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**Mongo Skruddgemire** · 03-28-2007, 01:34 PM

$39 plan gets you all these features. We also throw in for free voicemail. So to compensate you for the 14 days of no-voicemail service lets see. 14 days times $0.00 comes out to a credit on your account of zero dollars and zero cents.

The things we wish we could say

M

**greensinestro** · 03-28-2007, 01:42 PM

In defense of this customer, Bellsouth does not offer its voicemail for free. At least, that is how a bill looks. They charge a monthly rate for local service, and a package to give you that and all the features. Voice mail had a stand alone charge, because it is not a regulated service. I used to deal with those calls all the time, that they thought it was a free service and why is it being billed like that. Much of the time, it was because they got it on a three month for six month promotion.

This customer most likely was with a company like Bellsouth and switched it over to whatever company you are with. And, if I am not mistaken, voice mail is a service that is part of a cellular plan, because again, voice mail and cellular are both unregulated services. Companies like Cingular have everything at one rate and don't normally list voice mail with a separate charge.

**Geek King** · 03-28-2007, 01:57 PM

I have to wiegh in here. The voice mail was sold as part of a package to make it more appealing to the consumer. If I had bought said package with the expectation of having voice mail included, and it went down for two weeks, I would want compensation as well. Not a full credit, since the other services were still working, but something. And two weeks is a long time if you end up playing phone tag often, like I do.

I'm kind of finding myself on the customer's side as far as that goes. I can even forgive her a bit for railing at you in frustration. Still sucky, though. She shouldn't have vented on you.

**greensinestro** · 03-28-2007, 02:10 PM

Quoth Geek King View Post

I have to wiegh in here. The voice mail was sold as part of a package to make it more appealing to the consumer. If I had bought said package with the expectation of having voice mail included, and it went down for two weeks, I would want compensation as well. Not a full credit, since the other services were still working, but something. And two weeks is a long time if you end up playing phone tag often, like I do.

I'm kind of finding myself on the customer's side as far as that goes. I can even forgive her a bit for railing at you in frustration. Still sucky, though. She shouldn't have vented on you.

I would have requested a credit as well, as least some sort of a Goodwill credit. Where I work we are allowed to do up to $20 without management approval, although that, to me, is a little extensive depending on the situation. For example, if your service is $30 a month with voice mail and you only were without voice mail for two weeks, I probably would have done something like $10, possibly $15, but not an entire month's worth of service, like in some ridiculous scenarios.

**BookstoreEscapee** · 03-28-2007, 02:10 PM

Quoth TWOLF View Post

Finaly the customer hangs up after being told no credit and no sup. Why won't people listen.

No Sup for you!!

Hate to say it, but I have to agree with Geek King. She does kind of have a point. If it's part of the package and it's not working, well...She does have a valid expectation of all the pieces of the package working as they should. I think the real problem is figuring out what compensation is owed, since that feature does not have a stand-alone charge.

**mrtauntaun** · 03-28-2007, 02:44 PM

While I think the customer took it too far, I can see where he is coming from. He pays $X, and expects various services, of which voicemail is one. The fact that voicemail is not an itemized charge is a technicality. It's like going on a cruise and people telling you the food is 'free'. It's not free, it's prepaid.
That being said, if the company said no as policy, and no supervisor will budge on the issue, it's time to say thanks for your time and hang up politely.

**ShortTemperHatesStupidity** · 03-28-2007, 06:26 PM

I also must agree with Geek here. When our home service goes down for an extended time I expect a credit-not a full one but at least something to compensate for my inconvenience. When my text messaging feature wasn't working for a few weeks with my cell service I called and got a credit-again, not a full one, but something for my troubles.

On the flip side she doesn't need to take it out on you. Most customers don't understand that first tier support usually doesn't have the authority to hand out such things, but they do have the power to influence the decisions of the higher-ups.

**Boozy** · 03-28-2007, 08:41 PM

I think the company is in the wrong here. How convenient for them that, when they have technical problems with their voice mail, they don't have to compensate any of their customers because their customers have not technically paid for it. Very crafty, and a little bit underhanded. I might be an SC in this situation, too. Its ridiculous to think that no one signed up for a higher-priced package to get that voice mail feature. These people have essentially paid for it by paying more in general for their services.
Lets be honest - if the company didn't think anyone would sign up for a more expensive package than they otherwise would have, simply for the voice mail feature, then why do they offer the voice mail at all?

**karma_gypsy** · 03-28-2007, 11:27 PM

So . . . the customer is saying that her voicemail was down for two weeks . . . why didn't she call two weeks ago and figure out what's wrong?

And let's just say that it's difficult to determine whether the voicemail is working or not (like messages weren't being saved or somethin or maybe she hardly gets voicemail) - then how would she know that it had stopped working two weeks ago?

**Freemage** · 03-29-2007, 01:48 AM

That's pretty straightforward--you find out that your voicemail isn't working when someone who has been trying to get ahold of you finally does so and mentions it.

At that point, you start getting a bit paranoid about who else might not have gotten through, so you make some phone calls and find out, and pretty soon you can figure out when it stopped working.

And yeah, Sucky Company story as much as Sucky Customer--a 'free' feature that's part of a package is a back-door to evading any accountability. This is the sort of thing that would motivate me to cancel service.

**Imogene** · 03-31-2007, 07:40 PM

That sounds like my phone call from the police. I was at home, and somehow, every year, the police would call for a fund-raiser of some sort, and ask me to sell tickets. They'd try to get me to pledge $10 or whatever. But I never actually agreed to any of it. One year, they called me and said, "We never got your pledge from last year."
I was this close to saying, "You didn't get my nothing? Here, let me transfer that 'NOTHING' to your account right now!"

**CrazedClerk** · 03-31-2007, 08:10 PM

You'd have to fire up your calculator to do the math, but you probably could've come up with some kind of partial credit to give this person (even it was only say $5), but yes I deal with the same thing too. I work at a call center doing tech support for cell phones.

**TNT** · 03-31-2007, 09:21 PM

I just looked at my plan... it was sold to me as "xxx minutes for $xx.xx. Includes free voicemail, etc." If it says "free" then that's what it is... free voicemail.

**Rapscallion** · 03-31-2007, 10:43 PM

If you didn't pay for the service, you wouldn't get the voicemail, therefore it's not truly free - I think that's where the logic comes from here. The customer was an ass, but I think they had a point here - albeit badly made and suckily done.

Rapscallion

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But I should get credited for vm

But I should get credited for vm

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