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“Thank you for calling AT&T. My name is Chad. I’d first like to apologize about any problem you are having and let you know you are a valued customer.”

“I’m sorry sir. I am unable to handle that problem and I do apologize about that. However, I would like to remind you that you are a valued customer and so I will transfer you to someone who can handle your call. Once again, thank you for calling AT&T. I’m sorry you are experiencing a problem but I would like to let you know you are a valued customer. Please wait while I transfer you.”

“Thank you for calling AT&T. My name is Maria. I’d first like to apologize about any problem you are having and let you know you are a valued customer.”

“Well Mr. Jones, I apologize about the problems you are experiencing. I would like to let you know you are a valued customer and I will do everything I can to correct this problem.”

“Once again, I am sorry about the problem you were experiencing Mr. Jones. I am glad we were able to fix it. I want to let you know you are a valued customer. Would you be interested in adding home phone service today?”

What you just read is similar to the conversation I had with AT&T yesterday, or at least their part of the conversation. This was the 4th time I’ve had to call AT&T in the last 4 months because they’ve billed me the wrong amount 4 months in a row.

By now, I feel like I know almost every facet of AT&T’s Customer Service. I know what music will be playing when I call. I know when the generated voice messages will interrupt the music and tell me to keep holding. I know the exact words the voice messages will say. I know that they don’t actually take the calls in the order they are received. And…

I know the script of the workers who are working Customer Service.

While I appreciate their attempts to be polite and respectful, after I’ve been told I’m a “valued customer” 8 times in 1 phone call, added on to the 8 times I heard it during the previous 3 calls, it starts to lose its effect. At one point, I came close to saying, “Chad, please lose the script and just talk to me like a real person!”

The 40 minutes of Customer Annoyance did make me wonder if people ever look at me and ask the same thing. Are there things in life that I do or say that make people want to scream, “David, please lose the script and just talk to me like a real person?”

We’re all playing a role in life. Unfortunately, for many of us, the role we’re playing is dominated by a mask we’re wearing and a script we’re reading from.

It’s tough to be real with people. It’s difficult to be transparent. It’s not easy to talk about the real things in life like our struggles or the things that are bothering us.

So, we stick to the script. It’s easier to play a role that protects us from being real.

[Photo source: http://bit.ly/jUA3AK]

For those of you who follow this blog, I have some exciting news: Sonic finally responded to my call. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here to read the original story about my horrible experience at Sonic.

The response I received wasn’t exactly what I thought it would be. You can see the actual postcard above. If you can’t read it, here’s what it says:

Thank You. A SuperSONIC Experience. Thank you for your recent contact with SONIC, America’s Drive-In. We sincerely appreciate your feedback and look forward to making every effort possible to make your next visit a pleasurable one.

Please accept this postcard for a free sandwich of your choice on your next visit to SONIC. Simply mention that you have a “SuperSONIC Experience” postcard when you place your order and present this postcard when your meal is delivered. Thanks again for visiting SONIC, America’s Drive-In.

There’s several observations that immediately came to mind when I saw this. First, this was not personal at all. It’s obviously a generic card that send out to anyone who calls their feedback number. Second, this came straight from their corporate headquarters in Atlanta, not the actual restaurant that messed up. Third, a free sandwich doesn’t reimburse me for the banana split I paid for and never received. If I’m not mistaken, the banana splits are more expensive than most of their sandwiches.

Although it may surprise you, I don’t have a complaint with the postcard. The card was sent out by the corporate office hoping to make partial amends for what happened. According to the girl I spoke to, the actual restaurant was/is supposed to contact me about the actual problem that happened and set things straight. It seems like the corporate office was trying to go a little further to make things right, assuming the actual restaurant would fix things first. Unfortunately, I still haven’t heard from the restaurant. Kudos to Sonic’s corporate office for doing this. As for the actual restaurant…that’s sad.

The big idea behind the whole issue was to see how Sonic would respond. Would they do it in a personal manner? Would they do it in an automated generic manner? Would they do nothing at all? So far, I’ve seen automated generic + nothing.

