Jan 23

I’ll try to keep my blog posts concise, useful and for the most part,
positive. But I’ve had enough frustrating experiences with large
corporations like Circuit City, Cox Communications and now Sprint where they think they can trample the little guy and there will be no repercussions.
I reserve this small corner of the web to use my humble publishing abilities to expose some of these
customer service atrocities in hopes that others can have a peek at how these companies do
business before deciding to become a customer themselves. this is a repost of a note I just sent to a local arizona
internet professionals list i’m on here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/azipa/message/33153

**********snip***********

i have been customer of sprint for 3yrs- never once late on a payment.
just this last month i switched online billpay services and in doing
so made an honest mistake in entering the address incorrectly for my
sprint bill. the payment went out on time, just went to their
corporate headquarters instead of their PO Box. i received notice
from them via mail and within 3 days took corrective action and resent
payment to the proper address (1/18/05). yesterday I get a text
message sent to my phone indicating that I needed to take immediate
action to prevent interruption of my cel service. I called their
support line per the instructions and spent no less than 30min being
bounced from automated phone system to annoying automated phone system
entering my phone number each time and of course having to repeat it
to each person that answered the line before being redirected to the
next automated system. all told i waited on hold for a human for
probably 45min. I finally reached an operator, explained the
situation and paid the remainder of the balance with my credit card. i
was assured that my service would remain uninterrupted. okay, no
sweat.

this evening they suspended my service and now any number i dial gets
forwarded to their collections department where they demand I pay the
reminder of my bill on my creditcard. having already sent the check 5
days ago, spent 45min yesterday and another 30min this evening, I have
no desire to now pay this bill via cc only to have their processing
dept deposit my check tomorrow and double-bill me, so i refused. i was
patient with everyone i talked to this evening and 30min into it when
I was talking finally w/ a supervisor who probably had the authority
to do something, my cel died from lack of batteries. now I don’t know
what three years of loyalty to their service and making religious
on-time payments means to them, but I have to know that if were i
sitting in a room face-to-face explaining the situation, they would be
no "let me forward you to the appropriate department", they would hear
my explanation and reinstate service and all would be fine. These
CSR’s seem to have no motivation to solve the customer’s problem or
SERVICE the customer at all, rather the goal is to stick as closely to
the playbook scripts they are given so that if their call is monitored
for quality assurance, it meets the guidelines and they keep their
robotic job. what’s ironic is i’ll undoubtedly be charged on my next
bill for the 100minutes I have spent this weekend on the phone trying
to resolve this problem.

Anyone who relies on their cel as their sole number will relate to how
much of a colossal inconvenience it is to have your number shut off.
As soon as I have service again the first call I will be making will
be to another provider. number portability baby. the question is,
which one? Can anyone recommend a carrier they are happy with? some
place where (even if it costs more) you talk to a human being who ACTS
like a human and not an automaton? Does anyone write that cellphone
bill check and feel like their getting their money’s-worth each month?

and also, I know there’s a verizon rep on this list- if there’s by any
chance a sprint rep listening- how the heck can you refer to this
system as customer SERVICE? can’t we at least call it what it is:
customer inconvenience, customer strip search or something equally as
humiliating and degrading?

okay i’m done now. feel free to forward this to anyone who you know
that might be considering sprint. it’s just not worth it. next time
you’re chosing cel providers remember this simple equation:
sprint=$#%@

sean

Jan 15

I made a handful of New Years’ resolutions this year- the typical "hit the gym more frequently, eat right, manage finances better" but among those resolutions was the promise to start and maintain a blog. It seems to be the de rigueur thing right now and since I stopped keeping a paper-based journal a few years ago, it will be good to get back to archiving my thoughts and maybe I’ll actually keep up with it now since I already spend the better part of my day with my fingers on the keyboard. There’s also something strangely voyeuristic about the idea of cataloging your ideas somewhere where anyone else can peek in at anytime and observe what you’re thinking and working on.

Without publishing a long intro of who I am and what I do, I will say that I live in one of the most beautiful deserts in the world with gorgeous weather 3/4 of the year (summers here in Phoenix, AZ are brutal). I have a college degree in Psychology, eight years’ background in computer programming writing ColdFusion web applications and just recently changed career paths to become a consultant that supports litigation attorneys with various technology. I read about twenty other daily blogs, follow a few trade publications and ezines, listen to podcasted technology discussions each week and participate actively in no less than ten technology discussion forums including the Phoenix ColdFusion User Group which I started back in 1998. If it’s possible to be a "starving entrepeneur" that’s what I am. I have a handful of decent business ideas but monetary and temporal limitations dictate that I work on other people’s stuff 99% of the time and so my ideas rarely see the light of the drawing board.

As far as the question "what does the name ‘scrollin on dubs’ mean?" – the etymology is basically from this strange obsession everyone has with putting 22-inch rims on their automobiles. It’s a stylistic luxury thing about how you choose to roll through life i guess. The best way is probably to just experience the feeling- throw on some summer jams, invite a bunch of friends over, drink a 40 and barbecue in your backyard on a sunday afternoon with no deadlines and no places to be – that’s about as close as I can get to explaining it.

Hopefully this little corner of the blogosphere will become a place where I can share some of the insights that I’ve gleaned from the world of technology that will generate some “aha” moments for others. I heard an interesting perspective the other day on the impact of blogs and how their importance differs from regular websites: sites are generally focused on QUANTITY of audience members you attract whereas blogs are all about the QUALITY – who is reading your stuff. I think this is probably accurate- if you connect with only a handful of core people that relate to what you’re saying and build on your ideas, then that is far more important than getting a ton of haphazzard visitors to your blog.

I look forward to sharing happenings in 2005 with whomever happens to stumble upon these pages. If you have a sec, take a moment and check out some pics I posted from my band’s show last weekend in the Rock ‘n Roll marathon we did in Phoenix. Scroll on Dubs brothas and sistas!

Sean

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