On Saturday, I had a book signing in the Burlington, Vermont area.  I drove the four hours up on Friday afternoon and spent Friday and Saturday night at a friend’s house—a gorgeous home with a private cove on Lake Champlain.  I hadn’t been to Vermont in twenty-five years and wasn’t sure I would still think it was the prettiest state in the USA, now that I’ve seen the rest of them (except Alaska). It turns out that I didn’t have to change my opinion – Vermont is incredible.

So I had intended to devote today’s blog to waxing poetic about the mountains, the lakes, the little towns, the delightful funkiness of downtown Burlington, etc.

Then, I got a phone call from the electric company, informing me a technician was on his way to shut off my power.

Grrr.

I was flummoxed (love that word.)

Like most writers, my income can be spotty.  I get a large check one month, then nothing for the next several. But, I had a decent financial winter, and had kept the bills current through Spring.  My brother, who is a co owner of the cottage and lives here sometimes, took over bill-paying duty until my next advance check. He’d been paying the electric company but, it turns out, still had his bill-pay service referencing the old account number, which was in my sister’s name ( I changed it to my name after I moved here). The electric company has been posting payments to a closed account since the last one I made, which was in April.  Once we found the problem, the credit balance was transferred to the correct account and the disconnect order cancelled.

Whew.

But HERE’S THE THING...

I had a hard time reaching my brother, so I didn’t get the dates, amounts and account numbers associated with the lost payments immediately.  And, although the error was his, I’m still ticked at Connecticut Light and Power, because...

1. Every time I called, I was put on hold. Ultimately, I called five times.  The longest of the hold times was about 45 minutes.

2. Each department is completely separate.  The dispatch department, who initially called me to tell me a technician was on his way, could not transfer me to collections.  Collections could fix the error, and had to refer me to customer service, a different phone number. Customer service was able to transfer the credits, but then had to refer me back to Collections to stop the disconnect order.

3. The old account was closed and paid in full (by me) a long time ago.  Why did they continue to accept payments?  If they’d rejected them, or sent a note to the old customer (who happens to be my sister), this would not have happened.  Or, if they’d looked, they’d have seen there was a new account associated with the address, in the same last name as the one on the checks.

Hmmm...I wonder what that could mean.

4. At one point, I went so far as to suggest that perhaps payments were being posted to the wrong account.  Why didn’t any representative think to check if there was another account associated with that address, and whether it had a credit balance?

I begged for twenty-four hours to get the bottom of the problem.  No way. Instead, I was told by no less than six people that unless I paid $516 immediately and in person, it was physically impossible to stop the shutoff.  Which can’t have been true because, once they found and transferred the misdirected payments, they were able to stop it immediately. (Or as immediately as anything can be that involves a forty-five minute hold.)

I am a bona-fide customer service expert. I have performed, supervised, managed, written policies and procedures for and taught seminars in customer service.  There are some very basic tenetsfor any company’s service policy.

1.  Forty-five minute hold times CAN’T happen. There is no scenario in which this is acceptable for a commercial enterprise. Period.  If this is considered routine, which is what the representatives told me, then the company’s  call center structure, procedures, and/or policy is broken.

2. Anyone who talks to customers needs to be empowered to help that customer without transferring him or referring him to another office.  In the rare cases that transfer is necessary, the initial representative needs to be able to do so without getting in line with the regular customers at the end of the hold queue, and must also stay on the line and explain the problem to the new representative, so the customer doesn’t have to start over.

3. The company needs to set up automatic procedures that prevent easily avoidable errors.  For example, transactions cannot be applied to a closed account and notifications are triggered when transactions are attempted.

4. If a customer states, credibly, that it appears an error may have occurred the representative should have a checklist of common errors and how to check for them.  (Example, check other accounts with the same name and/or address to see if any show a credit balance).

Altogether, I spent three and a half hours on the problem and, I confessed, allowed myself to become stressed over the situation.  

But the really sad thing is that none of it surprises me.  I realize that I now actually expect poor customer service from most companies, and that I’m delighted if it turns out to be merely adequate.  Customer service excellence is so rare that it always catches me off guard.

*Sigh.*