I’d be calling their “customer service” line until they were sick of hearing from me.
In the past I have often gotten quick responses by searching out the CEO/COO/CFO etc and sending a short email to them. These email addresses are usually easy to figure out.
Guerilla Consumerism!
I like it.
I learned a long time ago: Start at the top
Smart homes can be too smart at times.
I was a Realtor and once a week we all get in our cars and tour new listings. My friends and i visited a nearly new “Smart Home” and the listing agent tried to show us how the video screen in the kitchen could be used to view visitors at the front door. She could not get it to work so she went through a few screens and ended up playing the owners home-made porn on the video screen for us.
Then we toured the house and the master bedroom where the video was filmed.
That was a Brokers Open none of us will forhet!
ELL - OH!!! - ELL!!
Tech intrusion into our lives scares me. I have a car with an “auto-start” button on my key fob. But the maker (Honda) has made it that it only works if I download their app to my phone. So they can track my every move and use it as part of their “big data” info.
Eff that. I’ll leave that function (auto-start) dead. It kind of pisses me off that I have this function available, but only if I put their app on my phone, but I ain’t gonna do it.
Bastards. There’s no reasonable reason that I know of why the keyfob-to-car start feature would require their app to work.
Could it be security for you? If someone has the fob but not your phone, they can’t just drive off with your car.
No.
I had two customers in the last year who contacted the CEO to tattle on me. (Yes, thats the word I wanted to use.)
In both cases I had lengthy email chains asking them repeatedly for information that we needed to solve the problem (stupid shit like serial numbers and purchase dates) that they had studiously avoided providing. She sided with me and said that if they wanted replacements we needed this information.
Another colleague got a note from the CEO of a very large customer asking why we hadn’t honored a claim from a customer. Turned out the homeowner hadnt even contacted his local store to report a problem but expected the CEO to fix it.
In all three cases it took days of heated emails, phone calls, and online meetings to fix what could have been resolved quickly had they just started with the local folks who are best suited to be the front line assistance.
Moral of the story: your local store/rep is the first step. Escalate it one step at a time as needed.
Nobody wants to help the person who screams bloody murder to the CEO without ever giving the local folks a chance to help.
It just depends on what the problem is.
Aa someone who has dealt with this type of issue for most of my career, it almost never works out well for the consumer, and it 100% never makes anyone feel good about resolving the issue.
Starting at the top, in all of the years I’ve been working, creates the immediate impression that the first line folks are stupid, incompetent, and unwilling to help, when none of those things are typically true.
It does, however, create everyone involved extra time, extra effort, and a metric ton of extra stress…and we wont go out of our way to help you in the future. We’ll deal with you, but don’t count on extra anything.
Ive seen people lose their jobs over it even when the rep was 100% correct.
From the bottom of my heart (and echoed by thousands of my peers), please, please don’t be THAT customer.
You sound like you give dedicated service.
Unfortunately, I’ve had experiences where reps have stymied dealing with problems, haven’t listened, or been insulting. These situations call for Management’s attention.
I don’t think that’s it, because if they have the fob, they can do anything (drive off, whatever). it’s not the unlock or regular push-to-start features that are disabled without the app, it’s just that I can’t stand in my (warm) dining room and start the car from there.
And that’s okay!
I know plenty of crappy reps, both as colleagues and where Im a customer.
If the rep isn’t getting the job done, by all means go up the ladder. You will find someone who will help you…long before you get to the CEO.
It depends on how many steps the ladder has.
If theyre an entrpreneur,of course.
But im trying to make the point that assuming that anyone below the CEO is an incompetent drone who is unable to resolve anything is not the right assumption.
Wahine is in customer service, so your point is well taken.
My own anecdotal experience with big, consumer-based businesses is that you CAN reasonably expect that the bottom rungs of CS are only helpful if the help you need is covered in their SOP flip chart.
And assuming the flowchart doesn’t have a glaring error.
I had a med procedure declined by insurance; they said try PT first for 8 weeks. Fine, did it, didn’t help.
Re-sent the pre-auth along with a note that I had completed their prerequisite. Denied. On the phone I learn the Y/N chart has no path to Y via patient compliance - only via appeal. 1st & 2nd level couldn’t understand my point. 3rd level got the point and said she’d flag the omission upward, but for now her hands were tied.
Luckily for me that was health fair week at work (back when employers offered a number of providers). I met the rep from my current HMO and after explaining, offered to take my $20k in monopoly money to the guy in the booth to the left if this isn’t resolved soon.
Got a call the next day clearing it, and they faxed authorization to the doc. Got the procedure, confiming I needed surgery, and got that done, too.
Three months later I get a congrats type letter indicating that I had won my appeal (which I never filed) and that I was now cleared to get that procedure they’d paid for months earlier. They never fixed the damned Y/N decision chart.
Yeah, this discussion was about tangible products.
Health insurance is a whole nuther thing and this discussion does not apply.
How so?
A bad Y/N decision flowchart (or even just a dumb/silly one) would seem to apply equally well to the tangible product (thermometer) which was the example I began this thread with.
Ha. The difference is one of degree, not kind.
The similarity is: both segments are happy if they don’t have to spend time or money taking care of customers. The businesses depend on the unaccountability of their frontline reps (who they also grossly underpay).
