In the past, I had some terrible financial problems, due to [catastrophic] illness and the medical bills and loss of pay that went along. I remember back then, calling a company, such as the electric company, and asking for help (like paying a reduced amount temporarily, or having more time to pay the bill) was a degrading, humiliating experience. They'd act like "yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before..." and I just knew they were thinking LOSER. I'd end up feeling like a worthless piece of you-know-what.
Fast forward to yesterday. I received my DirecTV bill the day before and--to my absolute shock--saw a 'late payment fee' on it! The fee was 6-something dollars. I called DirecTV and told the CSR that there must have been a delay in last month's bill arriving, because I always pay my bills the same day I receive them. By then she knew [by reviewing my account] that I'm a LONG-time customer (early 1990s), with a perfect payment history. She couldn't have been nicer and more gracious! I told her I didn't care about paying the fee, but I DID care about this having a negative effect on my credit. She very nicely said that she was removing the fee and she guaranteed there would be no negative reporting done. She treated me like gold. She thanked me for being such a long-time customer with an outstanding payment history, asked if there was anything else she could do, asked if I'd like to hear about special offers available to me, etc. What a difference!
I know that way back when, back in the days when we literally didn't have any money and could not pay our bills, the exact same type of phone call would've ended very differently. The CSR would've known that in fact I didn't pay the bill on time because I didn't have the money, and that I was an excuse-making loser. I strongly prefer the way I'm treated now.
BTW, I really did receive the bill late. No, I don't do paperless billing, at all. I tried it when it was new and strongly disliked it. I've had numerous bills arrive late during the past year or so, but this was the first one that I somehow overlooked. My routine is to log in to Bank of America daily, or at least every other day, and review my accounts. I make sure there are no incorrect transactions, and I go to its 'bill pay' and scroll down my list of payees, checking when each one was last paid, and whether I have a payment scheduled for them. I don't know how I missed DirecTV, but I did. *shrug*
@FinStar wrote:
@SoCalGardener wrote:In the past, I had some terrible financial problems, due to [catastrophic] illness and the medical bills and loss of pay that went along. I remember back then, calling a company, such as the electric company, and asking for help (like paying a reduced amount temporarily, or having more time to pay the bill) was a degrading, humiliating experience. They'd act like "yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before..." and I just knew they were thinking LOSER. I'd end up feeling like a worthless piece of you-know-what.
Fast forward to yesterday. I received my DirecTV bill the day before and--to my absolute shock--saw a 'late payment fee' on it! The fee was 6-something dollars. I called DirecTV and told the CSR that there must have been a delay in last month's bill arriving, because I always pay my bills the same day I receive them. By then she knew [by reviewing my account] that I'm a LONG-time customer (early 1990s), with a perfect payment history. She couldn't have been nicer and more gracious! I told her I didn't care about paying the fee, but I DID care about this having a negative effect on my credit. She very nicely said that she was removing the fee and she guaranteed there would be no negative reporting done. She treated me like gold. She thanked me for being such a long-time customer with an outstanding payment history, asked if there was anything else she could do, asked if I'd like to hear about special offers available to me, etc. What a difference!
I know that way back when, back in the days when we literally didn't have any money and could not pay our bills, the exact same type of phone call would've ended very differently. The CSR would've known that in fact I didn't pay the bill on time because I didn't have the money, and that I was an excuse-making loser. I strongly prefer the way I'm treated now.
BTW, I really did receive the bill late. No, I don't do paperless billing, at all. I tried it when it was new and strongly disliked it. I've had numerous bills arrive late during the past year or so, but this was the first one that I somehow overlooked. My routine is to log in to Bank of America daily, or at least every other day, and review my accounts. I make sure there are no incorrect transactions, and I go to its 'bill pay' and scroll down my list of payees, checking when each one was last paid, and whether I have a payment scheduled for them. I don't know how I missed DirecTV, but I did. *shrug*
Just a quick observation on your anecdotal experience (bolded statements). I think it's great that they were able to resolve your issue in a positive outcome, but I would also like to point out the generalizations made from your op.
While customer service experiences can vary for a lot of individuals, it is important to recognize that not all agents, supervisors or managers are trained to treat you that way or have such perceived notions about your situation. Sure, there are bad apples everywhere, not just CSRs. And, your post appears to generalize the mindset that you would be treated in an inferior fashion because you did not have the capacity to make those payments on time during the time you experienced your illness. Certainly, there are empathetic agents, no? And, we are all human at the end of the day, no? And, certainly you were not treated inferiorly I would hope? FWIW, in my previous life (eons and eons ago) managing a variety of GSO's and global customer contact centers, no employees were ever trained to treat customers with such disdain. Granted, you cannot take the inherent or perceived notions from agents who dealt with customers who abused the system, but by and large, escalations are the norm whenever a front-line CSR does not provide acceptable service or leverage meaningful results with your call/inquiry.
The take away, not all agents think the way you generalize in your op.
I respect your opinion, but I thought I was pretty clear that I was referring to *my* past experiences. I repeatedly said *I* did this and *I* experienced that and *my* feelings were...
Also, I have to add that those negative experiences happened a long time ago. In a much less PC world! Today, I hear all the time about creditors working with customers who are having financial issues, all kinds of deferments and forgiveness and help that's available. Back when I'm talking about, no, it was very much the way I described, and it was particularly painful having been a great customer and treated that way, and then, through absolutely no fault of my own, turned into a late-paying, missed payment customer--and got treated like dirt. The only thing that changed about me was my income, well, the lack thereof, and the resulting inability to pay bills.
