When things actually work
Almost filed under: the case for moving to my own private island where I can create a monopoly that actually works in every industry and enjoy unbridled efficiency for the rest of my days.
I had just gotten off the phone with my cell phone provider, Movistar. When I left my old job, I got an email letting me know my plan had been switched from company to personal, and Rodolfo and I happily began chatting away with our monthly minute restrictions in mind.
![[ Tell Me Your Secrets ] Blue Telephone : Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport : France](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5050/5344524069_66b98dfb97.jpg "[ Tell Me Your Secrets ] Blue Telephone : Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport : France")
Via || UggBoy?UggGirl || PHOTO || WORLD || TRAVEL ||
I was minorly annoyed. Calling and having to talk to people to fix things does that to me. However, I assumed it would be a relatively quick call resulting in a promise to credit our next bill for the charges.
Via Images_of_Money
It was not. I explained the situation and was told that I could lodge a complaint so that “internal processes” would be reviewed. However, I’d still be on the hook for the bill. Movistar, don’t take it personally, but I don’t give a shit about your internal processes. Even if it’s only $3, and my time is worth more than that. I will die on this hill if I want to, ok?
My favorite part of the conversation was when I asked “I’m sorry, are you really saying that this is the company’s fault for not telling me your system but that there is no way I can get out of paying for this?” THEY SAID YES.
Via Guudmorning!
So obviously, I went to Twitter to share my jaw-hanging-open reaction to that response. And may or may not have accused Movistar of doing social media wrong since I didn’t see any replies from them to customers on their page and thought they’d never even notice me. Until they did, and they were nice, and they asked me to send them a DM so they could help. Success?
Well, to put it bluntly, yes. Success! I got a phone call in short order letting me know that I’d been issued a credit for the extra charge. Of course, this meant I had to pay my bill in person instead of online (again, all this over $3. What was I thinking?), but I even got lucky there with no line on the day I went to pay.
I share this story not out of some debt to Movistar, although I do believe in giving credit where it’s due. I just think it happens to highlight the dichotomy of the Chilean service industry these days. I think we can all agree that the old school way is, well, shit. Customer service in Chile? Ha, good joke.
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Yet there is a small contingent of early adopters in Chile which contributes to making this a relatively well-wired society. And in wired societies, making one customer angry means a potential Facebook/Twitter/blog public relations disaster. Easier to just give the gringa her $3 and send her on her way.
So while I’m happy to commend Movistar’s Twitter team for their good service, mostly I’m interested in following what I hope becomes a trend. How lovely would it be to get help from companies in Chile – and everywhere, for that matter – without having to take a number and stand in line for two hours only to be told to go away and stop complaining?
As you may have gathered from my first sentence, I am a crazy dreamer with a vision of utopia where things work. And maybe, just maybe, I’m not so crazy after all.
Looooooove that you went to Twitter, it hasn’t failed me yet! YOU GO GIRL!!!!!!
I was impressed!
i think this is a common thing with US/canadian/south american phone plans. my friend in vancouver just got completely ripped off for pretty much the same thing. thought she had cancelled/ported out of her contract, but her phone company actually only suspended her. they started charging her pro rata minutes which she was completely unbeknownst to. new company didn’t explain the contract either so she faced a $300 phone bill, including a $30 10 min phone call to toronto. wtf.
anyway, i have no idea how the hell you guys work with ‘minute plans’. in australia we just have value + data and we don’t get charged to receive phone calls/sms!!! now that is something completely unheard of. why would you even have a phone if you get charged to receive.
anyway. haha thought i’d share!
We don’t get charged to receive calls or texts here in Chile or in the US, at least not on plans I’ve ever been on. I know that used to be the case, but it isn’t any more for the most part.
What are plans in Australia like? I’m not sure what “value” means. In Chile and the US you usually have a certain number of minutes you can use each month before you get charged for additional minutes, which – this case aside – actually seems pretty user-friendly to me.
ahh! that’s good to hear. a friend in ohio definitely still gets charged to receive sms. might simply be the plan he’s on.
in australia plans are generally ‘caps’ so for eg. i pay $49 a month, get $500 worth of calls and sms + 1GB of data. flagfall works out to be 10c i think then its like 39c a minute. it’s very hard to use up all your call/sms value in a month.
then, if you’re on a $79 or $99 cap you get unlimited phone calls/sms + 2-3GB of data.
i have a feeling phone calls will become obsolete soon. it will be all about data plans and calling via facetime or viber or tango, etc.
I had a similar experience with the Homy. After sitting at home for some days waiting for a bed that never was delivered (and after countless times having tried to extract something useful from their “customer service”) I left a somewhat cynical and bitter review on the http://www.allchile.net forum.
Lo and behold, I was contacted within a day by a very helpful lady from their costumer service to help me out. The moral of this story: Online naming and shaming does seem to work in Chile
I’m glad you got it sorted!
I love it when things actually work… but I hate it when you need to go through such a ridiculously frustrating process to get there. Especially over three dollars.
But I am glad you won!
My gladness over winning made the hassle of having to go in person to pay $3 totally worth it
I am lucky to work for a company that believes and strongly supports empowerment when dealing with a guest (customer) issue – WestJet Airlines. No need to speak to a supervisor to make it right. When we feel the person’s situation warrants a credit, a refund or an exception, we just have to go ahead and make it right for them. The guest will be happy with the service, feel like someone really cares and tell 100 other people about their positive experience (check out WestJet’s Facebook page about the lady wanting to visit her dying brother). On the agent’s side of things, they are happy they could assist someone and were able to make a positive impact. They feel better about themselves and love their jobs as they have the freedom to use their empowerment to make the right decision for the guest and the company and this at all levels within the company from the agent that welcomes you at the airport, the agent in the Call Centre, the baggage person, the flight crew, etc.
Why wait until the customer gets really upset, writes on Facebook or Twitter, sends letters to the CEO to the company and feel no one is listening until finally someone will make a decision saying something like ‘it is against our policy but we will make an exception’? Isn’t the customer usually right? If we would put ourselves in the shoes of the customers more often than not, we would also want the situation to be fixed. How wonderful is it when someone says right away ‘let me help you and make it right’. Wouldn’t you rather do business with a company that cares for your business?
Your company sounds fabulous! Can you convince WestJet to set up a route to Chile? With that kind of service, I’d be happy to fly them.
I wish we did
However at this point in time, Chile is not one of our destination or forecasted destination. We do fly to a lot of places in the USA including 4 Hawaian islands, Mexico, many of the Caribbean islands and Canada of course. This year we have added Costa Rica to our winter schedule and hopefully we will continue going further south, perhaps to Colombia. We have Boeing 737 so we are unable to fly more than 6.5 hours …so until we purchase a dreamliner (hopefully one day) who knows where we will be flying to. We are focusing on interline agreements at this point and AA, Delta, KLM, Air France and many other great airlines are our partners. Hopefully, you and Rodolfo will be able to get on one of our flights in the future 
Yup, Twitter is often the best vehicle to reach customer service these days.
It’s impressive how well it can work.
Just brilliant! This notion that “without having to take a number and stand in line for two hours only to be told to go away and stop complaining?” – is something I barely hear people talking about in Santiago (apart from on your blog that is
) despite how entrenched that mindset is in many businesses here. If you were a superhero, I think your superpower might be saving us all from bad customer service and encouraging the best dining experiences. Love.it.too.much.for.words.
Hahaha, I will gladly take those as my superpowers. I think my kryptonite would have to be snowboarding – I am hopeless!