After two years in the University of Phoneix's FlexNet program, I am now in my final class. Although I have finished the Interdisciplinary Capstone class for the bachelor's program, I have a critical thinking class to make up which I am taking right now. I have to take this class on ground, which means each week I have to drive the the University of Phoenix's Bucks County campus from 6:00 to 10:00 PM each Thursday. For the most part, other than being exhausted and of course having a hard time getting up at 5 AM on Friday after getting in so late, I'm enjoying the class. My instructor has run many businesses and has worked as a business consultant and has a lot of background to share with us in the class.
Last night, he asked us a question pertaining to the subject material of identifying problems. He asked "What do you think of customer service in this country today?" I could have gone on all week. Let's see what I think of customer service off the top of my head:
- For one thing, I'm not very happy with customer service at the University of Phoenix. The classes are great, but you're on your own if you need to speak to an academic or financial counselor. If you call, you had better get a live person on the phone and you had better resolve the issue within a phone call. Nobody will return a message and in my experience, nobody will call you back "after I look into it". I have lost thousands of dollars in GI Bill benefits because they won't report my attendance correctly to the Veteran's Administration, and they have reported to Citibank that I have completed my classes and am now in that six month window to start repaying student loans EVEN THOUGH I AM CURRENTLY ENROLLED! You also cannot expect a consistent level of service from each counselor you talk to. I've had some jump over backwards to email me information while others tell me to look it up on the website.
- Last Monday, my iPaq hx4705 Pocket PC died. I found a Cingular 8125 on Ebay for a good price and took the Buy It Now option last Thursday. The Pocket PC arrived at my house less than 24 hours after the shipping notice was sent, but the wrong battery was in the box. I contacted customer service and was told the correct battery would be sent to me. Here I am, five days later, without a battery. How can it take five days to ship a battery from Virginia to New Jersey? I'm not aware of any anthrax threats, there's no postal strike, and this business seems to ship UPS anyway. UPS shouldn't take five days for this distance unless you specifically paid them to do it.
- And of course, if you look at my archive, I can't get a medical claim processed unless I take my own time to call and call and call and shepherd the claim every step of the way.
I haven't had a very good time with customer service lately. During the discussion in class, I proposed to my instructor that customer service people should somehow have to be accountable when they make mistakes or overlook certain issues that cause pain or financial problems in a customer's life. Why nobody at Aetna over a two year period could look far enough into my case to see that the reason the claim was denied in the first place is because that doctor was not recorded as a primary care physician for an 11 day old baby is beyond me. I did not learn this until right before the doctor's billing office was going to put this on MY credit report and I stayed on the line with the CS representative going through every last line of the database for both of my children to find the cause. I had to do the work for them by standing over their shoulders on the phone.
If you work in customer service, yes, I know the job normally sucks. Maybe it's the only job you could get. Still, please recognize that you may hold the finances and medical cases of other living people in your hands. So what if the people are jerks? It's your job. Please, take some pride in your work.
Labels: Hall of Shame, Misc comments, U of Phoenix
Recent Comments