The holiday season brings with it a flurry of purchases, some of which are bound to go wrong in one way or another. It's a time when you will probably have to deal with customer service staff in some capacity, and I have seen a textbook example of each: customer service done right and customer service done wrong.
Borders gift card orders (or rather more likely, the cards themselves) are fulfilled through a company called CardWays.com. I have extended family that I exchange gifts with who are all big readers, so I got 3 such gift cards. What's more, I ordered them early (the first week of December). Now they shipped to my parents' house, where all the gifts went for the convenience of its proximity to my grandparents' house, where the gift exchange happens. So I didn't realize the cards had not arrived until the weekend before Christmas.
I call them early (before 6 am my time) Saturday morning and am surprised to get through. The previous night, I got their voice mail and a full mailbox, so I was determined to be one of the first in line the following day. They were surprised I hadn't noticed sooner, but were eager to help. They told me they were going to ship it out immediately, Saturday delivery, and they apologized for the inconvenience. I asked the lady what exactly had gone wrong with my order--I never got an email with a tracking number like I expected, and the order number I did have, when punched into their website, only told me that it was "in progress". She told me that she saw that, and didn't trust what the computer was reporting, and that is why she was just going to ship it out (possibly "again"). She goes on to tell me that the demand was much greater than they were prepared for over the holiday season and it might have fallen through the cracks, apologizes some more, and that is that.
Imagine my surprise when I actually receive them
five hours later in the mail. Now these aren't actually the cards I ordered. They're the plain cards with nothing but the Borders logo on them, not the ones with the pretty designs that I picked. As long as they have the right amounts on them though, I don't really care. I unfold a letter that accompanies the cards and discover that they are still really sorry--and to prove it, they're going to
also send me the cards I originally ordered. What that means is that I will actually receive double the number and amount in gift cards as I ordered ($90 worth rather than $45).
The next day, I receive one of the cards with my personal message on it, and the gift card inside with the design that I chose. A few days later, I received an envelope with all three gift cards inside cards. That's right, they actually sent me one of them twice, meaning I netted an extra $60 in gift cards rather than $45. Talk about being eager to make up their mistake. Needless to say, I went from being highly disgruntled with Borders/CardWays to being very satisfied. My mother, who was talking about how she would never do business with a company like that, also did an about face in her opinion.
Contrast that, now, with my experience dealing with TracFone. My sister has a TracFone with the minutes already doubled (for any cards added to her phone). On Christmas Eve, I fired up my browser to purchase some additional minutes for her phone. Upon checking out with my 200 additional minutes, I was asked if I wanted to add any additional minutes or days (within which to use said minutes). Already I was extending her minutes by 200 and her days by 90. I had the options of adding 30 more minutes, 60 more minutes, 30 more days, 60 more days. I was told I could check off any combination of them. I check off 30 and 60 more minutes, bringing the total to 290 minutes. I check out. They present a page that tells me my minutes have been successfully purchased. It looks like every "end of transaction" page I've seen, so I don't read it carefully. I print it off for my records and close my browser.
Christmas morning comes and I've written on her other gift that she should check the minutes on her TracFone. When she does, lo and behold... no additional minutes. I return to my computer, rather peeved, and re-read the page I previously printed out. At the very bottom is a single sentence, telling me that to
add the minutes to the phone, I need to click continue. There was an extra step at the end for no good reason. Furious, I browse back to the page, and am surprised to find that it resumes my session. It informs me that it looks like I didn't complete my previous transaction and would I like to do that now? Is this another Borders incident, where a mishap will be turned on its head? Optimistic now, and encouraged by the fact that it's presenting 290 minutes on the screen, I finish checking out. I ask my sister to check her phone again. She has 200 more minutes. Wait, where are the other 90? It's time to call customer service.
I'm going to attempt to make a long story short (and fail). Dealing with TracFone customer service took several attempts. The first time I was told that the minutes I ordered went through in three transactions. A virtual 200, 60, and 30 minute card. They told me that the 200 minute card had gone through,
as had the 60 minute one, but not the 30 minute one. After putting me on hold while they talk to a manager, they finally add the 30 minutes, while I'm on the phone with them, with her phone in my hand. It shows up as a message in her inbox, and is reflected on the LCD screen, while I'm still on the phone with customer service. This will be important in a moment.
In telling my mom how the call went, she points out that my aunt also purchased minutes for my sister's phone. She bought a 60 minute card, in the store, and my sister had added those minutes to her phone also on Christmas morning. She thinks they are incorrect that the 60 minutes I purchased were added to my phone, that they are confusing the 60 minutes my aunt bought her. I add up minutes, realize she's right, and call them back. After explaining everything from the beginning (adding the bit about my aunt's purchase), them having me punch codes into the phone again, determining that the phone is reporting the same thing their computers are, getting put on hold while they talk to a manager again--the finally tell me they're going to add the 60 minutes.
Again, I get a message in the inbox, but this time it's different. It says something about 60 minutes, but then it says "0 units" added. I tell her I got a message but--she interrupts to say yes, that is the minutes she added. I pause, then ask her if she can tell me how many minutes were on the phone before she added 60 more. She tells me that she doesn't have that number, asks me what the phone says now, and assures me that that's what her computer says also. I grudgingly accept and hang up. Then I get out some scratch paper and write down from the beginning, exactly how many minutes were on the phone, each transaction that occurred, and how many should have been on it then, and so forth. As I suspected, the number of minutes currently reported is still 60 minutes short of what it should have been. However, I have to wait for my sister to return from work with the phone, as she was literally on her way out as I was hanging up with the last customer service rep, part of the reason I didn't bicker further at that moment.
Call number three. Again I explain from the beginning. This time I am told to turn the phone off and back on several times as we go through the process of entering codes. I am told that the minutes and date match what they show and the guy obviously wants to hang up now. I explain the problem with the previous transaction and describe the message I got that said zero units added. He assures me that the days have been properly extended into September, and that that shows that all of the cards have been added, as the minutes and the days are added
together. Ah, I see the problem he's having now. I explain to him that I purchased it online, that I had the option of buying
just minutes or
just days. I purchased a 200 minute card, which extended it 90 days, and a 60 minute card with 0 days, and a 30 minute card with 0 days. Understanding now, he tells me he's going to add the minutes (no supervisor this time, hurray!) The minutes go up exactly 100. Elated to see them go up at all, I thank him and hang up. Then it strikes me as odd that it didn't go up 120 (the 60 minutes doubled). I double check all my previous math and realize, yes, they gypped me 10/20 minutes, but I'm too sick of dealing with them to call them back.
What did TracFone do wrong? Their website failed to process all of the transactions I paid for, while showing that it had. Their computer system failed to distinguish between minutes purchased online and minutes added by card. Also, either it failed to indicate to them that there were two similar transactions, or somebody was careless in looking at the data, leading to confusion over whether the 60 minutes had already been added or not. Of the three customer service reps I talked to, the most tech savvy one did not even realize that the transactions processed online could be either extend just minutes or just days, not both. Then he increased the minutes by a nonsensical number--you can't even
buy 50 minute cards. The thing they did right was not fight with me once it became apparent I was in the right on each transaction (even if it took talking to a supervisor), but that hardly makes up for all the things they did wrong (or the fact that it took 3 transactions to fix, and would've taken a 4th had I cared enough about the remaining 10 minutes).
What did I get out of my customer service adventure? Well, I had been considering getting a TracFone myself, but no longer. On the plus side, I now have sixty bucks to burn on Borders' website. What, you thought I passed the extra cards on to my relatives? :-D
