A couple of years ago I had a problem with a phone service from Cox. Our answering machine had died and I didn't want to spend money on a new machine since I wasn't sure whether I wanted to keep our land line or switch to our cells. I saw on the services that Cox provided that they offer an answering service for a fee. I decided to give it a try, so I went out to the Cox website. A chat window appears where you can have a conversation with a representative. They listened to what I wanted, of course charged me a fee to set up the service and pointed me to a document with directions on how to set up the service. I spent about an hour trying to set up the service on my own, and it didn't work. I had to call and ask for a live person, who found out that something in their system wasn't set up correctly. I asked for them to deliver an email to me when a message was left so that I would know one was there since I no longer had a machine to beep at me to let me know. They said that when the phone rang it would ring differently if a message was left, or I could call to check every day. I preferred to be notified when the message came in. They never did get the email delivery to work, so I ended up back at the store buying an answering machine.
Some form of social media was included in the process in the form of a chat, but all they did was point me to a document. That seemed pretty useless. If there had been some type of reviews that I could have read before paying for the service, I could have decided not to do it in the first place, and maybe Cox could read those reviews and fix their "Service". It seems strange that a company with Communications in it's name wouldn't have better communications.
Lori, that was a great story and I could feel your frustration! What a fumble for Cox Communications! I hope they've fixed that by now! How sad that you couldn't just write a comment for them to let them know, I wonder just how many people had to go through what you did, and how many just gave up? It could have been a big loss for them.
ReplyDeleteLori, I agree! The comments that others leave behind about the customer service they receive from a company helps a lot! I found myself starting to read them now when considering making a purchase, or when wanting feedback or recommendations from others. It's true that no one wants to get the "run-around" when trying to figure out solutions to their problem. Hopefully in the future they will take more care in how to better reach out to their current customers.
ReplyDeleteI think it depends on the business on how quickly they choose to adapt and utilize social media and which ones to use as well. The problem here I think is that they're not using the right tools to play towards their strengths and to provide the best service possible to their clientele as well as some inconsistencies with the competency of their staff. I think you made the best possible decision by directing your concerns to a live phone call than through a text chat.
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