<p>I’m not being obtuse. Even if they didn’t assign the same last name to all of them it still wouldn’t make them more accountable. You do not need someones last name when you call a place to hold them accountable. You may want it, but it’s not necessary. All that information is in the computer. I know of a few people who have lost their jobs when the customer didn’t even remember their first name yet alone the last name. When that company hires a person to sit at a desk and create a fake last name for everyone (that in all honesty does absolutely nothing additional in regards to tracking that employee) do you guys want to pay more for your services to cover that persons salary? I don’t mean to sound rude but that’s exactly what would happen. Most places that I have heard about will give you some kind of number like a location number or a team number or something.</p>
<p>Sometimes the notes that are entered in the computer are inaccurate or even WRONG, but that’s when it’s especially important for YOU to take your own notes and be persistent, especially if the stakes are particularly high.</p>
<p>HImom, I’m glad you got someone personally assigned to you. I’m sure that makes it nice and easy to get consistent information. 
I don’t personally assign myself to anyone however I always tell my customers if they ever need anything else down the road to call and leave a message for me and I’ll call them back as soon as I can that way they don’t have to go through everything all over again with one of my co workers. Normally if they are going to call back and leave a message they do it within a few days however I had a gentleman leave a message for me a few months ago that I had talked to about two years ago. Funny thing was the moment I started talking to him I remembered exactly why he called me in the first place. He was so happy that I remembered him, lol!</p>
<p>I have been tempted a few times to quit BCBS, but have not because they are the only insurer that works with all my healthcare providers. I work very hard to be calm, patient and thorough and generally have had great success. I am troubled that it takes so long for providers to be reimbursed and have made that point clearly to my insurers, especially for out-of-state providers. Generally, they do work to expedite things. I was floored that one of the out-of-state providers was pleased that it took ONLY TWO YEARS for them to get fully reimbursed by our BCBS. They thought that was pretty prompt! I guess it’s a different world out there. :(</p>
<p>I am still waiting for reimbursement for out-of-pocket lab fees we paid IN NOVEMBER for my D from BCBS & expect less than two years.</p>
<p>Wow. The fact that two years is considered good makes me cringe!!</p>
<p>I love Amazon. Had to return my Kindle 2X over the course of a year and a replacement was on my door the next day, before I even shipped the defective unit back. Love LL Bean and Lands End. </p>
<p>I hate Best Buy. Son wanted this DVD collection last year to give to H for xmas. In Nov. I place an order on Best Buy’s web site for pick up at my local store which was showing the DVD’s in stock. A few hours later I got an email that it was out of stock and to try another store. I ordered from a store close to work, again showing the product in stock. Again, I got an email saying merchandise was out of stock. I had to go and cancel both orders (and give them a reason!!) and then wait several days for my card to be credited. Why should I have to cancel an order for product they don’t have? And why did they charge my card before checking? I was never able to get a live person on the phone. I have also had problems with help in stores. </p>
<p>I hate Walmart. as someone else said they just represent all that is wrong. They underpay their staff, their help is unhelpful and the stores are always a mess. </p>
<p>I boycott Macy’s. Took both kids in to get new shoes about 6 years ago. There was only one women working that part of the store. She started to help us but then started to work the register. After about 10 minutes I went up and asked her to come back and finish waiting on us. She wanted to know what I needed. I told I needed the kids feet measured and some shoes to try on. She dumped the measuring thing on the floor by the kids and went back to the register. We waited some more. I again approached her for help when some customers told me they were in line ahead of me and she ignored me. I was so mad I stomped out and went to Stride Rite and spent $120. I wrote the manager a letter but never got a response. I shop Lord and Taylors now.</p>
<p>Bank of America wins HANDS DOWN for poor customer service. Their local branch phone numbers are not even IN the local phone books. My opinion is they do not WANT you to contact them (not that it does you any good when you do contact them). I just finished copying 20 pages of “stuff” to resend them because after THREE MONTHS they are claiming they didn’t receive some things (oddly they have sent me a couple of other letters saying the issue is resolved). I was on HOLD for over 20 hours trying to resolve this issue. </p>
<p>B of A is far worse than Motor Vehicles.</p>
<p>mamom, That’s the same thing that happened to me with my TV that I ordered from BB. I ordered it online for pickup because it said it was available. They charged my card. I went to get it and they told me it was out of stock. Called around and it was out of stock everywhere except the website. They told me I had to call customer service and have them change it to a delivery instead. Well customer service started a new order for delivery instead of changing my old one. When I realized I had two charges on my card I called them back, got hung up on, and then finally they agreed that I never did receive the first tv and removed my charges. That’s probably more then one strike now that I think about it.</p>
