How to lose a long time customer

We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.

My wife paid extra last renewal for a Nokia 6101 phone over a year
ago. The phone screen scratched within a month to almost
unreadable, but we were told that was not guaranteed or warranted
and were told it was our problem (beginning of losing a customer).
The phone completely quit working, so she went to the local store
at the shopping center and they gave her a new duplicate phone and
the return box. Due to several severe snow and ice storms, she
did not get the return phone mailed out in time, but called and
informed T-mobile that the storm was preventing getting to the
post office. Our bad.

T-mobile billed our credit card for over $170 for the not returned
phone - that's fine, it was our fault despite extenuating
circumstances and phone notice which T-mobile acknowledges. She
called daily until they verified receipt of the phone 2 or 3 days
later I think. On March 9th, once they physically had the phone,
she asked to have the money put back into our credit card account
and was told the money had to be sent by check and that would be
done on the 12th of March, a fact verified by T-mobile.today The
credit department chose to hold the money for the March and
subsequent bills rather than return the money as promised. She
only found out today that her refund was being posted to future
billings today. We are able to absorb the financial issues, it is
the principle of taking someone's money, refusing to return it,
and keeping the use of the money for over 2 months. This would
have been devastating for her mother on fixed income, and I am
sure for other folks.

They've ticked off the wrong lady this time. She spent 45 minutes
with them this morning with no satisfaction, several people saying
the situation made no sense and was not normal policy, but in the
end, just "tough luck". A nice, "gee, I'm sorry . . " would have
gone a long way this morning, especially if there had been any
thanks for the loyalty or let us give you an accessory or
something.

One last and final tick off. They charged a restocking fee for
the returned phone. What is the restocking fee for on a returned
phone? No one could tell us this morning other than "policy".

I've always been pleased with T-mobile until this. She wanted to
switch previously, but I talked her out of it. Ain't going to
happen this time. Any recommendations or cautions about changing
carrier?

______________________________
Keep the whole world singing . . . .
DanG (remove the sevens)
dgriff237@7cox.net

In article <ma2Oh.83631$ia7.65588@newsfe14.lga>, DanG wrote:
> We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
>
> My wife paid extra last renewal for a Nokia 6101 phone over a year
> ago. The phone screen scratched within a month to almost
> unreadable, but we were told that was not guaranteed or warranted
> and were told it was our problem (beginning of losing a customer).

Most cell phone warranties last a year. Out-of-warranty is
out-of-warranty.

> the principle of taking someone's money, refusing to return it,
> and keeping the use of the money for over 2 months. This would
> have been devastating for her mother on fixed income, and I am
> sure for other folks.

I'd be irritated too.



--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Victorville, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

In article <slrnf0hd7e.q62.sjsobol@amethyst.justthe.net>, Steven J. Sobol wrote:
> In article <ma2Oh.83631$ia7.65588@newsfe14.lga>, DanG wrote:
>> We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
>>
>> My wife paid extra last renewal for a Nokia 6101 phone over a year
>> ago. The phone screen scratched within a month to almost
>> unreadable, but we were told that was not guaranteed or warranted
>> and were told it was our problem (beginning of losing a customer).
>
> Most cell phone warranties last a year. Out-of-warranty is
> out-of-warranty.

Heh. I just re-read the original post. The length of the warranty is
irrelevant in this case (sorry)


--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Victorville, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:45:43 -0400, DanG wrote:

> We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.

I'm really disappointed to hear that. I've always had very good experiences
with their service reps, with excellent outcomes. This doesn't sound typical
to me, and it's especially bad if they end up losing a 10-year customer.

--
Joey DoWop Dee
Remember: It is To Laugh

Joey DoWop Dee <jwd511@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:45:43 -0400, DanG wrote:
>
> > We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
>
> I'm really disappointed to hear that. I've always had very good experiences
> with their service reps, with excellent outcomes. This doesn't sound typical
> to me, and it's especially bad if they end up losing a 10-year customer.

Sad to say, this kind of "customer service" is *almost* the norm from big
American corporations nowadays (yeah, there are exceptions, there always
are). It seems most companies (large mostly, but some smaller ones are
like this too) don't care about the customer at all, they just care about
the $$$ bottom line. If they tick you off and lose you, they don't care
since someone else will be along in about 3 minutes to replace your lost
business. Very few companies care that much about *retaining* business
today (from personal experience over the last few years with restaurants,
cellphone companies, retail establishments, et al).

brian
--
If you want to reply to this message by mail, you will
have to change the reply address to beuchaw@beuchaw.net

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:23:48 -0400, Brian Beuchaw wrote:

> Joey DoWop Dee <jwd511@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:45:43 -0400, DanG wrote:
>>
>>> We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
>>
>> I'm really disappointed to hear that. I've always had very good experiences
>> with their service reps, with excellent outcomes. This doesn't sound
>> typical
>> to me, and it's especially bad if they end up losing a 10-year customer.
>
> Sad to say, this kind of "customer service" is *almost* the norm from big
> American corporations nowadays (yeah, there are exceptions, there always
> are). It seems most companies (large mostly, but some smaller ones are
> like this too) don't care about the customer at all, they just care about
> the $$$ bottom line. If they tick you off and lose you, they don't care
> since someone else will be along in about 3 minutes to replace your lost
> business. Very few companies care that much about *retaining* business
> today (from personal experience over the last few years with restaurants,
> cellphone companies, retail establishments, et al).
>
> brian
>

I find this to be true with just about every *other* company, but not T-mo. I
recently had some business with them involving a few calls, and without
exception, everyone I spoke with was courteous, informed and helpful, and not
only that: they all made reference to "appreciating my business for the past
7 years..."

