jdominey@bsga05.attmail.com (11/14/90)
I must protest the article in V10 #819 from Dan Breslau, forwarding a
message from a Sprint customer. I work for AT&T and am probably being
hypersensitive, but I think I have a legitimate complaint.
I believe the article does fit the general thread we've often seen
here of "customer rep horror stories". That's fine, every company has
its share of ignorant and annoying people on the phones. A sales rep
(much less a supervisor!) who can't handle a reasonable question is a
liability and should be pulled off the line quickfashion.
My problem with the article is that the customer was basically trying
to pick a fight. S/he didn't really seem interested in finding out
why the flyer said one thing and the {Wall Street Journal} article
headline said another. S/he decided that the flyer was "a sleazey
(sic) piece of propaganda". So s/he harangues the supervisor who is
foolish enough to admit he hasn't read the WSJ.
The overwhelming majority of "war stories" published in TELECOM Digest
are from people who were genuinely trying to obtain information, order
service, get repair, etc. I can sympathize. But it seems out of
character to run a story from someone who admits the purpose of the
call was to "harrass a poor telephone operator who is only doing her
job". I can't even tell if the customer bothered to read either the
article or the flyer.
I'm sure our Moderator must constantly winnow gratuitous bashing from
legitimate complaints. The article in question is somewhere in
between, but from my partisan position, looks closer to the former.
P.S. I suspect the flyer and the Journal were talking about different
rates, either business vs. residential, day vs. evening/night, or
standard vs. calling plan. But without reading both, and knowing
when this took place, (last week? last month? this summer?) I can't
tell for sure.
Jack Dominey | AT&T Commercial Marketing | 800-241-4285 | AT&T Mail !dominey