Dave Cohen
                                9-06 Plymouth Drive
                                Fair Lawn, NJ 07410-1663

AT&T Mobility
Glenridge Highlands Two
5565 Glenridge Connector
Atlanta, GA 30342

2009-09-22

To whom it may concern,

I just got off the phone with Angela [XXXXX], of the [XXXXXXX] call
center, and I thought you should know that she's a major asset to your
company.  To make a long story short, my detailed billing was stolen
from me by your new billing system, so I called customer service (the
[XXXXXXXX] call center) who assured me that detailed billing was still
there and got a bill reprint sent out on the assumption of some fluke;
fast forward a couple of weeks, and the reprint arrived, as well as the
new bill, neither having my call details.  I called customer service again
(this time, the [XXXXXXX] call center), and the Level 1 lady couldn't do
anything but apologize for a problem she was unwilling to fix.  The Level
2 lady agreed to give me reprints with details for the last two bills,
and a "12 month" ($24) credit to compensate me for billing details for
what works out to just over two months ($2/line/month), essentially giving
me two months to switch back to T-Mobile.  (There's no way in the world
that I can police a 5-line 550 minute plan, without detailed billing.
I never would've switched from T-Mobile in the first place if I hadn't
been promised (and given, for nearly four years now) detailed billing.)
She also refused to do anything but apologize for the unfairly charged
$5 late fee and the threatened $36 restoral fee, which is why I asked
her to transfer me to her own supervisor.

The Level 3 lady, Angela [XXXXX], came on the line and asked me two
questions: (1) what was wrong? and (2) what did I want?  I quickly
recounted what was wrong (just to make sure she heard the same thing from
me as from the Level 2 lady), and explained that a perfect resolution
from my perspective was simply undoing the damage that was caused by
the screwup: reprinting the last two bills (this time, with call detail
records), and nuking the late fee and restoral fee that happened (or
threatened to happen) as a result of my refusal to pay the improper bills.
I reiterated that I'll be more than happy to pay the bills just as soon
as I receive them; I have no interest in cheating you out of your fairly
earned revenues, but you can't start playing games with your side of the
deal while expecting me to keep mine.  (Without proper bills, the entire
service is useless, as I explained before: 550 minutes wouldn't last a
week with 5 lines, if I couldn't stay on top of exactly who's doing what,
when, where, and how.)

Her response was very simple, and very clear: she wasn't going to waste
my time with useless apologies, while continuing to steal from me; she
was going to fix everything that Cingular screwed up.  The remainder of
the call was split between her trying to convince the billing system
to actually follow her orders (rather than the other way around - the
way the other two ladies seem to work), and me poking fun at her new
billing system, tooting my own horn (24-hour bugfix guarantee on my
billing systems) in the process.  Not once did she lose her patience
with me, during the entire call, but far more importantly than being
polite and courteous, she actually made it her business to be useful.
She also promised to follow up with me when the new copies of the bills
reach me, since she's not 100% sure that she did anything different from
the last lady (from [XXXXXXXX]) who sent me bill reprints (which turned
out to have the CDRs MIA).

If your Level 1 representatives were useful (rather than just wasting my
time with empty (but polite and courteous) apologies), I'd never ask to
speak to a supervisor, in the first place.  Maybe guys like Angela and
Jason (see my previous (unanswered) letter from February 20 for details)
should be training your new CSRs.  I, for one, would much rather not
have to ask for a supervisor (twice) every time I call in for anything
more complicated than paying my bill (which seems to be the only thing
your Level 1 guys can handle, these days - and even that, they don't do
half as efficiently as your automated system).  As I explained last time,
you never have to worry about losing me as a customer if I can count on
useful customer service.  (Again, I couldn't care less about politeness:
when I call in, I'm calling in with a real problem and I'm looking for a
real solution, and a polite apology is no better than an impolite one.
If anything, I'd rather have a CSR with a bit of life in him, rather
than what essentially amounts to little more than a human TTS engine
with a canned apology script.)

Incidentally, if you'd like to encourage customers to write in with their
tales, you should at least send a form letter in response to their mail
(possibly with a pickle, like 100 bonus minutes, or something similar).
Even better would be a real reply from a real person, indicating that I
might not have wasted my time and energy writing this letter, and my stamp
sending it, to a company that couldn't care less about its customers'
feedback.  A thoughtful touch would be a Business Reply or Permit Reply
envelope with each statement to encourage me to write in with my comments,
but I recognize the potential for large-scale abuse of the latter.

Sincerely,



Dave Cohen
 
Cc: AT&T Inc. Headquarters