Operation: Getting My Way With the Big Guys

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge

Here is a little story about how my persistence has paid off recently. 

As many of you know, we recently moved.  This move prompted us to cancel our Dish Network account before the contract was up.  This cancellation prompted a fee for doing so, which was to be automatically deducted from my bank account last Friday. 

All of this I understood and agreed to, until...

We called to cancel our account and the lovely rep informed us that a box would be shipped to our house so that we could send back the equipment.  We reminded her that we moved, so the box would need to be sent to our new address.

We got a call a few days later from our old landlord letting us know there was a box on our porch.

We called back, let them know what happened. They sent a new box.

I checked the tracker on UPS.  Delivered successfully! To Concord, NH.

We called them out on it again - a third time, they sent it to Concord.

THEN - I get a nasty voicemail, threatening that if I did not return my equipment, the credit card I used to set up the account will be charged with collections fees.  I was in a bad mood on this particular day, and not willing to just let it slide.  So I did what I do when I feel the need to assert myself to some monster of a company.  I write to someone really high up in the ranks and see where that gets me.

First, I Googled the CEO's name, the CFO's name, the COO's name, and searched around a little bit to see what type of information I could dig up about these people and their roles at the company.  I found out that one particular gentleman, the COO, had just been given some new responsibilities in the past few weeks, and a press release praising how his focus was going to be all about how to make the customers HAPPY.  I knew right then that I found my guy.  Then, I had to figure out what his email address was.  I tried to search for it, but they are pretty good about keeping those locked up.  Then I struck gold... another employee's email address, which contained the logarithm for determining how ALL of the company's email addresses were set up.  Firstnamedotlastname@dish.com.  I was IN. 

So I began to write...

Good Afternoon "Mr. COO",

I hope this beautiful Friday afternoon finds you well.  Although the weather in sunny here in New Hampshire, my mood is not so sunny. 

I just finished speaking with one of your customer service representatives and I cannot help but feeling like Dish Network has no interest in maintaining a good reputation. 

......bunch of blah-di-blah-ing about my situation....

I would really appreciate it if you made this right with me.  All along I have been boasting about the low cost of Dish Network, and how it has been worth switching from Comcast.  I was warned that cancelling was a difficult process, but I did not imagine this.  I want to still tell friends and family that Dish is a good way to go.  Right now, I have a bad taste in my mouth about your company. 

I understand that "Mr. President" has a new vision for the company and that a few weeks ago, you just took on some new roles.  Congratulations.  I bet he would appreciate you delivering superior customer service to customers: present, future, and past.  Please make this right with a formerly satisfied customer.  I would be appeased with the dissolution of our cancellation fee.  Given the grief caused by your team’s poor follow through, I’d venture that it is the least you could do.

I appreciate your time today, and hope you have a wonderful weekend. 

Thank you,

Amy Levesque
Formerly Satisfied Customer

Within five hours, I received a call from someone calling on behalf of Mr. COO, apologizing for the issues, promising that he would mark our equipment as already returned so we would not get any more reminders, make sure we got the box we needed, and that everything would go smoothly from there. 

Honestly, I was a bit giddy at the fact that I even got a call back, so I didn't even think to ask him if they were going to go through and cancel the cancellation fee, which was due to come out that weekend.

I kicked myself for that once I got off the phone, wondering, "what else could I have gotten out of this?"

So the next day I wrote...

Thank You "Minion",

I do appreciate your prompt call to rectify this unnecessarily difficult situation.  Your kind and responsive attitude makes me believe that many of the issues others experience with your company do stem from systemic issues rather than the people themselves. In this day and age of technological communication it is nice to connect with another human being who can actually deliver a message that is sincere (or so it sounded).

In addition to thanking you for reaching out,  I wanted to doublecheck something with you. In my original email to Mr. COO, I had asked for reparations by the dissolution of our cancellation fee, which is due to come out soon. In all of my excitement to actually speak with a human being from your company, I neglected to ask you whether or not this would be done. I do hope it will be. After having raked in $14.27 billion last year, I would venture that the $150 your company would get from me would not affect their bottom line much, although it would severely affect my family's bottom line. 

I do hope we can close this contract as amicably as we started it. I will be excited to tell all of those jerks on the many forums I went to regarding this issue that there is a heart at Dish Network. 

I hope you're having an enjoyable weekend. 

Thank you for your time. 

Amy Levesque
Moderately Satisfied Former Customer

I wrote that on a Saturday evening.  He wrote back at 8:30 that night.  Poor guy, doesn't even get the weekend off from dealing with people like me. 

By Monday Afternoon, I had confirmation that I would not get charged the cancellation fee, nor the shipping fee for my equipment.  BOOH-YAH!

All it took was a few emails and four days to get out of a $167.00 expense.  All it took was reaching up a little higher than normal.  Historically, I would have given up after getting a big-fat-NO from the customer service representative, when I asked him if he could throw me a bone for all of the hassle we went through.  I asked the speak to a manager, and he gave me a generic "Feedback" email address and assured me my complaint would get escalated.  Yeah right. 

I figure, if I go to the Big Guy, he isn't going to deal with it himself, but whomever he pawns it off on will WANT to impress him, so that person will do what they can to get me to stop copying "Mr. COO" on all of my emails to him.  Hehe. 

I thought I'd share this story in case any of you are out there, dealing with a crappy customer service situation and you don't know what else to do. 

Do any of you have any success stories to share? Do so in the comments below!

-Much Love

Amy

PS.  I also did this once to lower my APR at my credit card.  I wrote the CEO that time, and within a few days, I had it knocked down a few percentage points.  Don't be afraid to reach high!