Is "good" customer service a thing of the past?

There is no easier way to get me fired up than for a customer service rep to talk to me like I am an idiot. Let me tell you this… I am FIRED up!

This started last night with a simple trip to the grocery store. Our destination: Winn Dixie for their Pampers special they have going on. We are enrolled in the Baby Club program there, and it has been nothing but a nightmare! They very rarely calculate the baby points correctly or actually give the reward for earning 200 points at the time they are supposed to.

Case in point. Yesterday I knew I had 185 baby points going in to the store. My goal was to pick up 2 packs of diapers to go over 200 points and then get my $10 reward to either be used on the diapers or the cart full of groceries I had.

I put the diapers up first thing. Nope, no baby points. No rewards. Nothing. Ugh.

When she finishes up my order I look on the receipt. No baby points whatsoever. None. The 185 I had from my last visit have just disappeared. I also noticed that my overall reward card savings have been reset down from around $4200 to $53. OK. No biggie. Maybe she scanned my card wrong. She didn’t. It was the right card number. Just something was screwy.

I went to the customer service center. Great. They can no longer help on the card issues. I have to call the 800# located at the top of the receipt. I thought nothing of it since I have called numerous times before and had no problems with anyone there.

Until…

TODAY!

I tend to be very well prepared when I call a customer service number. I hate calling them but I do try to be very nice when I call CSR’s. I know they get all kinds of crazies calling and I really do want them to remember at least one nice caller for the day. But once she had interrupted me 3 times, the gloves came off.

Note to CSRs… do NOT interrupt the customer. Let me say what I want to say to you even if it doesn’t matter. At least that way we can can say that we did notify you of the problem.

1st time : Interrupted me to tell me that the total saved that it says on the receipt is not the amount saved at my last trip. i.e. I didn’t save $4200 on my last shopping trip. Ya think?? I know I didn’t save that much on my last trip, but I do know that over a couple of years, I HAVE saved that much.

2ns time :  Interrupted me to tell me that my baby must be over the age of 2. Ummm… no. She won’t be 2 until mid-August, thankyouverymuch.

3rd time:  Interrupted me to tell me that she can not give out any information to me since my name is not Christian. Ummm… my hard working husband is at WORK. And what information is soooooo secretive about my grocery store savings card that you can’t tell me over the phone.

LET ME TALK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR

4th and final time : Interrupted me to tell me that the supervisor will tell me the same thing. LET ME TALK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR

Supervisor FINALLY picks up the phone. Proceeds to tell me that the CSR is correct in that she can’t give me any information. Whoa… did he just say the wrong thing.

“I don’t need you to give me any information. I just need you to do a little research and figure out where my baby points went! There is no information that you can give me that I don’t already know about this transaction other than the fact that you guys screwed up! What is so secretive about reward points anyway? I can call a Dr.’s office and get more information from them and that is important personal information. I can give you his SS#, his birth-date, his address, his phone number and even his first borns' name if you want. All you need to do it find out where my baby points went!!! ”

I think he got the point. He will be calling me back today. :)