You aren't wrong that telecom companies are trashy, but being a dick to a support agent isn't the right way to go. Support staff are more willing to help and work with you if you aren't yelling at them right out the gate and blaming them for something they have no control over.
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Most are just going to laugh at you and be as unhelpful as possible if you come at them like that. You're just giving them an excuse to stick to the script and tell you to pound sand. If you let them know it's not personal but you're angry at the company and keep your approach professional they're much more likely to think outside the box, bend the rules, or escalate your issue to get things taken care of.
I worked a while for phone customer service (don't recommend even to my worst enemies) and we only gave nice stuff to angry people. Basically I couldn't do anything on my level other than follow the script, but if they asked for a supervisor they usually they got their issues solved more quickly and with some free stuff included, so after that experience I always try to be polite at the beginning but if they are not being helpful I ask them to escalate my issue and play angry
I ask them to escalate my issue and play angry
Like, obviously play-angry, or is it convincing? The 'crazy gaijin' scene from Rising Sun (1993) or what?
Work in customer care, can confirm that.
Here is an idea. Hold the companies accountable that implements these sorts of things. Oh wait we can't because it's a monopoly of the same shit. Let's have the government intervene, oh wait. We did and they made net neutrality null and void. And people wonder why they are pissed off at the crappy company that takes them for a ride while still being crappy.
Not taking it out on the person is 100 percent not fair. But they represent the company that is shit. And this crap was predicted back in the 90s by countless artists. Musical and performance. Buckle up. It's gonna get worse unless they get some pushback and start losing billions.
If you look closer they aren't with an agent. They're liking only getting an agent because of what they said. So many of these companies play games with auto generated messages that to get an agents requires either 100 different messages or 1 really angry sounding one. You gotta do what you gotta do to get someone nowadays.
Yeah, find their executive offices and steal packages, piss on the doors, light a few fires, harvest some thumbs. Support agents in India can’t alter company structure, but fear and confusion can!
Yeah, usually I save this rant for the end when I ask if I can provide some feedback on the company policy specifically.
The person who will be helping you is not the person who made the rules and policies and chose how much to charge you per month.
The person helping you will have zero control over anything and have to stick to a script and the whole reason their job exists isn't to actually help you but to help the people who run the company to never, ever have to hear a filthy plebeian complain about anything ever again.
If you really want to chew someone out, do some diligence and find the contact info of the highest person in the organization you can find. Even then, they're just going to blame it on everyone but themselves anyway, and even if they fix your issue, someone's gonna lose their ass over the company actually having to fix your issue. Because these systems don't exist to help solve your problem, but to frustrate you until you give up and stop calling.
Companies are well beyond "How do we attract new customers" because there are no new customers to attract. They have access to the whole planet now, it's a moot point. Now it's bleeding percentage points of performance increase from smaller and smaller groups of customers while being okay with screwing over the "unprofitable" customers until they leave entirely.
Yep. Telecom corporations are essentially uncriticizable. Even media pushback doesn't do anything. Everyone knows they're pure evil and it doesn't affect them in any way.
VIPs/C-suites, those that make these rules, most likely all have assistants, who will filter out emails like this, it is very probable that even if you find the direct email to ATT's CEO and email, it will be filtered out and you'll either get no reply or a template reply with zero substance.
"We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the Phone Company." Lilly Tomlin on SNL in 1976
https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us
If you're having problems getting support from a Telecom company, file a complaint with the FCC. You are more likely going to get someone who can/will actually help you. This mainly works when you have a concrete complaint that is running into process/policy roadblocks. For example, if you've been overcharged by an amount that the normal agents don't have authority to credit or if you're having chronic service issues that aren't being resolved.
It is less likely to help if the issue is more subjective, such as asking for a large credit to compensate you for being inconvenienced by an outage (i.e. claiming the outage cost you business or work time). They'll likely offer a prorated service credit and a courtesy credit (like $25-50) and the FCC will likely consider that reasonable.
file a complaint with the FCC. You are more likely going to get someone who can/will actually help
Hahaha! That was a good one 🙂
AT&T are trash. Took us far too long to dump them. Glad we did. Found much better service at a quarter the cost.
Same! Quit today. The most awkward conversation the rep couldn't manipulate. Good fucking riddance.
Regardless of how shitty the company is, nothing give you the right to take out your frustration on a total stranger who has done nothing to you. Tbh, I find it very strange. The person in the chat is likely just trying to help you, and you're making their job a lot harder.
Customer service jobs fucking suck. A lot. They're probably not even being paid enough for the basic job requirements, let alone getting interrogated/condescended to/yelled at, which they probably experience multiple times per day.
You gain nothing from behaving that way, except to make yourself feel better at the expense of some poor person who's trying to get by, just like everyone else. There are much better ways to take out your frustration.
edit: a few words
Ya
Those who’ve used LLMs like ChatGPT would wonder why “bots” are taking multiple minutes to reply
Kind of a dick move and frankly embarrassing that you think this is righteous. That is not a bot, that is a real person.
No look they have job postings for language models
ChatGPT9-5
Nobody should pay that much for a cellphone.
$25 dollars a month
unlimited text call and data
uses Verizon's network
$20 off your first month with my code:
https://www.visible.com/get/?3P76BG7
Using my code or not please switch to something like this Google Fi or mint mobile and save yourself the money. These greedy telecom giants don't need it.
You have to pay a full year at a time, but Mint has a $15 a month plan. 5 GB of data, but I'm almost always near WiFi, so that's plenty. I generally use less than 80%, cause I don't always get that message in the last couple days of the month.
Greed dumbs down everyone that suffers from it
Sure shows too by the way op is harassing a customer service rep like it's their fault.
You’re mad. Fine. No need for the entitled, emotional outburst. Has that actually ever worked your favor?
If you’re that fed up with AT&T, get a different service provider. Know that if you do, you’ll have the same things happen there that you feel so incredulous by from AT&T.