It came as a surprise. It might have been developing for some time but when you get the full impact, it comes as a surprise. We are talking here about the fine art of customer relations. This changes with time as do all things in life. It seems that in this modern age, the handling of customer relations is based on the assumption that the customer is not of sound mind.
There was a time when we knew that we were fully capable of handling customer relations people. We did until we met one that reminded us of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. That was the 1975 movie that starred Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher. Nicholson played the fun-loving lunatic and Fletcher played the chilling psychiatric nurse Miss Ratched. Nicholson’s character is always playfully ahead of her but the anti-hero, Ratched, wins in the end.
It was a series of conversations with a woman from Bell Canada that left me feeling lobotomized. We had used the time-honoured approach of taking our complaint to the president of the company. This woman was one of the guardians of the castle keep at Bell Canada Enterprises’ executive office. Her approach was not that we were wrong but that we had not considered all the possibilities. She proved conclusively—to herself—that all the charges in the original bill were correct. This was the bill that caused the dust up because it was for three times the contracted price.
To give the devil her due, this woman was not only good at her job but she was determined. She would take the most miniscule items in the bill and make sure they were thoroughly discussed (by her). She must have spent more than ten minutes just on the charge for 911. It was affirmed to her many times that there was no disagreement with paying 18 cents per month for 911 emergency service.
We actually got to a point where both parties agreed that a bill of between $140 and $150 for the total period would have been reasonable. The sticking point was that the company wanted $192. Somewhere in the long list of charges and credits, Bell Canada must have made a computing error. It was not one that this woman from the executive office was willing to admit. The problem, she told us, was that we were not following her in the item by item recap of all the charges. Being from Quebec, she even insisted that Ontario Retail Tax, Goods and Services Tax and Harmonized Sales Tax should all be paid. She was not interested in our claim that HST had replaced GST and ORT.
Another problem left unresolved was the matter of the satellite receiver box for which we had paid $111 (including HST). She dismissed this as though Bell stores where in no way connected with Bell Canada. Take it to the store again, she advised.
She was generous though. She said she understood our confusion and concern and was quite willing to cancel the late charges—provided we paid promptly now that we understood the billing. We are waiting with baited breath for the new billing to arrive and the nasty telephone calls from Bell’s bill collectors to cease.
But I would really like to see her try that argument in front of a judge!
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