YOU DID WHAT WITH MY PAYMENT

About 6 months ago I added an additional line to my AT&T wireless phone account. When I did this AT&T gave me a new account number, why? I have no idea, but they did.

Last Saturday morning AT&T called me with a courtesy call to tell me my payment wasn’t received. I immediately went to my online banking and saw that the bill had been paid on the 13^th, 2 weeks prior to the call. To make sure that nothing showed up as late I paid the balance again and figured it would show up a few days later. IT DIDN’T.

I called tonight to check and found out that the first payment that was made on the 13^th was credited to the OLD account. So while my active account was showing past due the old inactive account had a nice credit balance on it. I wasn’t happy, but I just asked to have the credit from the old account moved to my new account so my next bill would be paid ahead. Now is when I got a little mad, no A LOT MAD. I was told that it couldn’t be done. They would need to send me a check and it would take 4 to 6 weeks.

I held my temper and asked for a supervisor, he told me the same thing. I asked for his supervisor and was told the same thing.

So here is what we have, I paid the same bill twice, one payment was on time but credited to the wrong account due to an AT&T mistake, my second payment was credited to the right account, instead of being able to move the credit from the old account to the new account they will need to send me a check in 4 to 6 weeks. Does this sound like good customer service to anyone reading this? It doesn’t to me either.

I am in a contract for another 18 months with AT&T so there isn’t a lot I can do, but each of you need to remember this episode and make sure that you and your company NEVER get to the point where you forget that the customer needs to come first.

If you find something like this happening in your company, bring it to someone’s attention. Do what you can to change the process. It is a simple fact, ease of doing business and customer service are two of the biggest value added features a company can offer in today’s market. Make sure the value of your company is raised not lowered by the way you treat your valued customers.

Lorin