But I should get credited for vm

[Broomjockey]

To me, the only way the vm is actually free is if there is a way for me to get it without having an account.

That means somehow, I'm paying something for it. If I'm paying something for it, and it's not working, I expect the company to do *something* for me.
It doesn't have to be much, and it'd depend on the length of outage and how much I'm paying for my monthly bill.

I think the $5 inconvenience credit is a good idea. It's enough to placate most customers, it doesn't put a specific value on the voice mail, and it won't break the company to give it out once in a while.

The sandwich analogy only kind of works, because if a mistake is made with it, I can always go back and get it fixed right then, rather than figuring out when a service that only bothers you when it's working became broken.

That sad, the caller in the op was rude, and that should get you nowhere.

[Bonnie Bitch]

So how often do you call up your voicemail when there's no indicator saying you got a message? Just asking. Because that's the situation, here.

I check my voicemail every day. If someone does call and doesn't leave a message, they show up on Caller ID. I ask them to leave a message next time. My sister (Beverly Bitch, RN) is notorious for calling and not leaving a message.
I have the service, so the onus of using it is on me. If I don't use it, then I have no grounds to bitch about back credit when I call it to report it as out-of-service.
When I was at my former residence, I had phone service with Byte-My-A$$ Communications. I had my home phone and cell phone linked together, with the same voice mail.
When I moved, I kept the cell and had the landline shut off. The voice mail was the same for both numbers, but the announcement was, "You have reached <bonnie's landline>."
And it stayed that way for months. Since I was getting voice mail from people who didn't have my cell number but called my old landline and from people who were calling my cell, I didn't think anything of it.
And one day (January 14th of this year, to be precise), I called my voice mail, as I do every day. Surprise, surprise! I had no voice mail. At all. So I called Byte-my-A$$ Communications and told the nice person I had no voice mail.
The first thing out of my mouth was, "With just the Cheapskate Plan, do I get voice mail?" The nice person said yes and fixed the problem for me. I now have voice mail again. It's just for my cell now, the way it should have been when I disconnected my landline.
Gosh, maybe I should have bitched about it and <coughcough> requested <coughcough> some credit for that. <j/k - kind of>
Or, if by some chance, you are asking whether I voice mail myself to see if the feature is working, the answer is no. The only person I know who does that is my gay boyfriend, Jack. He VM's himself for reminders, like shopping lists, what time he's supposed to be at my place for dinner, the latest gossip (if it's complicated), etc. I've begged him to get a palm pilot, but he insists on having his hands free at all times, for those extra-special emergencies

[mrtauntaun]

Well, you don't have to ask for a credit I suppose, but the point is it's not out of line to request one. Any service I have that I am paying for, I want to make sure I am getting what I am paying for. I am not going to yell or whine or be a jerk about it, but I work hard for my money so I try to spend it wisely.

For example, I pay a monthly fee for cable. If I don't watch TV for 2 days and the cable is out for those days at no fault of my own, then I am going to request a credit. The cable company did not provide me with the service I am paying them for.

The point is if I am paying for XXX services, so it is the company's responsibility to provide it, regardless of whether or not it was actually used. Going back to the cable example, I can pay for the best cable package out there and then choose to never watch it, but the company is still required to provide it to me if I am paying them. They can't make me use the service, but they have to render services that are paid for.

[Bonnie Bitch]

Who's to say it's arbitrary? For all we know, this date could in fact be legitimate and verifiable.

In the OP, the CSR had no verification of any service outage affecting voice mail. The SC called in and said, "My VM has been out for two weeks."
That's arbitrary, as in the definition of the word. ("based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something.")
The parameters of the original scenario can be changed arbitrarily, as well. That doesn't address the issue of the customer's onus of using the service and reporting outages in a timely manner.
The SC's arbitrary say-so constitutes neither validation nor verification in any way, shape, or form.
If the situation under actual discussion were to happen to me at F-U-Telephone (my current employer), I would be inclined to issue a nominal credit (circa $5.00), but I would make damn sure that the customer knows it's a "courtesy credit," rather than a time-without-service credit. If the customer gets it into her/his head that it's a TWS credit, then the ensuing argument about pro-rating is never pretty, with the demands for removal of unwanted features required for the bundle being just as ugly.

Take the following scenario: My friend calls me, asks me if I got his voicemail he left me two weeks ago. I say no, and proceed to check my VM. No indicator light, and I call only to find it is indeed not working. This is not arbitrary, this now has a verified point in time as to when the outage can be traced back too.

Precisely what I said in a previous post. It is legitimate to ask for some sort of remuneration from the time when the outage was noticed. The OP, however, did not present that scenario. The original scenario was that the SC called in on the day she noticed her VM was out and claimed that the VM had been out for "two weeks." The arbitrary demand for credit pro-rated for the arbitrary two weeks is neither legitimate nor valid.

