I guess there is no such thing as customer service these days. Helpless is anyone who has any problem with these large corporations. Gone are the days of "down-home" businesses that actually care whether they lose one or two customers here and there. The large companies these days could care less. Why would they? They have 100 million other customers!
Such is the case with Discover Card. I recently called to cancel my credit card, one I have held with them for nearly 10 years. Instead of thanking me for my service, I was instead mocked, belittled and talked to as if I was a child. In what started out as a rather friendly conversation, the Discover Card representative took to a whole other level. After patiently and curteously declining this rep's offer to stay with the card over and over and over, and even making small-talk with my answers, I finally got snippy and said "it's time to stop the sales pitch and just please close the account." I said "I have said several times 'no' and now the friendliness of this conversation is over, I just want to close the account."
"So you don't want to earn money?" he said.
At this point I was mocked, basically told I didn't know what I was doing and talked to as if I was an incompetant school boy. Upon review, I should have asked the representative to compare college degrees. The representative acted as if my comments were just totally out of line. "You seem really angry sir," he said.
At this point, it is important to note the overall saracastic tone that this man used with every sentence and that at no time did I raise my voice or get angry, and only was I sarcastic after receiving the sarcasm.
The longer the conversation went, the more sarcastic and condescending the representative became. When asked to talk to the supervisor, the rep readily and sarcastically gave all of his information, even spelling out his name slowly ... again in a mocking manner. To my surprise, the supervisor took the same tone. From the moment he said hello, I could tell that the first representative had already gone and talked to him, hence the five minutes on hold. The supervisor was even more sarcastic and even asked me "what...are you having a bad day or something." He said he had listened to the whole conversation and that the first representative had just tried to explain the benefits. These men had a comment for every sentence. "What did he do that was condescending and sarcastic," he asked. I was shown no respect whatsoever, and was helpless to do anything about it. I can only think that Discover Cards' policy is to be as aggressive as possible when a customer calls to close his or her account. After all, what do they have to lose? I understand trying to sell me, but there has to be a cut-off point. Obviously, this company takes the stance of just pushing and pushing, and not worrying about courtesy or respect. It turned an otherwise good day for me into a bad one, quite honestly. I wish there were some kind of consequence companies that hold tactics like this
would have to face.
What can be done? Nothing. Customers are helpless. After going through this with companies like Samsung, Paypal (but at least those were real issues, not just representatives being disrespectful and condescending) I am totally basing all of my purchase and sign-up decisions on customer service ratings. It is worth it to pay a lot more for less-hassle. And needless to say, I will never sign up for or purchase any Discover Card or Discover Card related service.