Good and bad service

I’d like to share with you two examples of customer service I experienced recently. I am not claiming that the examples are typical of the companies involved or anything unusual. I just found the contrast fascinating.

Case 1: Amazon Last November, when I retired from the position of joint-coordinator of the business English teachers’ association, BESIG, I was given an Amazon voucher as a farewell present. I decided to use the voucher to buy something substantial, which I otherwise wouldn’t have bought: last year's Beatles box set.

When the bill arrived, however, the value of the voucher hadn't been deducted from the total. I sent an email to Amazon’s customer service at 21.45 one evening and at just after 8.00 the next morning I received a personalized reply explaining that that voucher had indeed been credited against the total and apologizing that this wasn't clear on the bill.

Conclusion: stunningly brilliant service. I sent a thank-you email.

Case 2: Deutsche Telekom I know it’s all too easy to make fun of Deutsche Telekom. But, to be fair to them, my recent experiences have all been satisfactory. Until last week, that is.

I discovered on my latest landline bill nearly €40 for using T-Mobile hotspots abroad. My flat-rate includes free usage of the hotspots in Germany, a very useful feature if you spend as much time at airports as I do. But I had never knowingly logged into a T-Mobile hotspot abroad, so I was puzzled by the sum.

I spoke to four Telekom employees before finding the answer myself. The first man (in the accounts department) was friendly but could only tell me that I had clearly logged in, and he gave me two examples of airports in England where I really had been at the times he said. But he couldn’t explain how it had happened and gave me another number to call. He also promised I would get a written answer from Telekom, which I haven’t. (Update: I did receive a letter today. All it said was that the charges were correct.)

The second man was also friendly, but said this wasn’t his department (the first man had given me the wrong number). The third person was a woman at the technical hotline who also couldn’t help. Finally, the fourth person – a man at the hotspot hotline – helped me. Not by giving me the answer, but by allowing me to talk long enough to find it myself.

The solution is this: if the T-mobile hotspots are in your landline flat rate and you have an iPhone with the latest software version (3.0), your iPhone automatically logs you into T-Mobile hotspots abroad (without you entering your username and password), unless the Wi-Fi option is turned off.

The charge for this usage appears not on your mobile bill, as you might expect, but on your landline bill. So those of you with iPhones and a Telekom flat rate have been warned.

The fourth man did at least offer me a €20 refund for my trouble, which I accepted as graciously as I could.

Conclusion: awful service. Telekom doesn't have sufficient coordination between the billing and technical departments or between its landline and mobile services.