Life, Love, Long Hair, Weeping and Gnashing of Teeth, and other mysteries

All this and more, from a semi-Serbian, slightly sane, former editor for physicians and surgeons, who is the mother of seven kids.


Sunday 17 June 2012

Abusive Bell Customer Service Rep

WARNING:  Contains coarse language.

Can you believe this?

Someone named Ian, who, at least until a few days ago, was representing the cellular telephone division of Bell Canada, seems to be in need of therapy.

A friend I've known since childhood, whom I've mentioned in another blog entry (this one) where I changed his name to "Argyle McArgyle", was trying to get some help with his cell phone account on Friday, June 15, 2012.  The following is the actual conversation he copied word for word between himself and Ian: 

Bell agent: Updating the Fab 10 contacts take 3 hours to take effect.

Bell agent: Getting a representative to change a contact(s) for you will cost $5.00.

you: ok, well it was a couple of hours ago. i wanted the top to be XXXXX, 2) XXXXX

you: but it was a mistake that i am trying to correct right away. you will charge 5$ for that?

you: seriously?

Bell agent: It's not exactly our fault the mistake happened, right? We'll find out in the next hour if that change took effect though.

you: that's excellent customer appreciation, Ian. lets point out whose fault it is. Never tried to imply it was Bell'

you: Bells fault of course.

you: just thought that Bell might like to be more helpful than penalizing. i see that its not the case.

Bell agent: Sorry but that's the rule. I mean, we've already tried making things easier by putting it on a self-serve application.

Bell agent: I'd say it'd be our fault if we were the ones who originally put the number for you.

Bell agent: As a one time courtesy, I wont apply the $5.00 but you should know better by now.

you: OMG - did you really just say that?


Then, after Argyle closed the chat log, he got the following text from, he assumes, the Bell agent:


To quote Argyle, "customer service excellence" indeed.  Such followup.  Wow.

I can't help but think of the song, "I've Got You" by Dwight Yoakam, which I've posted below.  In case it gets removed, the specific lyrics I mean are:

"I got a letter from the folks over at Bell
Just to let me know my next phone call I can walk outside and yell."



Bell could've been more tactful in the way they communicated with Argyle, and I wonder how much irony there really is in Dwight Yoakam wording things the way he did.  Even if a person is delinquent on payments, customer service representatives should be respectful, as should, I believe, all people.

There's way too much abusiveness in this world.  I hope Ian, or whoever that person was, gets help and changes their 'tude.

Argyle is following up with management, but it will take a few days till it gets resolved, if at all.


Read more of my writing in the right hand column of this blog, ordered chronologically.
Here are a few semi-related and completely unrelated samples: