Successful businesses with "screw you" attitudes

[Monkeyleg]

Maybe I've become spoiled by the gun industry and companies willingness to bend over backwards to keep its customers happy, but I'm always amazed at businesses that seem to thrive even as they treat customers poorly.

An example is the gym I've belonged to for about three years. Two years ago they opened a bigger facility closer to the downtown area, with two floors and much more new equipment. The facility close to my house is still open, but they've neglected it. There's seldom any staffers there, and they let things deteriorate. Last Thanksgiving I noticed that the TVs on the treadmills each got only one channel. Each treadmill received a different channel, but only one. And it changed every night, so if you happened to see a preview on Monday of a show on Wednesday that looked interesting, come Wednesday that machine would be receiving a different channel. Not a big deal, but the shopping network gets to be pretty obnoxious when you have to watch it for an hour.

I called every week from Thanksgiving until this week, and each time was promised that the problem would be fixed. It never was. I found another gym that's just as close, as nice, and even costs less. I called my current gym to cancel, and was told that I had to go to the downtown location in person to cancel in writing. Now why would that be? It goes on my credit card, and any introductory offers ended long ago. Could it be that, by requiring people to take the time to drive to their new location, they get some people who just let their membership continue?

I've run into a whole slew of such businesses lately, and I'm amazed that they're still in business. It's like Botach Tactical. They have the worst customer service ratings I've ever seen, but they keep going and going.

What makes such businesses immune from customer wrath?

[Hawkmoon]

What makes such businesses immune from customer wrath?

Customer lethargy and indolence.

[wmenorr67]

Moccasins?

[RoadKingLarry]

Customer lethargy and indolence.

Add in sheer momentum and longevity for big companies like __&_.

[vaskidmark]

Amazingly, the very first thought I had on reading the thread title was of a certain German firearms maker.  I think Larry Corriea hates them, too.

Closely followed by that multiglomerate cable provider and at least two cellular phone service providers.

The arrogant little prick or "can't be bothered to keep up with maintenance" locals are just kicked to the curb and written off, never to darken my mind again.  Mostly because they can be replaced - either by some other brick and mortar business or the internet.

Holding on to a ship that is sinking has never seemed like a good plan, unless you are a Liberal in which case you ride it all the way to the ocean bottom.

stay safe.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

Gyms are notorious for that kind of crap.  Make sure you get paperwork from 'em confirming your cancellation.  And hang on to it.  

I once had a collections company try to get 3 years of past due membership fees from me.  Seems the gym "forgot" that I cancelled.  They kept adding charges to my account over the years.  They never told me, never sent me a bill or a statement or anything, they just sold the account to the collectors.  I got the mess sorted out pretty easily, but in the process I learned that this sort of thing is commonplace in that industry.  Gyms do stuff like this a lot.  

How do people like this stay in business?  Mostly they don't.  A few of 'em stay open just by luck or chance or whatever, and survivor's bias ensures those are the ones we encounter.  

[K Frame]

Making it as difficult as possible to cancel a membership of one type or another is a business model.

I tried canceling my Compuserve membership a few years ago, after AOL took it over. It was excruciating. Basically it was the ahole attempting to keep me on the line as long as possible, repetitively asking "Are you sure you want to cancel?"

I guess a lot of people would get frustrated and simply keep paying the monthly fee.

I finally started yelling CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL! at the top of my lungs every time he tried to say anything...

Are you sum...CANCEL! Why don't...CANCEL! Could we off... CANCEL!

It took about 40 minutes, and all of it was a delaying tactic to get me to hang up. I finally after I wore myself out yelling CANCEL! I guess he sensed a new round because he started in again.

"I'm now recording this conversation, too. I ORDER you to cancel my Compuserve/AOL account immediately. I do NOT want to maintain this account, I will NOT pay for this account. My next call is to my credit card issuer to inform them that any further attempt to bill my card after this date is a fraudulent transaction," and so forth and so on.

That FINALLY got the account canceled. The only words I can use to describe it, though, is that it was litterally harrowing. My stress levels were off the charts.


I had a similar experience with AT&T, who provided my long distance. When I got FIOS, free long distance came with it, so I called to cancel. Holy *expletive deleted*it they have an aggressive hard sell script.

Asked about 10 different ways why I was canceling my long distance, and how was I going to make phone calls without long distance blah blah blah.

Then they tried hard selling me an AT&T cellphone account. Yeah, I'd really consider a cell phone with you asses after you've put me through this.

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

AOL was known for that crap, too. 

[MechAg94]

Ask the credit card company to cancel your card and send you a new one with a new number.  That should at least stop the charges. 

[K Frame]

AOL was known for that crap, too. 

It WAS AOhell.

As I noted, they had purchased Compuserve by that point.

[K Frame]

Ask the credit card company to cancel your card and send you a new one with a new number.  That should at least stop the charges. 

That was going to be the next step, but I've heard that that is NOT a legitimate way to cancel an account if you have not at least attempted to cancel the account with the company.

I think I finally got through to "Joe" or "Steve" (didn't know that was a common name in the Punjab) when I told him I was calling my card issuer and flagging any further transactions as fraud attempts. I think it caught him off guard a little bit.

[K Frame]

Oh, and if you do some searching, you find a fair number of people who have simply resorted to screaming CANCEL THE ACCOUNT into the phone... Only I claim that I did it first... in 2001. :D

[Boomhauer]

I have never heard a good word about ANY telecom company. Satellite TV, cable TV, internet of various types, cell phones, etc. Never. Heard. A. Good. Word. about their customer service. The closest thing I can say to a positive is that Verizon has exceptional coverage. That's it. Other than that, they are all aholes.

