Ask HN: Is the quality of American customer service degrading sharply?
I've recently had to move again, and I've noticed a sharp change. Over the past week, I've had disappointing experiences with companies I once trusted:
- I subscribed to a particular Internet provider in the past and loved their service and customer support. It seems that since then they've been acquired by a larger company. When I first signed up with them again at our new place, our Internet connection wasn't working when they said it should be. I called customer service, and they said a technician visit would cost $80, unless we added a $5/mo option to our plan for "protection". I had NEVER heard of tech visits being charged for before, and in fact had tech visits from other companies in the past and was never charged. Again, felt like being scammed.
- I moved out of a house where we had a security service contract. Since we moved to an apartment building that has its own security, we didn't need their services anymore. Canceling it took me over an hour on the phone and being redirected three times, having to repeat/confirm the same information every time a new person picked up. That was after going through three automated menus where the intent to cancel was clear (Account -> Cancel -> Due to Move), and yet the first person who picked up was a generic customer rep who had to redirect the call to "accounts".
- We've recently changed the bank account we make mortgage payments out of. Our bank's system wouldn't let me edit our recurring payment schedule to update the account the funds are paid from. I had to delete it to create a new one, but upon trying that, it would only let me create one-time scheduled payments. Customer service informed me that I had to wait 24 hours to set up a new recurring payment schedule, which seems like a totally artificial constraint and puts the burden on me to come back again to do that.
- This is unrelated to moving, but last year my wife and I got what seemed like a good deal on a trade-in for new iPhones with our mobile carrier. However, they didn't make it super clear that the trade-in value would be pro-rated over 3 years, meaning if we cancel our contract, we will have to pay the remaining of the full amount for the new phones, foregoing the remainder of the trade-in value. So now we're locked in for 3 years and once again it feels like we were scammed into it.
Has it always been this way? The past year has been kind of a shock to me in terms of how badly American companies are treating their customers. I'd never had issues like that here in the US before.