Companies like MCI (or Vonage, or any big company that provides services whose marginal cost is tiny compared to capital, marketing and support costs) don’t want customers who ask for proper service in the case of errors. Those customers dig into their profits.

So it’s not just “What are you going to do, leave us?”It’s “Leave us, please. And if you try to get any of you money back we’ll make it cost you more than it does us.”

In the long run such behavior may be self-destructive (unless it drives a race to the bottom, in which case it merely depresses the entire market), but the long run implies some kind of equilibrium, and that’s long gone.

Our voice mail was intentionally structured so as to delay you for several minutes before you could speak to a person, even if a person was available. Every minute a CSR spent on the phone, he was paid at a bonus rate. So you wanted to keep those minutes down. Many people would either solve their problem while navigating the voice mail help, or, more likely, would read the manual in that time and solve their own problem.

We also had a policy of, when someone asked for something that a CSR could not do, saying “I’m sorry, but we can’t do that.” In reality, we could, but it took a manager. But hopefully that line would discourage people from asking.

Free tech support is a drain on a retail company. By the time you need to provide it, the customer has already paid all of the money he or she is going to pay. So it only lowers profits. The goal is to intentionally make tech support unpleasant for the consumer, so that he or she does not become reliant upon it, while making it accessible enough that people will use it rather than return the product to the store.

Just offering some insight.

PS- If a caller called during hours in which we were in operation, but was on hold until after our closing hour, we stayed late and took the call. Disconnecting a caller in that situation would have been a firing offense. I can’t say the same for my medical insurance provider. At 4:30, your call is dropped, even if you have been on hold for over 20 minutes.

On Friday, at our new house, we had both phone and internet service. Go figure.

Comcast, by contrast, treats you with open contempt from beginning to end. There’s a certain integrity in that.

In fact I now don’t authorise anyone to make payments out of my account, I’ve had too much hassle in the past (one time and a lot of horror stories from other people).

When you are transferred to another department, just make up some story that you’ve been assured by whomever you just spoke to that the procedure is X and he must do Y to fix it. Anything to make them unsure about their work, so they check again whether they really can’t do anything. Even being caught in such a lie is fun.

I once called their press department and had them explain to me why their billing department was in disorder, and if it would have any consequences for their business. The silly girl had her mobile phone number on press releases on the internet.
And even though I said I was just a disgruntled customer, she asked me at least twice if I wasn’t a journalist.

Once my ‘case’ was transferred to someone higher up, and the person on the phone at customer service insisted that I had to wait until they contacted me. She made the fault of naming the guy. I put on my business voice, dialed the general number of the head office and asked to be transferred to the guy. And the problem was fixed in no time.

It’s all a bit useless juvenile fun, but it’s way better than getting mad at a system you can’t beat.

And it doesn’t hurt to send a letter to the bank telling them that they are thereafter not authorized to accept debits from the company in question from your account. CC the company in question. When the company learns that they will probably not be paid, they will terminate your service forthwith.

Recognize that MCI is the former Worldcom. Worldcom went through bankruptcy after it was essentially outed for having engaged in securities fraud. One should always be suspicious of dealing with companies that have been alleged to have committed fraud—they can defraud you, as well.

I found that SEC filings will give you the corporate addresses and some digging will get you a phone extention in the building. I found that it saves a little time to just go directly to corp management and avoid Customer Service altogether.

This American Life had a great episode once in which Ira Glass solved someone’s MCI customer service problems by calling with a tape recorder on. It’s a brilliant piece of radio. http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/03/253.html