Customer Service, or not...

My wife's mother passed away in early September. As the successor trustee, Donna has had to deal with all that follows such an event, including preparing the house for sale and shutting off accounts. In some cases, mostly on the Wyoming end, things went smoothly and quickly. In others, that was hardly the case. Some examples:

Life Alert - Given the nature of this service, one might be surprised to learn they offer contracts of up to at least three years' duration, and that terminating such an agreement prematurely, in the case of death, for example, is not something they appear prepared to do. Initially, Donna tried to shut the service off while her mother was in a nursing home. Life Alert required confirmation from the nursing home. As Donna, and the nursing home, had more than a few other things on her mind at the time, she suggested they simply wait a bit and then they could have a death certificate, and hung up. Not long afterwards, she tried again, with a death certificate (which took weeks to obtain, by the way). After long stays on hold trying get the account shut off (which made me think of pressing the button when one has fallen and cannot get up - "your life is important to us - please stay on the floor and someone will be with you shortly"), she was finally successful, and packaged the equipment up and sent it back. About a week later, she received a call, saying Life Alert had received an alert. Donna reminded them the account was closed and the equipment had been shipped back.

City of Antioch - Calling the "customer service" number, Donna was informed one cannot shut off water service over the phone, and one must use the internet, whether one has access, convenient or not, to internet service. When she logged on, she found explicit instructions that said a third party could not terminate service that way, either. There was also no way to attach anything, like a death certificate, to the online form. A spirited email with a copy of the death certificate finally solved that problem

AT&T - Donna spoke with an AT&T representative after being on hold for about an hour. He was very helpful, said the account was terminated, and gave her confirmation numbers. Several weeks later, she received a bill noting overdue payments, and noticed AT&T had also taken money out of her mother's account. So, she tried calling again. The automated system served no purpose other than to waste time and inflame the caller. The first person on the line could not help without having the account passcode. I don't even know what my passcode is, and Donna certainly did not have her mother's. Donna also explained, again, that her mother is dead, so obtaining the passcode from her was unlikely. Donna did note she had account closure confirmation numbers, but those were apparently useless. (At one point, after reiterating that she had confirmation numbers that allegedly showed account closure, the representative said, no, the accounts aren't closed. Exactly my point, Donna said, to no avail.) After finding out some of the things that individual could not do (a very long list, it would appear), Donna was transferred to another individual, with similar results, except that representative finally just gave up and put Donna on hold, again. Eventually a third representative picked up. After explaining the situation for the third time (we won't count the attempt to use the automated system), Donna was informed yet again nothing could be done without the passcode. Donna noted that had been established, and again inquired with regard to the purpose of confirmation numbers if no one at AT&T would recognize them. After wasting some more time, the agent said Donna could take a copy of the death certificate to "our local AT&T store." Donna noted we don't have such a thing, with the nearest one being about an hour and half away. Donna also suggested that, perhaps, the individual at the store may be unfamiliar with how to deal with a death certificate, a suspicion reinforced when the representative on the phone asked if the death certificate would have the date on it. Donna said, yes, that is the purpose of a death certificate - they aren't, for example, printed in advance. Donna asked if there were any other options. Yes, said the representative for the self-described "first truly modern media company;" you can mail a copy to us. No, you can't email it. You can't take a picture and text it to us. You can't upload it to our website. You have to physically mail it to this cutting edge multimedia, telecommunications, and technology giant.

For those of you with a customer service component to your company or your position, hopefully these are nothing more than examples of how you do not do business. If this hits a little closer to home, consider this: People die every day. Be prepared for that. Additionally, a customer is generally less interested in what customer service cannot do than in what they can do.