The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking

How about this .. a customer 'Mr A' of a cable communications company 'Company X' told us about his poor experience with one of the UK's biggest cable operators. Mr A had been with Company X for several years and contacted their customer services dept. to inform them he was moving and needed to cancel their service. The call center agent advised Mr A to write in as they could not authorise cancellation over the phone. So that evening, Mr A sent a fax to their head office advising them he wanted to cancel. Several weeks later, Mr A moved out and thought everything had been sorted out. Like most people who move, he set up a redirection for his regular mail.

A few weeks later, Mr A inadvertently called his old home number and was surprised when it was answered by a young girl. Mr A said he must have called the wrong number and hung up. He then thought about the situation and was puzzled that his old number was still active as he thought they were discontinued when someone new takes over the line. A little puzzled and concerned, he called Company X and asked what was going on - 18 minutes later he got through. When he eventually got a live agent he was told he had the wrong customer services dept and he would have to re-dial another number! Mr A, was pretty annoyed at this but made the call. 15 minutes later he spoke to a call center agent who said they would look into it and sort it out. He was also told that he could have cancelled by phone - Mr A said he was told he couldn't and the agent responded with "you can, I don't know who told you that you can't - we have always done it that way!". He asked for the agents name and got the usual response "we don't give out our names etc" Mr A completed the call and then heard nothing for a week.

Then the bill arrived! It had been redirected from his old address. The bill showed an active TV service and the phone had not been cancelled either! There was £36 ($50) of new call charges! Mr A, immediately called Company X but could not get through - he kept on getting long queues and kept giving up after 12 minutes, 15 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes of holding on - company X offered no alternative channels for contact so he had to call. Eventually he got through and was told that their system was down and he would have to call back! A day later he received a written notice of disconnection advising him that his account had been passed to collections. A frustrated Mr A called the collections number (again no other contact channel was available) and held on and on. Eventually he spoke to an agent called Albert - he refused to give his last name as it was not company policy to do so - eventually Mr A got Albert's log in code so he could use it in the correspondence he was going to send in. Albert suggested that Mr A send over his cancellation notice as there was no record on the system. Mr A sent across the details and heard nothing.

Approximately 4 weeks later, a new bill arrived but this time the service fees had stopped and there were no new charges. However no adjustments to the bill had been made. Mr A once again made some calls and only got frustrated with trying to get through. Still no joy with the situation so he gave up.

A month later he got a letter from a collections agency who threatened legal action if the bill was not paid within 7 days. Immediately he called the collections company who were sympathetic to his comments. A helpful agent said that they will send some notes to Company X and will wait for a response. She told Mr A not to worry.

Mr A then went away for 2 weeks on business. When he returned, he found a letter that was sent about the time he went away from a firm of solicitors threatening legal action if the bill was not paid in 7 days - because Mr A had been away for 2 weeks, he had missed the deadline and none of this was his fault! He contacted the solicitors who informed him that they checked the records and although he spoke to a collections firm who had done their job by passing his notes to Company X, he was sent the solicitors letter automatically as Company X had not replied! He was now told by the Solicitors to send in more correspondence to prove when he vacated the premises and was told this would be passed on to Company X for comment! Unless this is resolved within 7 days the solicitors will take further action!

...Watch this space for the outcome!