Thursday, February 14, 2013

The Worst Customer Service in the World

Who would you nominate for company providing the Worst Customer Service in the World?

Business owners, your customers want to talk to you.  But, are you listening?  Do you care?  Is customer service just a word to you?  Do you treat your customer service reps with respect, or do you pay them hunger wages and make impossible demands of them?  Do you provide training?

Do you think customers are fooled by lousy customer service?  Do you think your product is so great that nonexistent service will not matter?  You won't serve your customer, but They Still Will Come?


I hate to do this because - this company has a wonderful product.  However, soon,  I will no longer be their customer.

My problem is with Weight Watchers, yes, the same Weight Watchers I've mentioned favorably several times on my blog.  I'm close to my 10% weight loss mark.  They've taught me a lot. BUT I don't think I have EVER run across a company that is as unresponsive as they are.

I don't say this lightly.  But, in my group, I'm not the only person having problems.  And, NO ONE is getting results following with people in the organization.

I first contacted Weight Watchers on January 21, following their directions on a voucher for 14 free weeks of online tools.(E Tools, which normally has a monthly charge, but because of my particular program, I am supposed to get 14 weeks free.)  I had to to email a certain address for this particular program because I already had an account.  There was no phone number.  (In my book, strike one.  What has happened to speaking to real human beings?)

On January 28 I received an AUTOMATED ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (1 week for that)

I did not get an email from an actual rep until February 13. At that point the rep gave me directions - easy directions, so why didn't they put this on the voucher instead of telling me to email a certain address for directions and wait three weeks?

The directions yielded me - an error page. The voucher number doesn't work.

As of right now, no one has responded to my followup.

My program coordinator is having the same problem with her account, and is also being ignored by customer service. I've told the person who runs our meetings, three weeks in a row, of my difficulty.

In another week, if this situation isn't resolved, my credit card will be billed for something that should be free to me because of me being in this certain program.

I tweeted to their Twitter account.  No one home, apparently.  No response.  There are companies who use their Twitter account to resolve customer sevice programs.  Not Weight Watchers, apparently.

Why haven't I called and "given them h**l??" Well, because I have a number of other things going on in my life.  Should I need to badger a customer service department over a stupid voucher for free services I'm entitled to because I paid for a certain program and this is part of the program?

I am leaving Weight Watchers at the end of my paid session.  If this is their idea of support, I'm gone. Their entire mission is support - support in losing weight.  But when it is time to give service, nada. Again, it isn't just me, others in my program are having problems.

And - will I get someone to honor my request to cancel the eTools?  That's what I'm really worried about.  They made me give them a credit card number.  I'll know better next time.

At this point in time - if you asked me if you should join Weight Watchers - guess what my answer would be?

Is anyone paying attention?

8 comments:

  1. I COMPLETELY understand. we just spent 2 months working through an issue with our cable company. We were happy customers for 3 years, until our DVR started acting up.....then....we called for service...
    two months later and several LONG WAITS on the phone (over 30 to 40 minutes & disconnects) we finally have the service we always had before...and after pointing out to SEVERAL customer service people that their service was NOT in compliance with their customer service guarantee, we were reluctantly issued a few credits to our account totaling 1 month of service, which equals the time we were without service.
    so we do have a happy ending, but only after DILIGENTLY staying ON THE PHONE WAITING and repeating my plight to several, several, several customer service reps.
    funny though, not one was a supervisor, whom I had requested to speak to at the beginning of each call.
    :P not satisfied, but luke warm.
    sorry for your experience as well.

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    1. Thank you - before my experience with Weight Watchers (spent time on phone today, still not fully resolved) I would have nominated all cable companies for the Worst. I wonder if there are ANY decent cable companies out there. And of course there is no choice - one company per area - take it or leave it.

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  2. Oh wow. I have never heard of WW giving such bad services before. Maybe the NZ staff have a better record?

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    1. I hope their service is better somewhere. Maybe the organization in the States -which was the first one - needs to take a lesson from their NZ cousins.

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  3. If they charge your credit card after you cancel just tell your credit card that there is a dispute and don't pay that portion of your bill. It gets their attention every time.

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    1. Thank you. For whatever it is worth, I did (finally) call today and I could probably get another two blog posts out of it. Too bad! Take care, dear friend, and good luck.

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  4. I feel like good customer service is the exception rather than the rule these days. I ended up leaving WW because I found our group leader to be dreadful and her minions at the weigh-in station were even worse. I hope this gets straightened out for you! Good luck!

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    1. You are so right - good customer service (not a bunch of lip service) is the exception not the rule. As far as Weight Watchers - it's too bad. Thank you - after phone calling today, it still isn't straightened out. At the risk of boring my readers, I may blog the continuing saga next week.

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