If we were to go to the scenario you describe

I have no idea what you're talking about, as I have described no scenario. I am discussing (and will continue to discuss) only the scenario as outlined by the OP, regardless of any irrelevant, arbitrary thread drift.
Other arbitrary scenarios may have merit but are irrelevant to the discussion and hypothetical resolution of the original scenario.

[Bonnie Bitch]

Well, you don't have to ask for a credit I suppose, but the point is it's not out of line to request one. Any service I have that I am paying for, I want to make sure I am getting what I am paying for. I am not going to yell or whine or be a jerk about it, but I work hard for my money so I try to spend it wisely.
For example, I pay a monthly fee for cable. If I don't watch TV for 2 days and the cable is out for those days at no fault of my own, then I am going to request a credit. The cable company did not provide me with the service I am paying them for.
The point is if I am paying for XXX services, so it is the company's responsibility to provide it, regardless of whether or not it was actually used. Going back to the cable example, I can pay for the best cable package out there and then choose to never watch it, but the company is still required to provide it to me if I am paying them. They can't make me use the service, but they have to render services that are paid for.

The analogy above to cable service is invalid. In the original scenario, the customer complained about one feature. The correct analogy to cable service would be that one channel was out for two days. The rest of the service functioned normally, as did the SC's service in the original scenario.
The analogy above also falls apart with the "Two days without unused service." Since the service is not being used, the customer would have no idea whether her/his service was out or not. Especially with TB service, where one customer's service is running fine, while his/her neighbor's service is out for any number of reasons, whose onus is not the company's.
Having worked for both a TV service and a phone company, it's been my experience that the company will not be aware of individual outages until the customers reports an outage. IMO, time without service should be credited, plus or minus one day from the time of the report.
However, in the original scenario under actual discussion, the customer called in the day she noticed a lack of one feature on her service and then arbitrarily claimed that one feature was out for two weeks, sans proof.
The SC in the original scenario was scamming for credit. The scam may have been unintentional, born of the customer's laziness, ineptitude with the service, or even lackadaisical financial attitude toward paying for an intentionally ignored, unused service.
The onus of using the service is still the customer's. To arbitrarily say that this is forcing the customer to use the service is disingenuous, at best, as is demanding credit for intentionally ignored, unused service.

[mrtauntaun]

You are correct, I should have elaborated my analogy. Where I live, we pay for Cable, TV and Internet as one service package. If one part of a package goes out (the cable in my analogy, VM in the OP), then requesting a credit is not out of line.

And while the company may not be aware of an outage until it is reported, and no one could expect them to on an individual end-user to end-user basis, they are required to compensate the consumer for services paid for but not received, regardless of usage.

IMO, time without service should be credited, plus or minus one day from the time of the report.

This is all I am saying, I am not asking for credit above and beyond the actual duration of the outage. But that outage should be based on the actual outage date, not the date of the report. And that date can be easily verified by any technology based company, once the root cause is established.

To arbitrarily say that this is forcing the customer to use the service is disingenuous, at best, as is demanding credit for intentionally ignored, unused service.

The fact that the service is unused does not matter, the fact is it is still a service that is being paid for, and must still be provided regardless of usage.

To reply to Bonnie Bitch

In the OP, the CSR had no verification of any service outage affecting voice mail. The SC called in and said, "My VM has been out for two weeks."
That's arbitrary, as in the definition of the word.

The way the caller presented it is arbitrary, but the two weeks could still be a legitimate and verifiable timeframe. The onus for that is on the caller, but it is not outside the realm of possibility the caller was correct, albeit sucky. It is being assumed the date is arbitrary, but all I am saying is it could in fact be valid.

As for the courtesy credit, I replied to that specifically earlier in the thread. It is a fair credit, and leaves the company an out by calling it a courtesy. In my view, a win win.

I have no idea what you're talking about, as I have described no scenario.

I was referring to this quote:

Credit should only be issued from the time the complaint was lodged and notated, not retroactive to an arbitrary date fabricated by the customer.

The scenario (<- poor choice of words, my apologies) being credit should only be issued from the date of the complaint is not fair compensation. Just because it wasn't noticed does not mean the end user should not be compensated, the service is being paid for.

[Andara Bledin]

I never call my voicemail unless there is an unheard message on it. Because, (with my soon-to-be-gone landline service) when I have a message, there is a stutter in the dial tone when I pick up the phone.

So, if there's no stutter, I'm going to assume that I have no voicemail. However, if the voicemail service is not functioning, I won't ever know unless someone who called and got no answer and no voicemail told me it had happened.

Again, it is perfectly reasonable that the SC in the OP both had an initial date for the outage and that initial date was two weeks prior to their being made aware of it. They're still a sucky customer, but their claims are completely within the realm of possibility.

