an angel... because THIS lovely woman, unlike her peers, actually gave a damn about helping. When I explained the phone number switch, she said in a puzzled voice, "You mean nobody gave you the code to punch in to activate the new number?"

Damn jerk supervisor.

But at least now I have a Colorado number!!!

On to the second customer service issue. I have a couple of different e mail addresses, but the one I used most frequently is from the provider called... ummm... Yippee! For some reason, along about Wednesday afternoon, I became unable to sign into my primary account. The one to which my Messenger and ummm... "180" profile are attached, which effectively locks me out of all three types of communication. Now granted, I have one of the ever-popular free accounts with them. Perhaps the free account customers like myself are not much of a priority to them. Because I put in a call to their customer service department. Their representative was quite nice, and quite unable to do anything for me after I explained to her that I have moved so many times in the last 5-10 years that I can't recall what my zip code was at the time of registration. So I had tried several different zip codes when attempting to reset my password, which made this a job for Account Security. She helpfully gave me an e mail address to use to contact them. It is now nearing 60 hours later, and I'm still playing e mail tag, mostly with automated responses. They wanted 8 pieces of information from when I registered - things like the zip code I used (which I had already indicated in my initial e mail as the problem in the first place), an alternate e mail address (I used my warmguy address), and my security question-and-answer. Think about that... they didn't give me the question and then request the answer... they wanted ME to give THEM both question and answer... now if I don't even remember exactly where I lived when I registered, do you think I remember what question I used?!?!? Morons... so finally, after the multi-part pop quiz, they requested an alternate, non-Yippee address for the purpose of resetting my password. My response was to remind them that I had already provided one, in response to their earlier question. I now wait, checking my warmguy account every few minutes, hoping that the Yippee gods will smile and let me back into my account.

They do NOT want to piss me off...