I assume the worst with a couple of businesses based on past experience, and I act accordingly.
With a certain pizza business, my orders were usually botched, either with wrong ingredients or by being made at the wrong store location. Now, I immediately ask for a supervisor if the person taking my order has any difficulty taking my order. I have the choice of wasting time talking with the initial order taker and still usually have the order botched, or I can save time and actually receive what I order by having a supervisor take the order. My assuming the worst and acting accordingly now leads to my orders being properly handled.
With a certain telephone company, I no longer deal with the customer service reps, and instead call the president’s office, for the customer service reps are not capable of handling the account – six months of payments being credited to the wrong account despite repeated calls from me, account statements repeatedly being sent out weeks after the date of required payment, disconnection notices being sent despite my always paying in full on time and often being overpaid by many hundreds of dollars, my business’ name being listed in the wrong place in the phone book, absolute refusal to let me speak with someone more senior, and the telephone company’s accounts department not responding to email from the same company’s customer service reps. Now I bypass the inanity, and deal directly with the president’s office, where they get the job done. My assuming the worst and acting accordingly now leads to my account being properly handled.
The sad fact is that some businesses put perfectly good customers in impossible positions. It may be a consciously made corporate policy (e.g. the pizza company using government subsidized welfare drones to staff its centralized order system), or it may be a result of wonky home-grown organizational behavior (e.g. the phone company’s departments not being on speaking terms with each other). Whatever the reason, when a business screws up repeatedly, it behooves the customer to assume the worst and move on up the corporate chain as quickly as possible rather than dither about.
Unfortunately, when dealing with staff who refuse to pass me up the chain, I have found that using The Voice of God [sup]TM[/sup] is very effective. I don’t like it, but when patience and courtesy fails, unpleasantness can be very effective when trying to get past intransigent incompetents.
In short, if a business has a poor performance record with me, I will assume the worst, so the person dealing with me should be prepared to immediately pass me on up the corporate chain on my request, or be prepared to be made to feel very uncomfortable until my request is met. I will not waste my time.