In my experience that's been the norm with T-mo, which is why I'm surprised
at the OP's bad experience.

--
Joey DoWop Dee
Remember: It is To Laugh

Joey DoWop Dee <jwd511@verizon.net> wrote:
> On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 13:23:48 -0400, Brian Beuchaw wrote:
>
> > Joey DoWop Dee <jwd511@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:45:43 -0400, DanG wrote:
> >>
> >>> We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
> >>
> >> I'm really disappointed to hear that. I've always had very good experiences
> >> with their service reps, with excellent outcomes. This doesn't sound
> >> typical
> >> to me, and it's especially bad if they end up losing a 10-year customer.
> >
> > Sad to say, this kind of "customer service" is *almost* the norm from big
> > American corporations nowadays (yeah, there are exceptions, there always
> > are). It seems most companies (large mostly, but some smaller ones are
> > like this too) don't care about the customer at all, they just care about
> > the $$$ bottom line. If they tick you off and lose you, they don't care
> > since someone else will be along in about 3 minutes to replace your lost
> > business. Very few companies care that much about *retaining* business
> > today (from personal experience over the last few years with restaurants,
> > cellphone companies, retail establishments, et al).
> >
> > brian
> >
>
> I find this to be true with just about every *other* company, but not T-mo. I
> recently had some business with them involving a few calls, and without
> exception, everyone I spoke with was courteous, informed and helpful, and not
> only that: they all made reference to "appreciating my business for the past
> 7 years..."
>
> In my experience that's been the norm with T-mo, which is why I'm surprised
> at the OP's bad experience.

Good to know... Most companies do suck the way I mentioned, so it's nice
that T-mobile isn't that way (at least not most of the time :-)). Haven't
dealt with their customer service yet since my wife just switched to
T-mobile's prepaid from Cingular and haven't really had any problems
(which is a good thing). Thanks for the clarification...

brian
--
If you want to reply to this message by mail, you will
have to change the reply address to beuchaw@beuchaw.net

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 00:45:43 -0500, "DanG" <dgriff23@7cox.net> wrote:

>We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
>
>My wife paid extra last renewal for a Nokia 6101 phone over a year
>ago. The phone screen scratched within a month to almost
>unreadable, but we were told that was not guaranteed or warranted
>and were told it was our problem (beginning of losing a customer).
>The phone completely quit working, so she went to the local store
>at the shopping center and they gave her a new duplicate phone and
>the return box. Due to several severe snow and ice storms, she
>did not get the return phone mailed out in time, but called and
>informed T-mobile that the storm was preventing getting to the
>post office. Our bad.

<SNIP>

I've always it thought it nuts that cell carriers have this
enormously-expensive infrastructure in the form of company stores, yet
the only thing they seem interested in doing with it is either signing
up new customers or upgrades for existing customers.

I had issues with two Treo 600s a couple of years ago and it blew my
mind that they wouldn't just let me go to a store and automatically
get a different phone, since neither the unit I originally had nor the
replacement I got would work.

It further blows my mind that TM leaves it up to individual stores as
far as whether to help you or not. Luckily, I did get a co. store near
me to swap it for a Blackberry at the upgrade price, but that was luck
on my part, not something that automatically came my way via T-Mobile
policy.

As much as all carriers fight, claw and spend to attract customers,
you'd think they'd work harder to keep the ones they had.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:23:48 +0000 (UTC), Brian Beuchaw
<nospam@nobody.invalid> wrote:

>Joey DoWop Dee <jwd511@verizon.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:45:43 -0400, DanG wrote:
>>
>> > We've had T-mobile family plan service for almost 10 years.
>>
>> I'm really disappointed to hear that. I've always had very good experiences
>> with their service reps, with excellent outcomes. This doesn't sound typical
>> to me, and it's especially bad if they end up losing a 10-year customer.
>
>Sad to say, this kind of "customer service" is *almost* the norm from big
>American corporations nowadays

T-Mobile is a GERMAN company. We've had them for over five years.

I was checking on getting 6103 Nokias - free to 'new' customers, $30
to us 'loyal' (okay, maybe dumb!) long time subscribers.

We have THREE lines, so that's $90 in total.

Nokia was (until the end of the month) giving an additional $50 per
phone to 'NEW' customers, making for a $240 difference, 'NEW'
vs returning 'old', PLUS we'd of course have to sign up for another
two years.

That wouldn't be much of a problem, since the 'savings' would
amount to about $20 a month over that time.

Think about it. THREE lines, unlimited National plan, and
they sell that to NEW customers for essentially TWENTY
BUCKS a month LESS than what they want to charge us!

So long, T-Mobile. I'm shopping around where to transfer our
numbers this week. Maybe when/if you ever get around to
deploying your new frequencies for data (did I mention I also
have unlimited Internet? - too slow to be worth it, though!)
we might take a look, as 'NEW' customers, but your retention
prices SUCK big time.

Seems sorta stupid to me, but that's business, these days!

Bill

In article <k3da131dfbrfd0m0sufjkg4ghkqs95tv09@4ax.com>, Bill wrote:

> have unlimited Internet? - too slow to be worth it, though!)
> we might take a look, as 'NEW' customers, but your retention
> prices SUCK big time.

How much better can their retention packages be, when their regular
calling packages are dirt cheap compared to most other carriers?

That's for voice. I do agree that their data packages suck. They need
to deploy HDSPA.

--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Victorville, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.