I talked to my dad about this issue and he said it’s not surprising. Fast food places really don’t care who they hire anymore, as long as they have someone working. When the service is bad, many managers don’t care because a loss of 1 or 2 customers will not really hurt business, and definitely won’t change individual paychecks.

Believe it or not, I saw this firsthand when I went to Taco Bell last night. I ordered a soft taco with NO lettuce. The guy repeated my order back to me and said it exactly how I ordered it. Therefore my order should have consisted of: Soft taco shell, beef, shredded cheese. Instead I received a soft taco covered in lettuce, onions, nacho cheese, with a pinch of beef. By asking for no lettuce, did I actually annoy someone enough that they decided to add extra ingredients?

I thought about going back thru the drive-thru or calling the restaurant, but if they were jerks enough to intentionally mess up my order, there’s no way I’m going back and asking them to fix it.

Customer Service is definitely dead!

Last night a friend and I decided to go to Sonic to get ice cream. When we pulled into the parking lot, there were about 2-3 cars parked, and a few people outside ordering food. Didn’t seem like a busy night. After a few minutes, I pressed the big red button and ordered. My friend ordered a strawberry-banana fruit smoothie, and I ordered a banana split. 

It seemed to take a lot longer than usual to get our food. In fact, it was about 15 minutes before the girl brought it to us. However, 15 minutes wasn’t that big of a deal. She handed us the smoothie–no problem. That’s where the fun stopped. She handed me the banana split which was surrounded by 10-15 napkins (I’m not exaggerating). The napkins were covered in chocolate syrup. Apparently someone had filled the container too full and it was leaking out of every side. When she handed it to me, it immediately dripped through the closed container and onto my pants. After pulling it into my car, the banana split and the napkins leaked even more onto my pants, my car, and my friend. It was a mess!

Since things were getting nasty, I had to get out of the car. Once I got out, I started looking at the banana split. For some reason, all of the toppings were on the bottom of the container. It makes me think that the container got flipped upside down at some point. Also, the ice cream and whipped cream was not visible. Instead, there was a banana floating in a tub filled with milk. Either the thing had completely melted, or they filled it with a half-gallon of 2%. 

While I tried to lick the stickiness off my hands, my friend asked the waitress if I could get another banana split because mine was melted, leaking all over, and frankly a bowl of cereal without the cereal. She said sure and went back inside. Once again we waited…and waited…and waited…and waited…

After 20 minutes, I still had no banana split, even though I had ordered and paid about 40 minutes earlier. We finally decided to leave. My friend went inside Sonic and told them we were leaving. They told her they had completely forgotten about it and offered to make another one. She politely told them no thank you. One of the girls working asked if my friend if we had already paid. She nicely told them yes, but we were going to go somewhere else. 

We got in the car to leave, and I half-expected someone to come running out with my money, some ice cream, or coupons. None of that happened. Instead, I went down the road to McDonalds, where they got my order right…and delivered my food in less than 2 minutes. Thank you McDonalds.

I’m a pretty big stickler for Customer Service. I believe it is the job of employees to provide you with the service you pay for. I also believe people are human and make mistakes and we do have to understand that. However, when mistakes are made, I believe it is the job of the company/person/service to make things right. 

I called Sonic this afternoon to explain last night’s events. I didn’t call with a mean or demanding attitude. I called in a respectful manner to inform their Customer Service department of what had taken place. The girl I talked to was very nice and understanding. For someone who probably deals with complaints and angry customers all day, she did a great job of doing her job. She apologized several times, took down my information, and sent it to the management of the particular Sonic restaurant.

I hope to follow up with this story soon. I have no idea what Sonic will do, if they even will do something. But, in my eyes, they do have a chance to make things right. If they do respond, I’m curious if it will be in a personable way, or in an automated  ”this is standard procedure” way. Do they care about making things right with each individual customer, or do they care more about not making people mad?

Stay tuned… 

(For the record, if the picture above is what a banana split is supposed to look like, I have no idea what they brought me!)