Value Time

 I'm a big fan of customer loyalty. I place a huge value on folks who will go the extra mile for me and mine. Such is the case with my latest wandering into the dark woods of television alternatives. It was the interactions with two techs who saved my business with Comcast. Xfinity. NBC. Whatever it is that they call themselves currently. One of the things that began to grind on me during my five day voyage into that heart of darkness was their company insistence on thanking those of us on the other end of the line for their years of loyalty. At first it was a nice bit of recognition: Thank you for paying your bill on time for decades. But with each successive failed attempt at resolving my issue, that opening refrain started to ring hollow. I took no solace in the fact that I had been paying my bill on time for all those years just so I could get what I felt was truly mediocre customer service. 

Strike that: Ineffective customer service. 

I should say that, as a guy who routinely does tech support both up close and distance, I know that there are plenty of people who need to be reminded that machines need to be plugged in or charged to work, and that sometimes a solution can be as simple as turning it off and turning it back on again. Never underestimate the power of a reset. I know that the ten or so agents of chaos who attempted to solve my problem were acting in what can be described as good faith. These were people whose techspertice came from reading the big binder of possible solutions and they weren't going to be bothered by listening to my story. They wanted to plow through that binder and move on to the next call. 

My training at Arby's gave me a sense of this. The rule of thumb was this: two to three customers in two to three minutes. Which made a ton of sense during lunch rushes. But this was also what eventually landed me on the late shift, where my crew and I maintained the fast portion of fast food, but we were always willing to chat people up while we did so. My years at the video store gave me an even more enhanced sense of customer service. Sure, I could just check and see if that reserved copy of Top Gun was in, but it was always more interesting to engage that person across the counter as a human being who might have interests beyond the simple transaction. We were, generally, both human beings after all. 

So it was at the moment when I felt as if the only rational solution was to disconnect all Comcast related wires and machines and toss them out into the street that Gabe showed up. I stopped him when he started to slide into the "wow you've been a customer since..." spiel. I started to explain the lengths and depths of my despair. And he listened. Then he said some magic words, "Let's see if we can get this thing to work." 

"Let's" and "we." Magic. Not only that, but he really knew what he was doing. He approached the call like a puzzle. He asked me questions that no one else had bothered with. He helped me find a way out of that scary place without television and brought back the channels I flip through. He brought me home. Suddenly, I felt the need to speak to someone's manager. Only this time it was a good thing. 

Now I can say that we are only a bad phone call away from me once again starting the process of searching for new and better ways for TV to come into my house, but for now I am taking solace in the way things worked out. 

This time.