<p>Love, love Nordstrom! My credit card is never charged until I actually pick up what I ordered online at the customer service. The sales associates are super attentive without being annoying, and one lady from the department where I shop the most remembers my name and calls me to tell me about the upcoming sales (I guess she figured out my shopping style, LOL). Although Nordstrom lets you return anything without any questions asked, I try not to abuse this policy.</p>
<p>Can’t say enough good things about Costco. I walk in my local store and see some of the same folks who worked there many years ago when we joined Costco. Friendly, efficient, approachable and will go out of their way to help you. Only once in our 20 years of almost weekly shopping at Costco we encountered a rude employee.</p>
<p>I agree with Thumper!. I hate, hate Bank of America. I have had so many errors that they have caused. You can’t do anything over the phone and they are a 30 mile drive from my house. I have two estate accounts with them because the accounts had to be in a national bank. I am pulling the money out the minute the estates are settled. My little town bank gives Great service. </p>
<p>Moen faucets gives excellent customer service. Their faucets are guaranteed for as long as you own the house and they are prompt and friendly.</p>
<p>If you’re having a problem with a government agency’s customer service, and you’ve done everything you can do – call your representative. If it’s a federal agency, call your Congressman, if a state agency, call your local assemblyman (as they’re known here in California). They know the secret phone numbers, and they hold the purse strings, so they tend to be listened to. </p>
<p>Several years ago, I had a problem getting my car tags. My registration had been put on hold for some mysterious reason. I spent several hours trying to get it straightened out on the phone with DMV. Here’s a summary of the last conversation I had with them:</p>
<p>Me: Why haven’t I gotten my tags yet?
DMV: Your registration is on hold.
Me: Why?
DMV: I don’t know.
Me: What do you mean you don’t know?
DMV: It’s a Code Z.
Me: What does that mean?
DMV: I don’t know.
Me: Well, could you find out?
DMV: No.
Me: Why not?
DMV: We can’t investigate a Code Z until 30 days have passed.
Me: And how many days have passed?
DMV: Six.
Me: My current tags expire in a week.
DMV: Yes, I can see that.
Me: So how can I get my tags on time?
DMV: You can’t.
Me: So what am I supposed to do if I get pulled over for expired tags?
DMV: I don’t know.</p>
<p>I called my local assemblyman’s office and explained the situation. The young lady took the information and called me back literally within 4 minutes to tell me I could go pick up the tags. Yes, I sent an email to the assemblyman singing her praises.</p>
<p>Real call to Bank of America:</p>
<p>Them: You mailed the Power of Attorney to the wrong P.O. Box. at B of A.</p>
<p>Me: Well. clearly if you KNOW it was mailed to the wrong P.O. Box, you obviously received it.</p>
<p>Them: You sent it to the wrong P.O. Box.</p>
<p>Me: Yes…but when you received it, what did you do with it, and where is it now.</p>
<p>Them: You need to send another certified POA to the correct P.O. Box.</p>
<p>Me: Well…you processed my issue, so you must have USED the POA I sent.</p>
<p>Then: Look Mrs. Thumper, you keep telling me you sent this POA, and it was sent to the wrong PO box. </p>
<p>Me: I don’t understand…what did you do with it, and if I sent it to the wrong place, why wasn’t it sent back to ME.</p>
<p>Then the customer service person (who was supposedly a supervisor named Adam) hung up on me.</p>
<p>It’s one of those times I HOPE they were taping the call.</p>
<p>thumper, I’m sorry you had that issue but it kind of made me smile. Let me tell you a story. First off, I don’t work in billing. If I have your premium check on my desk, you didn’t send it to the correct place. If I have your POA on my desk, it more then likely didn’t go to the correct place either. If i have your mortgage payment on my desk, you obviously didn’t even get close to sending it to the correct place. Now your payment, or your POA, I would be happy to forward those where they need to go for you. But your mortgage payment??? Lol. I can’t tell you how many customers I’ve had to call letting them know that they put their mortgage payment in the wrong envelope and sent it to me and find out what on earth they want me to do with it!</p>
<p>I spoke to an elderly woman a few years ago who mailed us a payment and the post office returned it to her. She called me to find out why and I asked her where she sent it to. She told me she mailed it in one of our envelopes. I asked her if she would mind getting one of them for me. She read it off to me and the address on them was one we hadn’t used in twenty years! She asked me what she should do with them because she had well over a hundred. I was like if you would be willing to just put them all in the closest trash can i would be happy to mail you a new batch for the rest of this year and you can re-mail your payment when you get them. I thought it was so cute. I told her from now on we will just mail her a pack of 12 each year that way she is sure to always have the correct ones. Leave it up to me to have someone with well over 100 envelopes from over 20 years ago. :)</p>