[wmenorr67]

Had a Gold's Gym membership at one time and was moving checking accounts and asked for them to bill me as opposed to the electronic payment I had set up until I got my new account established.  Account was closed and they continued to request payment, which the damn bank kept paying.    Got taken to collections by the bank because they wanted "their" money.   

[Balog]

What makes such businesses immune from customer wrath?

Every gun store I've ever visited has been absolutely horrible, but there's not a lot of options. I'd say lack of competition is the biggest enabling factor.

There's a certain type of sterile steam boiler used in genetic pharma production labs. Very important, very expensive equipment. In our area there is one company licensed/certified/qualified to work on them. They charge exorbitant fees and have crap customer service. But they also have more business than they can handle.

And that's not even discussing monopolies, either natural or government enforced. I'm looking at you CommunistCast.

[Balog]

And yeah, gyms are all horrible. They're the best example of why you should put everything you can on a credit card that you pay off monthly. Oh, what's that? You want me to drive 2 hours, fill out reams of paperwork, then stand in line for another couple hours to submit it? Nah, I'll just order you to cancel  it then call my credit card company and tell them I canceled the account and any further charges are fraudulent.

[mtnbkr]

I have never heard a good word about ANY telecom company. Satellite TV, cable TV, internet of various types, cell phones, etc. Never. Heard. A. Good. Word. about their customer service. The closest thing I can say to a positive is that Verizon has exceptional coverage. That's it. Other than that, they are all aholes.

I've never had a problem with Verizon.  They've always taken care of me, done what I've asked, and been courteous about it.  It's why I stick with them even though I could save money with another carrier.

Chris

[Boomhauer]

I've never had a problem with Verizon.  They've always taken care of me, done what I've asked, and been courteous about it.  It's why I stick with them even though I could save money with another carrier.

Chris

Every Verizon store I've been to is staffed by aholes.

[K Frame]

I have never heard a good word about ANY telecom company. Satellite TV, cable TV, internet of various types, cell phones, etc. Never. Heard. A. Good. Word. about their customer service. The closest thing I can say to a positive is that Verizon has exceptional coverage. That's it. Other than that, they are all aholes.

That's funny, because I've been with Verizon since the mid 1990s when I got my first cell phone. I can't remember when they moved into the local land line phone market, but it was about the same time.

That's almost 20 years with them, and I have never had anything but the BEST customer service from them.

A few years ago they finally started bringing FIOS into my community, and I couldn't sign up fast enough. I had cancelled Cox Communications for internet the year before because they were truly the WORST. Didn't seem to be interested at all in solving the service issue I had. They didn't even try to sell me to keep me... I said I wanted to cancel my account, they said OK, and I was gone. Less than 5 minutes on the phone TOTAL.

When I finally cancelled my TV with COX that was a different story. They tried to hard sell me, I countered with some very uncomplimentary things about Cox. It got testy. :D

I've had Verizon Triple Play and my cell phone as one big bundle, and I couldn't be happier.

I've had VERY few outages (probably had more outages in a month with Cox than I've had with Verizon in 5 or so years) and their customer service people have been exceptionally helpful and diligent.

Recently I did have a minor service glitch, but it was resolved quickly. The signal conversion box on the inside of my house went out, and that required a Verizon tech. I had the time all set up and he had called and I was waiting for him when I got a text that "your trouble ticket has been resolved!"

Uhm... tech was never here, so I called them.

The CSR put me on hold and about 10 minutes later had it all sorted out. Turns out they use tablets for their orders now, and he somehow pulled up and closed the wrong one. I guess a similar address or something.

They finally got it sorted out, the tech came buy, appologized profusely, took care of the problem very quickly, and even replaced a couple of ancient and corroded Cox splitter connections with new ones for no charge.

I may very well be the only 99% satisfied Verizon customer on the planet, but you know, I'm OK with that.

[mtnbkr]

Every Verizon store I've been to is staffed by aholes.

There's quite the correlation between you and people you claim are aholes.  But that's none of my business.. :D

Chris

[K Frame]

Every Verizon store I've been to is staffed by aholes.

The last phone I got, my Galaxy, I actually got at the Verizon store because I didn't want to wait for it to be shipped. The people were nice, they didn't try to sell me protection plans or spare chargers, etc., too hard, so I'm OK with that.

The only thing that was a bit grinding was it was VERY slow, there weren't a lot of places to sit, the music was a bit on the loud side, and Verizon charges some bullshit stupid fees just to transfer the account from one phone to another.

For that, and that alone, they can eat a buffet of dicks.

Otherwise, I'm still a 99% satisfied Verizon customer.

[K Frame]

There's quite the correlation between you and people you claim are aholes.  But that's none of my business.. :D

Chris

There's quite the correlation between you and people you claim are aholes.  But that's none of my business.. :D

Chris

Says the ahole.... 

[Ben]

I've had really good customer service from both Verizon (both landline and cell) and Nextel/Sprint. That includes the multiple times I jumped back and forth between them for cell service. Not even really any difference between the consumer and .gov reps.

Cox Cable, not so much.

Regarding gyms, I had the opposite experience of most with the gym I used the longest. It was a local place with a couple of locations. Kept up nice, mellow staff and clientele. The toughest thing about that membership was actually having to call them to renew my annual membership, instead of them calling me to bug me about it.

[K Frame]

What the hell?

aholes, plural, comes through just fine, but the singular ahole is censored?

What bunch of staff aholes thought that one up?  

[Boomhauer]

There's quite the correlation between you and people you claim are aholes.  But that's none of my business.. :D

Chris

I am very polite to the staff when I go to a store, until they give me good cause not to be. I know what it's like to have to deal with shitheads, idiots and such in the retail/customer service arena, and I don't want to be "that guy" to some poor schmuck working a cash register or customer service desk who doesn't deserve my wrath.