A few weeks ago I noticed that the bill for my DirectV service had become “unbundled” from our AT&T bill, which was set to auto-debit from one of our credit cards. This was not done by my wife or I, and we had not changed either our satellite or home phone service. I made a note to “rebundle” these bills when I could set aside the time to do so.
That time was yesterday, and I encountered one of the worst user experience fails ever.
First, I logged into the AT&T site, to see if I could “rebundle” online. I logged in, saw the Bundles option, and clicked it. I was then redirected to enter my DirecTV login. OK, great, I thought to myself, and then… Nothing. The site spun and spun and spun. I closed the browser, tried again, and was redirected to… a page with a phone number, and a message saying that the site couldn’t help with my request.
OK, fair enough. I then looked at my bill, and since our home phone is only operational in case of emergencies, I was kind of surprised that it was costing us $73 a month for local and long distance. So I decided to check to see if I could change our plan, as I continued on hold. I had to go use the site’s help content to do so, and when I tried to follow the steps to Change Plan I was redirected to – a marketing site. So, basically, self-service was out of the picture at this point.
I finally heard a new message as I was on hold: “Welcome to the employee customer service line. We will be with you in a moment.” I was confused, as the last time I was an employee of AT&T was when I worked at Cingular Wireless, the spin-off of Big Bell, in 2005. I stayed on hold.
The person who finally helped me was also confused – she gave me another phone number. I called that, and it was the DirecTV support line. THAT person could not help me either. Then I got a THIRD phone number… and was redirected to the employee customer support line. I’m now 45 minutes into servicing a simple act – rebunding my bill – and I start tweeting on Twitter about my frustration.
Immediately, @ATTCares twitter account responds to me online, and asks me to DM so I can be helped. I learned this a while back – complaining on social media tends to get company’s attention, because it’s a public reputation hit. I decided to stay on hold. And the call was promptly disconnected. Sigh.
I dialed again.
The person I finally talked to (after 10 minutes on hold) proceeded to tell me he can’t help – because he handles home phone service in the MIDWEST. Now, here’s the thing. AT&T is a telecommunication company, and they can’t even route me to the right call center for my home phone? They don’t SEE the number I’m calling from? Ridiculous.
I admit it – at that point I lost my cool, and my temper. I told they guy I had been on the phone for almost an hour to do a simple task and I can’t even get redirected to the right person. He said, “I’m sorry, let me give you the right number.”
And then he gave me the same number I had just dialed. And got a guy in the Midwest.
At that point, I decided I was done. Now, I no longer wanted to rebundle my bills. I wanted to cancel my phone service outright. The poor call center rep said he will get me to the right person, and after a very quick exchange with Hillary in the Lawrenceville call center, my phone service is canceled.
Meanwhile on Twitter @ATTCares was still pinging me, offering assiatnce. I responded very directly to the account that – too late, the experience was so bad they lost me as a customer. And as I was doing that, I also decided to cancel DirecTV. I’m currently researching alternates. This bad experience cost AT&T a customer – a customer who has BEEN a customer for almost 25 years.
So, what is the takeaways from this? Here’s some “best practices” to avoid a bad customer and user experience such as this.
Don’t take away user control. The core issue I was calling about – the unbundling of my accounts – was done without my knowledge or consent. It also took away something that was a convenience – and if you want to ensure someone has a bad experience, take away a feature they use and like.
Allow for as much self-service as you can. All of my frustration would have been avoided if the AT&T site had simply allowed me to change my plan or rebundle. Instead it was a hot mess, and whenever you need to look up help content to do a task on a web application or site – well that is bad design. The fact that the FAQ was wrong compounded the matter.
Have smart systems. Part of what I did when I worked for Cingular Wireless was design the IVR (Interactive voice response) system for support calls. It was a content-focused exercise, which required the use of telemetry data to identify the right hierarchy of menus to provide. The AT&T call center number provided none of this, no options to speak of – and so I was sent the wrong place repeatedly. Smart systems support customer service agents and reduce customer frustration.
Provide consistent support on all channels. I shouldn’t have to tweet in a public forum to get support for a problem. Support and response time should be consistent across all channels – and AT&T isn’t the only Atlanta-based company who has a consistency problem in this space (looking at you, Delta).
Provide Smart Bots to help customers. If AT&T had invested in a smart bot that redirected me, I could have helped myself. But, they did not provide this. And if they did have it available, I couldn’t find it.
“To thine own self be true.” The thing that frustrated me the most was when I was routed to the wrong place to get my problem solved – not once, but twice. A telecommunication company should be able to do one thing well – which is routing calls.
Make it easy for user to affect account changes. This is almost obvious, but again – if the AT&T site actually provided functionality that allowed me to edit my plan I’d still have a land line. They didn’t, they provided an inconsistent service that wasted my time… and now I don’t have one anymore.
So, there you are. AT&T is already losing tons of DirecTV customers, and they are trying to adjust to new business models in the 21st Century. All I know is, whatever direction they go in – I will be very hesitant to do business with them again.