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This isn't so much a report of a SC, but a question on how to avoid being one...
I have a Compaq laptop that I purchased for a bargain price. About nine months after buying it, the battery stopped holding more than fifteen minutes or so of charge. The little battery health program on the support website, wonder of wonders, told me that the battery was in warranty.
I dutifully start an online ticket and the agent sets up a battery replacement. They call me five minutes later to get my credit card number so they can cross-ship. Five minutes after placing the order, I go online and find that the order is canceled. (It was probably canceled because the agent typed in my address wrong so it didn't match with the credit card.) I call back and get a new order placed.
Five minutes after placing that order, my order status says "Please call 800-blah-blah to speak with a support representative about your order." There is also an estimated part arrival date.
I dutifully call back and nobody on the phone has any idea what I am talking about. I say that I am only following instructions, but I am assured that everything is fine.
Naturally, the date of order shipment comes and goes. The date of part arrival comes and goes. Still no shipment. I call again, and again, nobody knows why the website is asking me to call them. I ask where my part is, and I get one of several answers, depending on who I am talking to on that particular call.
1) There is a "hold" on the order by the parts department. No, they don't know why, but somebody can call me within 24-48 hours to tell me.
2) They don't know, but can send a message to the department that does.
3) It's out of stock. (For a month? (which is how long I was bugging them about it) For a part that is shared by zillion other models? For a part in stock on the shopping website? For a part being shipped, right now, on new machines from the factory?)
After about a week and a half of this, with the website still listing the same message, the same (now past) shipping date, and no call back ever from somebody at HP, I ask for a supervisor. I am then told that there isn't one. Not "there isn't one available", or "not one I can transfer you to", but rather "I don't have one." This woman flatly tells me that she works without supervision. Apparently her paychecks appear out of thin air... She has nobody she can call, nobody that she can transfer me to. Nope, all she can do is send one of these "messages" that does not, in fact, work.
I'm getting pretty annoyed by this point, and I know that if I was on the other end of the line, I'd be rolling my eyes, and wondering when the customer is going to stop asking for things I can't provide.
I send an e-mail "to the CEO" from the HP website listing my tale of woe. I get a form letter back saying that my business is very important, somebody will get back to me, blah, blah, blah. Does this have any effect? Nope. Instead...
They cancel the part order. At this point, I'm furious. I call them again, and this time the person I talk to says, in about thirty seconds, "Let me transfer your case to an escalation manager." (Apparently escalation paths exist after all!) She says one will call me back withing 24-48 hours. I offer to wait on hold, and she does indeed put me on hold. In about 40 minutes somebody picks up, and the guy uses an HP AmEx Card to order a battery from themselves, pay full retail to themselves for it, pay themselves shipping, sales tax, the whole works.
I ask him why the original order was canceled. He states "When a warranty part doesn't ship for a while, we cancel the order." He says this like it is the most normal thing in the world to fail to ever send out parts to fix busted machines. 
He mentions that in the case notes it says somebody left me a message on my machine letting me know the order was dumped. This is a flat-out lie by whoever put that in the log.
During some of the later calls, I admit that if I was on the receiving end, I would think that I was dealing with a SC. However, what exactly is a customer supposed to do in this sort of situation? Trying to get anything useful out of the call center was like talking to a brick wall. How exactly was I supposed to get the service I was paying for? I wasn't demanding my money back, I wasn't asking for free stuff, I wasn't asking for anything but what I was told I was going to get.
I know it wasn't the call center reps fault that they don't have any way of contacting the dept. that has screwed up the order. I know it isn't their fault nobody ever calls me back. I know it isn't their fault that they have no idea why the website thought there was a problem with my order. I know that they cannot pull a battery out of thin air and send one to me. I know that call center drones are not equipped with corporate credit cards with which to fix the problem. I expect that their system won't let them escalate cases until they are really bad, not just delayed. But what was I supposed to do? How does one simultaneously avoid being sucky, yet get somebody at the other end to finally step up to the plate and do what was promised? I work in customer support myself and have sympathy for their plight. (Luckily, my employer DOES give me an escalation path that either I, or they, can invoke at will. There isn't an engineer I can escalate them to, but they can talk to however much management they can handle.)
SirWired
P.S. The screws that hold the case together are now falling out of this laptop. HP will generously sell me replacements for the bargain price of $42.67 for a baggie of six screws, one of each size used in the machine. I would need three of those little baggies. For this, I do not even bother to complain. I'll buy a new machine (sure as heck not from HP) before I'll spend $150 on machine screws. (I eventually order ones that are too long from a random screw-selling website, and cut them to the right length with my Dremel.)
