Poor customer service, Rite Aid (minor); Goodyear & ACS, Inc. (major!)

So, I changed jobs recently and had to sign up for COBRA during the downtime between my hire date and when I can pick up the new company's insurance. A simple process that I've been through before. Paperwork was sent, checks were cashed and everything was groovy... Nope. Customer service issue #1. My wife called in a prescription at Rite Aid waited a day and then went to pick it up around 5ish. When she arrives, the store tells her that the prescription couldn't be filled because we didn't have insurance. They didn't tell her that on the phone, nor did they call when they tried to build the prescription and discovered the insurance wasn't accepting it (even though their own policy says that's exactly what they should do), instead they waited until she got there and when questioned about why they didn't bother to call, the flippant clerk merely said "well...I didn't take the order" in a tone that said, who cares. My wife then told the nasty clerk (not that she would care) that after filling this refill we would be moving our prescriptions to one of the other zillion competitors that dot the local landscape. She even attempted to tell the store manager about the problem but was just given an 800# to complain to. Utterly useless. Even acknowledging that the medical mishap was certainly not their fault, nobody apologized for not following their own program and wasting her time (a lost day without the prescription, and a 40 minute round trip drive with a 4 year old wild man in tow). In fact, it may have been (no proof here) that it was more deliberate. Had we chosen to pay for the drugs out of our own pocket instead of through the drug plan, Rite Aid stood to make double the money. My wife thanked them for wasting her time and costing us a day without the meds, and proceeded to go back home to try and straighten things out with the insurance company and COBRA adminstrators.

Problem #2. Things get much rougher from here (and a little rambling, sorry). Since it was after 5pm she couldn't reach anyone until the following morning. She called the Goodyear Benefits Solution Center (that is run by ACS-Inc, ) the next morning and a very rude woman named Amelia said that they had no record of us and it that it would take 10 days to process the paperwork. What the significance of "10 days" was I don't know, but it seems to indicate that their process must begin from when you call to complain since paperwork was sent a month ago. When my wife explained that she faxed over the forms a month ago (per their instructions) and sent back up hard copies via certified letter 3 weeks ago and that the check for $2000 cleared our bank a week and a half ago, it would seem that 10 days from 'whenever' must be up. Amelia remained unfazed and blew her off hiding behind some bogus process timetable that defied any logic (or any of their printed documentation by the way, which makes no mention of anything this woman attempted to regurgitate to us). My wife in disgust, handed me the phone where I got the same non-response. After telling her that it was ridiculous that I could have a proof of delivery receipt showing they received the forms and a canceled check showing they received the $2k, yet still they wouldn't fix the issue, I then gave up and asked for a supervisor (Harriet) who, conveniently, wasn't there. She did take my number and offered to have Harriet The Supervisor call me back (which of course, she didn't). My wife was thoroughly upset by then since we had prescriptions to pick up and multiple Dr. appointments scheduled for the three of us over the coming days. Apparently that was all too bad since their own internal process didn't seem to allow for them to correct their mistakes, merely start over.

Taking matters to a higher level, we called the labor board for help. They got on a conference call with the very same woman who spoke to us both earlier and under pressure from the government, capitulated and acknowledged that she could in fact get the problem fixed. Incredibly, it turns out she was the one who keys all this stuff in the computer and told the Labor Board that if we faxed over our documents, she could have it all done in 5 minutes, but she didn't want to because of our "bad attitude". She then proceeded to cover her tracks lying about the processes and timetables they followed until she was called out by my wife and forced to explain the truth to the Labor Dept. person who was very sympathetic to us and not only fixed the issue but also required that this woman alter their policy in the future (at least for us) to eliminate these ridiculous delays and lapses in coverage due to their own ineptness.

At the end of the day, everything was corrected a few hours after the conference call and health-wise the family is now back on track. However, this unbelievable situation, lack of compassion, poor judgment and down right rude behavior is really why I started this blog in the first place. How any company can allow associates to operate in this fashion is unbelievable and even more so when you consider that this particular company (who judging from their web-site contracts services to many large companies and government agencies), is responsible for peoples' health care makes it so much worse. My family's health care needs, are relatively routine, but what if they weren't...

Shame on you Goodyear Benefit Solutions and ACS!

More Airline info

Airline update as of 8-29-09. during my stay in Pittsburg this week, I had a flight scheduled on Continental to return home to Charlotte from Pittsburg through Newark last night. In the late afternoon (before I headed for the airport) I received an automated call on my cell to check continental.com for important changes in my flight. Knowing that is airline speak for "flight cancelled" and also seeing on my WorldMate travel app I use on my Blackberry (a fantastic mobile app for frequent travelers!) that there were thunderstorms in the Newark area, I prepared myself to spend the next 45 minutes with my travel agent trying to find a way to get home that night. So far, all normal for frequent travelers, right? Wrong. Here's where it gets strange and I find myself writing about Continental yet again. 10 minutes after I received the first automated message from Continental Airlines I receive a call from an unrecognized Pittsburg number. Hesitant to answer since I don't know anyone in the 412 area code except the people I was with, I finally picked up. To my surprise it was a very pleasant Continental rep telling me that as I suspected, my flight had been cancelled. She then informed me that she had all ready booked me on another flight with a competing airline that actually flew me non-stop to Charlotte and had me home 2 hours earlier than my original flight. Early enough that I had a chance to spend some time with my son before bed. Amazing and appreciated.

