Not yet

It’s probably no secret that I’ve been feeling very frustrated with life for a while now. Part of the problem is that I feel like the Universe is constantly pushing back, putting roadblocks in my way whenever it looks like I might start making progress. Either something goes wrong or there’s some delay or setback, like the world is saying “Not now; not yet. Be patient.” And I’m really, really tired of being patient. I’m not very good at it, I suppose.

Woman standing with her arms crossed says
(Not my GIF.)

There’s an old saying that good things come to those who wait, but it doesn’t feel that way. There’s always more waiting to do. And there never seem to be enough good things to justify the wait.

Up and down

So, I’ve been feeling a bit off the past couple of weeks. I’ve been trying to do way too much and it caught up with me earlier this week. I feel like I’m starting to snap back, but it’s been a wake-up call, a reminder of what I went through last year — and what I need to do to avoid feeling this way.

Why is it so easy to take care of everyone else but so hard to take care of me?

Irony, thy name is AT&T…

How ironic that, just days ago, I was using AT&T as an example of a company that doesn’t listen. Today, they earned that reputation again in another classic example of customer service failure.

I was looking at my credit card statement and noticed a duplicate charge for AT&T. Alarmed, I checked my AT&T account online; they only showed one charge. My money was on AT&T as the one responsible for the blunder, so I contacted them first.

I was very clear in my email: I stated that my credit card showed two charges for the same amount on the same day while my account records only reflected one. I needed to know what to do to resolve the problem.

Here’s their response, with the personal details edited out:

“Thank you for taking the time to contact AT&T about [ your account number ].  My name is Tanya and I appreciate the opportunity to address your inquiry today.

Here are your account  recent payment postings for March 2011:
03-30                    [ $ amount ]

Should you need further assistance or have other questions, please reply back to this e-mail and I will be happy to help you.”

How does restating the information I’ve already seen help me? I specifically mentioned that I had already looked at my payment history online. Printing it out for me and thinking you’re done just tells me that (1) you didn’t fully read my email, and (2) you really don’t care about helping me.

At that point, I shot back a very annoyed email pointing out those two conclusions and then called the credit card help line. It turns out it was an error on their part — but they immediately explained that they were having a programming issue and that it would be resolved as soon as possible. They listened to my problem and gave me the answer I needed. I’m not delighted that they’re having a problem, but I am pleased to understand the issue and to know that it’s being handled. So I’m a lot happier with them than I am with AT&T. My bank only made a technical mistake; AT&T’s indifferent response to my inquiry told me that they don’t care about my business. And that’s the mistake I’ll remember.

Can you hear me now?

Today, there are more options than ever to communicate with businesses. Between help lines, contact forms, email options, Twitter, Facebook, and live chat, there should be no problem getting a message to a company. So I find it more than a little annoying that, despite all these innovations, it’s still near-impossible to get anyone to actually LISTEN to you.

I’ve run into this issue more than once recently (as my LOFT posts will attest). I’ll spare you the McDonald’s story and relate today’s incident with AT&T, which prompted me to write this post.

I was on their website to pay my bill, which I accomplished easily enough. While I was there, I saw a tab for Marketing Preferences, and I thought, “Wonderful! I can tell them to stop sending me offers in the mail every other week.” But, as it turns out, that tab is only for email preferences. Undaunted, I looked for contact options. Surely there must be a way to tell them not to send me all these letters, right?

Wrong.

The contact options are a maze of predefined choices. Want to send a message that doesn’t fit those categories? You’re out of luck. Oh, I’m sure I could have called, but I’ve been down that road before. I don’t want to spend 30 minutes getting passed from rep to rep today, thank you.

The real irony is that AT&T currently has a contest to promote their paperless billing option. They’re giving away $15,000 for the sake of getting your statement to you via email, but persist in sending promotional letters and cards to customers who don’t want them. So much for their commitment to the environment.

Companies need to learn that communication channels that don’t work might as well not exist. People want to be heard, and communication needs to be on the customer’s terms, not yours. I’d much rather have one efficient way to tell you what’s on my mind than half a dozen options that only let me express the messages you want to hear.