I have a Compaq laptop that I purchased for a bargain price. About nine months after buying it, the battery stopped holding more than fifteen minutes or so of charge. The little battery health program on the support website, wonder of wonders, told me that the battery was in warranty.
I dutifully start an online ticket and the agent sets up a battery replacement. They call me five minutes later to get my credit card number so they can cross-ship. Five minutes after placing the order, I go online and find that the order is canceled. (It was probably canceled because the agent typed in my address wrong so it didn't match with the credit card.) I call back and get a new order placed.
Five minutes after placing that order, my order status says "Please call 800-blah-blah to speak with a support representative about your order." There is also an estimated part arrival date.
I dutifully call back and nobody on the phone has any idea what I am talking about. I say that I am only following instructions, but I am assured that everything is fine.
Naturally, the date of order shipment comes and goes. The date of part arrival comes and goes. Still no shipment. I call again, and again, nobody knows why the website is asking me to call them. I ask where my part is, and I get one of several answers, depending on who I am talking to on that particular call.
1) There is a "hold" on the order by the parts department. No, they don't know why, but somebody can call me within 24-48 hours to tell me.
2) They don't know, but can send a message to the department that does.
3) It's out of stock. (For a month? (which is how long I was bugging them about it) For a part that is shared by zillion other models? For a part in stock on the shopping website? For a part being shipped, right now, on new machines from the factory?)
After about a week and a half of this, with the website still listing the same message, the same (now past) shipping date, and no call back ever from somebody at HP, I ask for a supervisor. I am then told that there isn't one. Not "there isn't one available", or "not one I can transfer you to", but rather "I don't have one." This woman flatly tells me that she works without supervision. Apparently her paychecks appear out of thin air... She has nobody she can call, nobody that she can transfer me to. Nope, all she can do is send one of these "messages" that does not, in fact, work.
I'm getting pretty annoyed by this point, and I know that if I was on the other end of the line, I'd be rolling my eyes, and wondering when the customer is going to stop asking for things I can't provide.
I send an e-mail "to the CEO" from the HP website listing my tale of woe. I get a form letter back saying that my business is very important, somebody will get back to me, blah, blah, blah. Does this have any effect? Nope. Instead...
They cancel the part order. At this point, I'm furious. I call them again, and this time the person I talk to says, in about thirty seconds, "Let me transfer your case to an escalation manager." (Apparently escalation paths exist after all!) She says one will call me back withing 24-48 hours. I offer to wait on hold, and she does indeed put me on hold. In about 40 minutes somebody picks up, and the guy uses an HP AmEx Card to order a battery from themselves, pay full retail to themselves for it, pay themselves shipping, sales tax, the whole works.
I ask him why the original order was canceled. He states "When a warranty part doesn't ship for a while, we cancel the order." He says this like it is the most normal thing in the world to fail to ever send out parts to fix busted machines. He mentions that in the case notes it says somebody left me a message on my machine letting me know the order was dumped. This is a flat-out lie by whoever put that in the log.During some of the later calls, I admit that if I was on the receiving end, I would think that I was dealing with a SC. However, what exactly is a customer supposed to do in this sort of situation? Trying to get anything useful out of the call center was like talking to a brick wall. How exactly was I supposed to get the service I was paying for? I wasn't demanding my money back, I wasn't asking for free stuff, I wasn't asking for anything but what I was told I was going to get.
I know it wasn't the call center reps fault that they don't have any way of contacting the dept. that has screwed up the order. I know it isn't their fault nobody ever calls me back. I know it isn't their fault that they have no idea why the website thought there was a problem with my order. I know that they cannot pull a battery out of thin air and send one to me. I know that call center drones are not equipped with corporate credit cards with which to fix the problem. I expect that their system won't let them escalate cases until they are really bad, not just delayed. But what was I supposed to do? How does one simultaneously avoid being sucky, yet get somebody at the other end to finally step up to the plate and do what was promised? I work in customer support myself and have sympathy for their plight. (Luckily, my employer DOES give me an escalation path that either I, or they, can invoke at will. There isn't an engineer I can escalate them to, but they can talk to however much management they can handle.)
SirWired
P.S. The screws that hold the case together are now falling out of this laptop. HP will generously sell me replacements for the bargain price of $42.67 for a baggie of six screws, one of each size used in the machine. I would need three of those little baggies. For this, I do not even bother to complain. I'll buy a new machine (sure as heck not from HP) before I'll spend $150 on machine screws. (I eventually order ones that are too long from a random screw-selling website, and cut them to the right length with my Dremel.)
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