Does Your Business Hang Up on Customers?

Sadly, today's blog is out of an experience I had with a bad business. I feel comfortable calling them a bad business because any business that tolerates its staff hanging up on customers is bad. (Minus those who do allow a gentle hang-up if a caller is cursing at staff- which I don't condone.)

Today's bad business- World Education Services. They do international education equivalency reviews and other things. I called upon them and their service for an equivalency report from one of my degrees. They didn't give me the review and report that I paid for but they did give me a great experience to share with you.

So, on what conditions do your staff hang up on callers? Never? I suggest you test them. How well do your staff hold up to callers who are upset or expressing displeasure with your business? Again, I say, test them.

Case in point: I called WES to clear up an issue about what was sent to them via my university, having spoken with staff at the university first. A WES staff continued to give me the generic answer, "contact your registrar". Had she been listening to me, she would know that the office I was dealing with at the international university was "the registrar" who handles all matters related to transcripts. It was one of those situations where A blames B and B affirms they did what they were supposed to do. Where does that leave you? (By the way, I believe the university more than WES because I had the university send me the exact thing they sent to WES at the same time. Perhaps I subconsciously knew this was coming.) I realized the call was going nowhere fast and requested a full refund of my payment (in the hundreds) given they were unwilling to review what was sent to them and asking the university to send another packet wouldn't alleviate the issue since they sent the packet as it was supposed to be sent in the first place. I'm getting off track. Forgive me... let's get to the hang up.
She told me my request for a refund was useless because when I put my order for services in I agreed to their refund policy (which I certainly don't recall but it could have been one of those long tirades about "agree or disagree" which you have to accept to move forward in the process- no one reads those things). I then told her that I had no problem reporting them to the Better Business Bureau and asked for her name. That's when I heard the click. She hung up on me.

I never raised my voice. I never cursed. I never brought her mother in to it. :)  Why on earth did she have such a short trigger as to hang up on a paid customer? Maybe it was because I was paid and not paying. Ah.

What is your business policy for callers who complain? Request refunds? Threaten to call consumer advocacy groups on your business? Have a plan and practice, practice, practice. Then, test, test, test. Hire me and I'll test for you. I might enjoy it.

My lesson here: ask for their name at the very beginning of the conversation. Don't wait for trouble.

And, yes, I've placed a dispute investigation on the payment with my business credit card. Thank goodness someone has good customer service. Go PNC!