Best way to solve customer service problems?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Well, this may not be a “customer service problem”, and I’m not sure this is the right forum… but here’s my situation.

A few weeks ago, I needed to make some basic US to Canada residential calls with my provider, AT&T. I wasn’t sure of my international rate, but knowing the domestic rate was like $.05 and typical rates to canada were rarely more than .10, I figured I’d go ahead and make the calls. I did actually call their customer service number before I tried, but they were closed, and I got a message to call back in normal business hours… a giant megacorp really should have a 24/7 service line.

Anyway, I made a few calls of a few hours in length, unsure of what it would cost but figuring it wouldn’t be unreasonable. Turns out the “basic rate” was .67-.91 per minute depending on the time of day.

Yes. What they sell in a service plan for .06 a minute and make a profit on, they charge more than 10x and sometimes more than 15x as much on the “basic rate”. This is clearly price gouging, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they set up the system like that to screw over people like me - who made a few calls under the assumption that the rate would be reasonable.

So now I’m looking at several hundred dollars for a few phone calls, which would have reasonably cost under $20.

I’m hoping that perhaps I can call up and talk to someone about getting the bill reduced. What they did was clearly price gouging an ignorant customer. Now, clearly, I know, I could’ve not made the calls until I could’ve called their service department during business hours, and I made a mistake here, but no one could possibly reasonable expect a .67-.91 rate on calls in which the going rate is .05 to .10 range.

What would be the best approach to trying to convince them to retroactively lower my rate to something more reasonable?

I should add that I tried to use dial around services (10-10) numbers because I was familiar with their price, but for some reason, I got “this call can’t be completed…” messages from several. If AT&T disabled dial around services on my line to steer me to using their price gouging service, that’s even worse.

Should I threaten to cancel my service? Be nice and sympathetic and claim to be broke? Be angry that they gouged me? Make a general pain in the ass of myself and threaten to file a complaint with the FCC? Sue them in small claims court? Keep calling until they get sick of me? What would my best approach be?

2

I don’t think any approach is likely to get your bill reduced. If you try the “I am broke,” you might get away with a payment plan.

I’d try the “this is outragous, I’m going to another carrier” tactic. And if it doesn’t work, go to another carrier.

But get their international rates before you make any more calls.

3

I’d give them a chance first. Call them, during their regular business hours, and explain everything, much as you did here. Then explain your reasons for not wanting to pay the charges–their customer service was closed, no “call around” was available for some reason, you had no idea what the rates were or where to find them… You get the idea. They may end up adjusting your bill.

This happened to me, although the circumstances were somewhat different. When I moved to a different city some months ago, I needed to change my cellphone number to a local one. I did call my cell provider, who is one of those big national concerns, before I moved; and they said that since they were national, all I needed to do was to stop by one of their locations in my new city, and they would change the number.

Well, I did just that. And what was on my next bill but a charge of $50 for a number change!

But before I got too upset, I called them and asked “why?” There was no indication that there would be a charge, and the person at the location where the number was changed said nothing about a charge. When they heard all this, they removed the $50 charge from my bill.

I’d try the nice “what the…?” approach first. You never know; it may work for you, just as it did for me. But if it doesn’t work, then you can get upset and try other approaches.

4

Yes, be nice (‘Why?’) but firm (‘I’m not satisfied with that answer, can I speak to your supervisor?’).

Experiences I’ve had with phone companies is that there’s so much competition they’ll do almost anything to keep your business. Threaten to leave, tell them why (make it up if you have to!), ask them what they will do to keep your business. They’ve got some good rates up their sleeves that they only give out if the customer insists.

5

Whatever you do, just be as polite as possible. I (when I used to be customer service for cell phones) would react much better to a reasonable request than some irrate customer demanding a pricing reduction because of their own ignorance (not saying this to be snarky to you of course!).

I’ve found domestic land lines rates to be very bad. I work for the largest phone company in Canada and even as an employee, I get 50 cents / min across canada. I get better rates with a competitor (sprint).

Next time, if you are going to make longer calls, look into using a phone card. Even with the connection charge and whatnot, I can make long calls using them for much less than my phone company.

6

I got a shockingly large phone bill a few months ago. I calculated the per minute rate (for interstate calls in the U.S.) and found that it was about .35 per minute. I called up my long distance company and politely told them that I'd seen advertised rates of .5 or .10 per minute and wondered why my rates were so high. They offered me a .5 minute plan, and said that they would roll back the rate for the previous months to $.5 and credit the difference to my bill. I think if you call and explain the situation, they will probably offer you some sort of rate reduction.

After my experience, I read some articles about phone company price structures, and discovered that many companies have substantially rased basic “no plan” rates while heavily advertising the cheaper plan rates.

7

Ditto that. I’ve heard stories from several folks in customer service of times where they could have solved a customer’s problem very quickly, but didn’t, merely because the customer was being obnoxious and rude to them. So they’d just say “sorry, that’s policy, I can’t help you,” and left the poor schlub hanging.

It never hurts to be polite.