my phone provider double-charged my credit card so i had to call in and get it reversed.
would you just accept the double charge, cancel your contract (and pay the cancellation fee), and then move to one of the other handful of providers?
i'm a bit confused at this distinction. i think everyone who complains to customer service is doing so because they want something fixed?
like, in the article, they complained about the malformed calendar invites because they want them to get fixed and no longer be malformed.
i can't even really think of an example of a customer service call that isnt looking for some thing or situation to be fixed
When I worked customer service a substantial number of complaints to customer service seemed to just be to complain. They won't care if you fix the thing, they'll complain about that too.
Contacting customer support doesn't make me feel better, and it's almost always more bother than any refund I could get, so I don't do it much. The article is indeed about trying to get something fixed, but I wouldn't call that a complaint. It's more a suggestion.
Clearly you've never worked in customer service. Yes, people absolutely will call in or email complaints purely for the sake of complaining. No specific actionable complaint, no resolution possible, just complaining to complain.
I had wildly different results. A lot of customer service sucked, other customer service was ok-ish. But in general it always takes away my time. Often a really well-designed manual, FAQ etc... solves most issues. Only in a few instances I had to rely on customer services.
That's what I tell my boss when she asks what can be done to increase the number of visitors to our web site.
I keep telling her, this isn't Burger Hut, it's healthcare. If people are visiting the web site, it's because things are going poorly, not because things are going well. If the doctors do their jobs, I don't have to do mine.