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Customer Service
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Sites and Tips For Better Customer Service
There is nothing fun about sitting on the phone waiting for customer service. Nothing. Unfortunately, it's a fact of consumer life.
Website of the Day: Customer Service Scoreboard
This one is pretty self-explanatory, but oh-so helpful: Customer Service Scoreboard gives you the overall score of some of the most used customer service lines around to see how they stack up. For example, if I would have checked this site before I called AT&T to complain about service interruptions last week, I would have been prepared for their less-than-stellar customer service — they have 29 negative comments and only 7 positive, leaving them with a total score of 48.31 out of 200. Come on AT&T — you can do better!
Geek Tip: Email Comcast Corporate For Cable and Internet Help
Last month I suffered the ultimate geek distress — an Internet and cable outage for over a week.
It inspired me to air my frustrations here, and the silver lining of the whole situation is that someone at Comcast saw my post and responded with a tip: if you're ever feeling like you're getting nowhere with the customer service on the phone, you can email the corporate team for assistance.
The corporate email address is We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com.
How to Complain About Those Factory Warranty Spam Calls
I turn into an angry she-Hulk every time my cell phone rings and I dive for it, only to hear "This is the second notice that the factory warranty on your vehicle is about to expire." I all but explode to the recording "But I don't even have a car!"
These spammy calls seem to affect everyone I know — and we're all sick of it.
Website of the Day: DialAHuman
I can't always be cool, calm, and collected. It inevitably follows that on those stressful days, I have to call my cable or phone company or something equally as undesirable.
And, of course, all I need to push me over the edge is to be "communicating" with a robot, telling me to push a button for this, a button for that, but no button to talk to a living, breathing human being.
Do You Appreciate When Services Apologize for Being Down?
I was throwing a hissy fit yesterday when I saw that Netflix had still not sent me my Mad Men DVD, and then an hour later I got this in an email, explaining their outage. It wasn't the only outage this week: Gmail went down for a while on Monday, and then the next day, the Gmail Blog posted an explanation.
I gotta be honest: I'm not used to this kind of customer service.
Do You Pay Attention to Your Cell Phone Contract?
Cell phone contracts have been a bone of contention with customers ever since the invention of the cell phone, but news that some cell companies are going to loosen their policies on contracts means a little more freedom and a few less bones.
This past weekend the Washington Post reported that AT&T and Verizon Wireless are going to let customers make changes to their calling plans without automatically extending their contracts. In addition, AT&T is going to reduce the fees consumers pay for breaking their long-term contracts.
How Much Will the iPhone Really Cost You?
In a recent geeksugar poll 28 percent of readers said the iPhone's steep price tag was holding them back from buying the device. At $499 for a 4 GB model and and $599 for an 8GB model, coupled with the fact that many people will have to break their contract with their current phone service in order to sign up with Cingular, there's no denying that it's an expensive cell phone replacement. The high initial fee had many hopeful owners worried about monthly costs.
Would You Pick Good Service Over A Valentine's Date?
Apparently romance is giving way to the promise of good customer service. According to research by wireless service Voce, four out of five Americans would rather have 24-hour customer service assistance from fully informed "live" people than a date on Valentine's Day.
The study "Digging Deeper on Customer Service" highlighted consumers' growing frustration with the continuing downward trend in customer service.
Other Search Results
Wal-Mart Builds Their Own Geek Squad
Need some tech support? Normally I like to troubleshoot my computer and technology woes myself (there's nothing like reading the instruction manual to learn how to operate something while in distress), but on rare occasions, I do have to call a company's tech support hotline to get some help with an issue. However, out of all of the gadgets I've purchased from Best Buy, I've never called upon the Geek Squad's services when I'm in need.
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