Customer What Now?

I've had some absolutely appalling experiences with customer service lately - to the point where it's kind of actually troubling me. I know I wrote about my Father's Day fiasco with Sears. Well, then there was the even bigger fiasco with FedEx a couple weeks ago that was so bad I'll honestly never use them again, if I can in any way avoid it. DHL is my homeboy, people. Here's what happened (and I'm going to do my best to protect the privacy of the individuals involved - my friends, I mean, not the FedEx peeps - their names will be in the post).

A few weeks ago, a friend's father was diagnosed with colon cancer. Shortly thereafter, we were having a get together, so my sister, brother and I thought it'd be a fun idea to get some LiveStrong wrist bands to bring to the get together in his honor. (He is a very popular guy, so had already gone through a box of them, just among his friends and family.) So, I ordered the bands Thursday for what I thought was Saturday delivery. To make an even longer story a little shorter, I found out on Friday that I'd been mistaken. So, I called the Lance Armstrong Foundation, and after some cajoling from my sister and myself, they (VERY KINDLY) agreed to pay an additional fee to expedite the shipping to Saturday delivery (in addition to the fee I'd already paid for expedited shipping, mind you). We had a conference call with me, FedEx and LAF, and all parties agreed that this would work just fine, and we were all set. YAY! I thanked LAF profusely for their generosity. The woman told me they were glad to help.

Saturday, of course, the wrist bands did not arrive and did not arrive and I finally called FedEx. The "customer support" rep I spoke to was at a complete loss. I asked to be escalated to a manager, which I was. The manager's name was Tonya Bass. I pass this along in case any of you has occasion to deal with FedEx "customer support." Anyway, after around 45 minutes debating with Ms. Bass the fact that I was in Long Island and the facility where they were holding my shipment hostage was in Jamaica, NY (Queens), and really, that's...not that far away, and that the LAF and I had BOTH paid expedited shipping fees, and after her changing her story from, "Well, the shipment missed the truck this morning," to "Well, actually, the Lance Armstrong Foundation never did upgrade the shipping," and back again (after I informed her that I knew that to be false, since I'd been on the phone with both LAF and FedEx at the time when the shipping was upgraded), she finally informed me that she was getting off shift and would be hanging up on me. Upon my letting her know how unwise a move this would be, she calmed down enough to assure me she would have someone call me back once they were able to locate my package and figure something out.

Two hours later, shockingly, I had not heard from FedEx. I called back again, and again and this time immediately asked to be escalated to a manager. The manager who answered this time, Sheila Malone, was more pleasant. I told her the entire story and she let me know that Ms. Bass was supposed to have let her know of any outstanding customer support issues, but did not. I told Ms. Malone exactly how unhappy I was with the situation, and that I'd come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't be getting my shipment that day, but that although my little shipment probably didn't mean much to a company like FedEx, the fact that I was in the presence of five business owners who all used FedEx regularly should.

The next night when I got home, I wrote to FedEx and detailed the entire story, including the names, and including the assertion that I and the other business owners I'd been with over the weekend would not be using FedEx any longer. In response, I received a grammatically incorrect autoresponse. So, I wrote back, "Is this response a joke? Do your customers honestly mean so little to you that you can't even be bothered to provide grammatically correct responses to complaints? Perhaps it's a good thing that FedEx will lose business over this incident." At that point, I did at least receive an actual email from an actual person, but it still signed off with, "I hope your next interaction with FedEx proves more positive." Yea. Still not quite getting the point, here. THERE WILL BE NO NEXT TIME.

I feel like, increasingly, these large companies are so comfortable in their monopolies of their respective fields that they are completely complacent when it comes to customer service. (I've had similar experiences recently with not only Sears, but also Comcast and CVS.) I don't mean to be all fringe, "EFF THE MAN!" here, but it's really troubling to me that companies that should be based on customer service...don't give a sweet goddamn about customer service. And they wonder why they lose customers in this type of economy?! You know who has my business for life? Virgin Atlantic Airways. And do you know why? Because once, nearly ten years ago, they took such good care of me on a flight to London that I will never, ever forget it. Companies these days bemoan the lack of brand loyalty. But I've never heard Richard Branson bemoan it - and I don't think that's a coincidence.