The World is Round: Customer Disservice, Part Three

I was going to write this month about the online music services such as Napster and Rhapsody, and what is so damn good about them, when the following incident took place. It so bothered me that I felt compelled to write about it.

I was in a wireless phone store, returning a phone, just minding my own business, when I came within earshot of a woman who was speaking to someone from the phone company's national call center about a predicament that she and many thousands of others were deep within, that being the collective devastation of the recent Hurricanes Rita and Katrina.

The woman had been relocated, as so many other Louisiana residents were, to other locations, while determinations were being made as to when-or if-they could return to their homes…if indeed they still had homes. This particular woman had been relocated with her husband to the Washington, D.C. area. In the rush of trying to gather as many of her belongings as possible and get out of New Orleans before there was no getting out, she lost her cell phone, service for which she was paying to this particular company. The person at the company's call center told her she would have to pay full price for a replacement for the cell phone that went missing, or get it at a reduced price if she signed on to a new service plan.

The woman, understandably distraught, in the middle of a devastating situation she had little or no control over, began to cry and visibly shake. "You mean there is nothing you can do for me?" The person at the call center said that there was nothing he could do. "I've just been through two hurricanes, I've been relocated, I have no control over my situation, I don't know when or if I can ever go home, and you can't do anything for me?" The woman was clearly in pain. No, there is nothing I can do, the person told her, and that was that. The customer service representative in the store couldn't do anything, either. Nor could the rep's manager.

This is totally and utterly inexcusable. The woman needed to keep in touch with her family and friends through this excruciatingly awful, hurtful time. With so many credit card companies and lenders allowing people from New Orleans and other hard-hit areas of the country to put off their payments for a few months, or, in some cases, allowing them to miss a few payments altogether, it seems inconceivable to me that this cell phone company would not work with this poor woman. Faced with the realization that the company was not going to help her, she plunked down her credit card for the phone's full, retail price. "I guess there's nothing I can do," she said. "I've got to be able to keep in touch."

What is wrong with people? The hurricanes of the past month constitute a considerable national tragedy. One of the scariest parts of the whole scenario is not being able to let the people you love know you're safe. Many a person wasn't able to contact loved ones for one reason or another; in some cases, people weren't discovered as being alive until days later. On the occasion of one of two recent surgeries I had, the nurse who checked me in told me she was from New Orleans, and didn't know if her mother was okay. Coincidentally, she found out while I was sitting in front of her that her mother was fine, and in a nursing home, being cared for.

We take them for granted, these cell phones; just take a look at any teenager and see if their cell isn't permanently connected to their hip bone. Sure, it's easy to dial up a pal and chat a bit, or call ahead to a restaurant from your car and make a reservation, but it's in those unforeseen emergencies-your car breaks down on the highway, your house gets blown away by a hurricane-that they come in most handy. To think that this cell phone company wouldn't at least discount the phone, or give her a cheap loner until she could be sure hers was gone, is a travesty. It is embarrassing for the cell phone company. And it is a deep and horrible shame.

We've had enough national tragedies in the past, recent years to know that we must help each other when the need arises. Customer service is bad enough at its base, but when it really counts, when people really need good customer service, it is not the time to toe the company line. It is not a time to be counting pennies at the home office. It is a time to be reaching out.

Isn't the idea of a phone, whether it's mobile or landline, to be able to reach out and touch someone? Remember that ad slogan? Seems to me somebody is afraid of sticking their neck out, and this must stop.

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