I am still in shock after the call I just got off of. It took me 44 minutes to do something as simple as change my rate plan. That's ridiculous.
The most shocking part of this was that I used to work in customer care for t-mobile, and I know how well our customer service was back then, but I am afraid that it has gone down hill.
This all started last month. We had a death in the family, and we realized shortly before our bill cycle ended that we had gone over our minutes. We called, and at first we spoke with a rep who told us we would have to change our rate plan and pay at least $300/mo. That was simply unacceptable, so my mother spoke to a supervisor. We then spoke to Blair who seemed to be very helpful, and he reiterated what the last rep told us, there was nothing we could do without renewing our contract and changing our plan, but his plan suggestion was much more reasonable. Blair told us that our new plan was only $20 more a month, and we were ecstatic. We were willing to renew our contract for that. Unfortunately, Blair was mistaken. It raised our bill almost $70. Mind you, this was still significantly less than we would have had in overage charges, so we let it slide. Also, Blair seemed like a really great guy.
Another problem I'm noticing is when my mom has to call, more often than not she get's a rep with a very strong accent, making them very difficult for her to understand. She was trying to set up a future dated payment a week or so ago, and was on the phone for 30 minutes just because of the communication barrier. I knew when she told me that, this was not the same company I worked for; the company I was proud enough of to continue using their service after I no longer worked there.
Today was the most stressful call I've ever made to any customer service ever. I'm a very patient customer when I have to call because I've been on the other end of that call, and I understand how it goes. But even I reached my limit today. I spoke with a gentleman, but I didn't catch his name. I work with international students, so I am pretty good at listening and understanding strong accents. I didn't have trouble understanding him, but he had trouble either understanding me, or trouble explaining himself. I called to change my rate plan, remove a feature from one line, and add one to another. It was a simple process. I wanted to remove the internet off of my line, which I understand was a required feature, but it had been two years since I had done a contract renewal for a handset upgrade on that line. I figured if I wasn't able to remove it today, it could at the very least be set up to be removed soon. I knew it was any day. Again, I'd like to point out I was a rep at t-mobile once, I understand how these things work. I was treated as if I had no idea what I was talking about, and the rep insisted I agreed to this required feature within the last few months. I did everything I could to explain to him I understood it was a required feature, but I didn't upgrade my handset. I got a new phone earlier this year, but it was not through an upgrade on my line. All it would have taken was a quick look through the history on my account to see when my last contract renewal for an upgrade was. Instead of doing that, this rep continued to insist I was wrong. So I insisted on speaking with someone else, which I NEVER do. I know what it means to have a customer escalate, and I would not do that unless I was beyond frustrated (which I was at that point). So the rep transferred me to loyalty. Thank goodness for that rep. I didn't get her name either, but she had this issue fixed within 5 minutes. Something I spent 30 minutes arguing with the last rep about, she had resolved in 5.
I have always loved t-mobile, I loved the service when I worked there, and I continued to use it after I left. I constantly raved about it to other people looking for new service, and had a lot of people sign up for t-mobile because of my insisting it was the best. Over the last few experiences I've had I am not so sure anymore. I've had a phone with t-mobile since 2005, and today almost makes me want to pay the $200 just to go somewhere else.
I hope the problem with customer service is something that they are looking into improving. When I worked there, we were the reigning JD Power and Associates award winners for our customer service. So my question is what's happened to the customer service? Is there a reason it's gotten so poor lately? I know I'm not the only one that has had more bad customer service experiences than good as of late. So, why is that? If there is no intention on improving the customer service than I am seriously going to consider transferring my number somewhere else. A call to customer service should not be so stressful that it requires a lot of wine afterwards.