By contrast, a couple of months ago, I had a US Airways flight canceled while I was at the airport in Charlotte. When I inquired about alternate flights etc. They would not answer and instead referred me to a customer service desk at the other end of the terminal where I waited in line for an hour with others in similar plights. By the time I got to the desk they could not help me and really didn't seem all that concerned about leaving me hanging in the airport. With a lot of wrangling by my travel agent, I was able to get a flight out, but no thanks to US Airways (who I have about a bazillion frequent flyer miles with by the way) In fact, I believe that this was a planned cancellation since there were no weather issues and my flight showed "on-time" right up until cancellation even though there was another flight sitting at the gate we were supposed to board on and they had no mechanical issues (at least that they made anyone aware of).

So another compare contrast example. One airline, Continental, makes a personal phone call in plenty of time and fixes the issue before I even knew there was one. The other, US Airways, even though I'm at their terminal (Charlotte is US Airways' main hub), shuffles me (and others) around like cattle and provides no help. The most ironic thing of all is that the Continental people actually put me on a US Airways flight to get home yesterday.

Thanks again Continental.

Kudos to an Airline???

I know, I know, nobody gives kudos to the airlines (late arrivals/canceled flights, lost luggage etc.). However, for my new job, I've had to do a lot of flying recently. I've flown 18 segments with Continental airlines over the last 30 days to multiple airports all over the East Coast. In 18 segments NO FLIGHT was over 15 minutes late (lets face it, the whole world seems to run at least 15 minutes late) and even those that were a little late taking off managed to make up time in the air and arrive in plenty of time for me to catch connecting flights, or get to meetings etc. On top of that, miraculously, my luggage followed me everywhere without incident and I never waited more than 5 minutes at the carousel for it. On one trip into Nashville, the luggage was all ready on the carousel by the time I got to baggage claim! Top that off with flight attendants (except for one old grouch on the way to Cincinnati...) that were personable, helpful and friendly (to everyone, not just me), the experience was very pleasant.

Looking at this from a pure customer service perspective, in an industry where consumers expect to receive poor treatment, perhaps just solid service without being exceptional is good enough? Thank you Continental for providing solid service throughout my flights. Keep it up.

My only complaint, and it really applies to all the airlines, is the totally bogus $15-20 baggage fees that were created to offset the airlines rising fuel costs. Conveniently, those fees never went away. Fuel costs fell back to the floor and those old expensive fuel contracts are long over, but I'm sure the airlines have now built that profit into their long-term balance sheets. Since they have cleverly desensitized us to it, there is zero chance that those fees will ever go away. Pass-through costs to compensate for extraordinary circumstances are one thing, but continuing long after the circumstances have changed are unconscionable! Its surprising to me that other large corporations and travel agencies with contracts haven't put up more of a fuss about that, since businesses do the lion-share of the air travel and that means corporate America is picking up the tab.

The other side of the Customer Service coin

In the previous post I highlighted some of the stumbling blocks retailers face when trying to deliver great customer service, but there are two sides to that coin. There are retailers out there who routinely deliver very good service levels and have been successful at creating a culture in their organizations. There are also those that "go through the motions" using the same mechanics as those that are successful, but without the ingrained culture necessary to change behavior. Let's start at the beginning of the consumer experience, the greeting:

Two examples. Take a look at Subway Sandwiches, those of us who regularly eat there (which I think is everybody) know that they greet everyone who walks in with a "Welcome to Subway". The problem is that they are the length of the store away from you and usually the associate who says it has not made eye contact and has no idea who entered. They could be welcoming an armed robber in a ski mask for all they know. The greeting is nice, but it lacks the ingrained culture to make customers truly feel welcome. However, once your in front of one of their sandwich artists, they routinely do a pretty good job. They listen to your order, rarely ask you to repeat yourself and get you in/out quickly.

In contrast, check out Best Buy one of my favorite retailers (see my tweets on Best Buy @kwdriskel). They have a greeter (admittedly it's also their in-store loss prevention person) who welcomes everyone into the store. They routinely make eye contact, change their greeting slightly for different customers and will offer assistance when asked. You feel welcomed, and the greeting is personalized enough that it rings of sincerity. You will also find that as you navigate from department to department within the store, that the associates responsible for that area ask if you need assistance immediately unless they are assisting someone else. That's a nice touch, but almost annoying if you travel through the whole store as I routinely do, I'll be asked if I need help 20 times. Yikes. Could the associates be a little more observant and notice that I was just asked if I needed help 10 seconds ago? Probably. But they appear to be sincere and in the case of providing quality service in a semi-technical environment, too much is probably better than too little.

You can see, both of these companies got the message that customers like to be greeted when they arrive, one I believe, does it pretty well, while the other lacks the sincerity needed to be truly effective. Consumers aren't stupid they can feel the difference.

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