<p>I don’t like to pick on my local post office. The PO makes it all too easy, for one thing. :rolleyes: And I’ve known the PO clerks in my town for more than 20 years for another, and almost all of them do the best they can in a lousy spot. However, there’s one who turns her well-deserved annoyance at her employer on her customers, which is unpleasant for peons like myself who can’t take their business to a competitor.</p>
<p>This lady has passive aggression down to an art form. She always provides just enough information to the customer to insure that the customer has to ask another question. She’ll never exert herself to ask a manager for a suggestion about making the customer’s request possible, or easier. And unlike the other clerks, she’ll never make a suggestion about how a mailing could be cheaper, faster, or more convenient. Of course she’s the bulk mail “expert” and I’ve got to do a zillion bulk mailings every year …</p>
<p>BCBS…ah. It’s been a few years so I can keep my blood pressure level while thinking about it. My D’s medicine is $6000/mo. I had the authorization from them that it was approved. They went a YEAR without paying for it. Their clerks are horrendous, if one can even get to a human from the phone tree. “Oh, it’s the wrong code.” blahblahblah.</p>
<p>The only reason this could go on this long (I was still receiving the med fine every month) was because the billing people at one of the big 3 home delivery medical pharmacies were also incompetent morons. I owed them $72,000 and no one seemed to give a damn.</p>
<p>Finally, I wrote a certified letter addressed to the CEO of that BCBS. Received a phone call from his top admin assistant within 2 hours of their signing for the letter. Got my own personal representative supervisor. Off and on, both the pharm and BCBS still screwed it up, but calls to her always got it resolved. Insane.</p>
<p>i’m amazed by how much the PO charges to ship something. I went with my BF to mail five boxes the other day and the cheapest one was 10 bucks and it was a rather small box with a mug inside! I told him he should have checked to see how much it would cost to ship them UPS ground. He was like I’m sure that would cost more. I was like I’m the one who used to work at a place where I had to UPS multiple packages every day… plus they will come pick it up for you… and I’m telling you each of these boxes would have shipped for under 10 dollars. I used to schedule a pickup for the local UPS man to come by and pick up boxes each day at my old job and if I forgot to do it one day or if I was late in scheduling it he’d come by anyway and come in and ask if I had any boxes for him to take with. I remember the one day telling him that yes I did but that they wouldn’t be ready for about 15 minutes and he came in and helped me finish boxing them up and together we had them done in about 7 minutes and he carried them all out to his vehicle for me. Maybe he figured he’d be better off doing that then driving away and having to turn around and come back when he got the pickup request, haha. Anyway, he was a really nice guy and great service. I’m pretty sure he is still their UPS man.</p>
<p>Hope this is on topic, but once I saw a young girl a few years older than my D get chewed out by some old person in the check out line. Something about how they should put prices on canned vegetables so you’d know the cost, etc. And she held it together while he screamed at her. And I said to her, you know – you handled that really well. You stayed calm and professional and polite.</p>
<p>I should have said something to her manager.</p>
<p>classof, it’s tough to hold it together when someones screaming at you so kudos to the girl. :)</p>
<p>I had some customer on the phone the other week who stated he called my number after having talked to a million people in customer service and that nobody could help him and how he was giving up and he was screaming at me at the top of his lungs. By the time I brought up his account I noticed there wasn’t a single note or phone call made on his behalf. I don’t know where on earth he was calling but it wasn’t us. No wonder they couldn’t help him. Every time I tried to interject that even though I wasn’t in customer service I knew how to fix his issue and that it would only take a moment he cut me off and just kept going and going and going, screaming at the top of his lungs into the phone at me. When he got done yelling I very calmly told him that while he was yelling at me i fixed his problem and that for future issues he needs to call 1800blahblah and they would be happy to help him. All of a sudden he turned into the nicest customer and started telling me jokes. I was just thinking what on earth is going on here? If you had called the right number in the first place anyone could have fixed that problem for you in less then a minute and you would have saved yourself (and whoever else you were on the phone with) a lot of aggravation. Instead, you scream at me, you cuss at me, when I didn’t even do anything. And once you’re done calling me names, you’re going to tell me jokes?</p>
<p>FG- I am working on a CC dispute with my usually extremely wonderful bank. I was amazed when I asked for some back details on their system to be told that many of my calls had not been noted. I don’t know how or why that happened and I had not kept the names & exact details, but those really did not matter, except that it would have shown them I really had done more checking than it appeared.</p>
<p>So, you do wonder sometimes if your call is noted.</p>
<p>It really can vary as to what notes are made of calls. I have had very good success with the AmEx extended warranty for both of kids’ broken laptops. It has made me ALWAYS use AmEx for expensive electronic purchases. I can always use an extra year of free warranty.</p>