^-.-^

[Bonnie Bitch]

Just because it wasn't noticed does not mean the end user should not be compensated, the service is being paid for.

Amphibolous and illogical.
cf my previous posts.

[Bonnie Bitch]

I never call my voicemail unless there is an unheard message on it. Because, (with my soon-to-be-gone landline service) when I have a message, there is a stutter in the dial tone when I pick up the phone.

So, if there's no stutter, I'm going to assume that I have no voicemail. However, if the voicemail service is not functioning, I won't ever know unless someone who called and got no answer and no voicemail told me it had happened.

Again, it is perfectly reasonable that the SC in the OP both had an initial date for the outage and that initial date was two weeks prior to their being made aware of it. They're still a sucky customer, but their claims are completely within the realm of possibility.

^-.-^

And the time frame of two weeks was still arbitrary guesswork, as proven yet again.

[TWOLF]

Yeah I did think of giving her a credit, but there is a problem to this and one the company upholds. If a customer gets a credit for the vm not working and is optional to use or not, then who is to say that if their vm stops working(not charged for as well) they won't call in about that. The problem becomes the customer will start calling in for any exscuse for a credit and we start paying them to be with us. Really it's a judgement call and as one person stated no sup would budge on this matter. What drives me nuts is that she waited that long to call in. I'll be nice but there is only so much niceness you can give in a day. Ido aggree that there should be something we could have done,but if we don't know what is going on or what is causing the issue, then how can you give out a credit for this?

[mrtauntaun]

And the time frame of two weeks was still arbitrary guesswork, as proven yet again.

Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because the arbitrary part is still more of an assumption than proof, IMO.
And I think it's illogical to NOT want what you've rightfully paid for. But if that's fine by you, who am I to argue otherwise.

[Bonnie Bitch]

Well, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because the arbitrary part is still more of an assumption than proof, IMO.

And that's exactly why the customer's say-so in this case is not proof. Thank you for agreeing.

And I think it's illogical to NOT want what you've rightfully paid for. But if that's fine by you, who am I to argue otherwise.

Then you're arguing against yourself.

[Bonnie Bitch]

Yeah I did think of giving her a credit, but there is a problem to this and one the company upholds. If a customer gets a credit for the vm not working and is optional to use or not, then who is to say that if their vm stops working(not charged for as well) they won't call in about that. The problem becomes the customer will start calling in for any exscuse for a credit and we start paying them to be with us. Really it's a judgement call and as one person stated no sup would budge on this matter. What drives me nuts is that she waited that long to call in. I'll be nice but there is only so much niceness you can give in a day. Ido aggree that there should be something we could have done,but if we don't know what is going on or what is causing the issue, then how can you give out a credit for this?

EXCATLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And who gets to pick up the tab for the revenue lost to SC's?

[TNT]

And who gets to pick up the tab for the revenue lost to SC's?

And remember... it's not just the cost of the credit itself. Between pay and benefits, it costs someone (the company? the other customers?) $20 an hour to talk to me... plus all the other expenses that go into running a call center.

We have customers who go looking for trouble...

Caller: Channel 62 appears to be out.
Me: Has it been out for awhile?
Caller: I don't know. I never watch it. I was just flipping through the channels and noticed there's nothing on.
Me: I'll report it to our network center. Thank you. Is there anything else?
Caller: Well... what kind of credit are you going to give me?
Me: For a channel you never watch?
Caller: I'm still paying for it. I should get a credit.

I've even had this:

Caller: I want credit for today because TV was out.
Me: How long was it out for?
Caller: I don't know... I was at work all day. My neighbor said his was out, so mine probably was, too.
Me: It works now?
Caller: It works fine.
Me: And you want credit for a time when you weren't even home?
Caller: I'm still paying for it even when I'm not home.

And then there's:

Caller: I'll be going away for the weekend. I want to shut my service off for three days.
Me: I'll be happy to do that... and charge you a $50 reconnect fee when you have it turned back on.
Caller: Why should I have to pay for service I won't be able to use?

Those are true stories.

[mrtauntaun]

And that's exactly why the customer's say-so in this case is not proof. Thank you for agreeing.



Then you're arguing against yourself.

What are you talking about? YOU are assuming the date is arbitrary. I, and other posters, have shown you scenarios where this could in fact be a VERIFIABLE outage. The company can verify this in their logs as well, if it is indeed an outage. Now it could very well be arbitrary, but I am saying there are numerous instances where it could not be, and you can't except that. The customer is not always right, but the customer is not always wrong.
And how in god's name am I arguing against myself? I want what I pay for, simple. How is that escaping you? It is NOT illogical to expect to get what I pay for, that is perfectly reasonable. Just because it wasn't noticed right away doesn't mean the company gets a free pass.