Cutting the Cord - A Story about Notification

[Community Alums]

Do you know what service desk tools are used by the vendors you use? Do you need to know??

Surprisingly, I never really considered it until this past weekend. In an effort to cut regular expenses we aren't using, my **** and I decided to cut the cord on our home phone service. With our increasing use of video chat to keep in touch with family and our cell phones for other regular calls, the only things we were using the land line for were for long business calls (I work from home and the land line was typically more reliable) and receiving telemarketing calls. Believe me, that latter use is really more of an undesirable side effect than anything.

So I called to cancel the service on October 26 and gave them the whole "It isn't you, it's me" answers to their questions as to why I was cancelling the service. And I truly believed it at the time. Their service had been adequate.

It has been well over a week now, though, and the service still hasn't been cancelled. My first opportunity to call was Saturday. Yes, I kept the phone plugged in to check once in a while to make sure the service has actually been turned off, because I don't want them coming back to me and saying that I need to pay. I was also curious to see how long it would actually take when the customer service guy said it could take them up to 5-6 *days* to disconnect the service. Yes, DAYS. In this day and age, don't they really just need to flip a switch?

Anyway, a week and a half later, I called them again because it still wasn't turned off. As it turns out, their customer service department is not open on Saturdays, so I went through the voicemaze, er, I mean voiceMAIL system to speak with someone and ended up with a repair technician.

She was able to find my account and easily determine that I had indeed called to cancel my service, but she could not tell me why the service was still connected. She said she could make a note in my record, but… and this is the part that kills me… no one would actually see her comment unless I called back during regular business hours to prompt them to look at my account!

Apparently whatever tool this telecom provider uses for their account management (I can't say for sure that this is being tracked as an "incident" in their system), does not allow for notification to customer service representatives who might be working with a customer to investigate an issue. I suppose it may be a policy issue rather than a technology issue. If so, I think they might be pushing the customer driven support idea a bit too far. Maybe it is wrong, but all I could think as I hung up is "I'm glad I'm not doing business with this company any more."

Whatever the reason behind their inability to proactively work with their customers, it made me consider… do I want to do business with a company that isn't going to invest in a system (and process) that allows them to help their customers get answer to their problems as quickly as possible (if you are reading this post, you are probably well aware of ServiceNow's notification capabilities)? Whether that involves getting answers in a knowledge base or support for things (such as a cancellation) that cannot be obtained in a self-service model, I know I would prefer to know the companies with whom I work are doing their best to address my needs as a customer.

So if you're reading this, I have a question for you: Have you ever considered what tools your service providers (at a consumer or commercial level) are using to support you to determine whether or not you will do business with them? Sure there are a lot of factors that go into such a decision, but could this information sway you one way or another, even if it meant you would be paying a bit more for the company who could more readily support you?