Oh lord ... I normally HATE dealing with customer service anywhere, but dealing with American customer service while in Europe is a particular nightmare. I've had to call customer service a few dozen times since coming here due to various travel snafus, financial issues, and phone problems. In terms of companies who I called the American number for they rank like this:
Best - Iberia
Good - American Airlines
Not terrible - American Express, Holiday Inn Express, Air France
Horrible - Verizon Wireless
I would rather do almost anything than ever have to deal with these terrible, horrible people again - Capital One
There are a few things to note about this list.
First: Iberia is rarely first at anything, especially when it comes to customer service. Their overseas flights are usually not so plush as American Airlines (and other airlines) flights, with crummy customer service, a few tiny tvs around the cabin for movies, and terrible food. BUT, I called them and in <30 seconds I was talking to a real human. In less than 3 minutes on the phone, they fixed my problem AND sent me an e-mail to confirm it before we even hung up. So, I'm probably the first person in the world to rank Iberia first in customer service, but it was a truly easy phone call and didn't stress me out at all.
Second: Verizon gets a terrible ranking for lying to me repeatedly on the phone. If they weren't the only company with any service in Chesaning, I'd probably switch to something else. For now, I suffer without a US cell phone.
Third: Capital One customer "service" is useless. A bit of a back story. Capital One is the only credit card company that does not charge international transaction fees. They also give you miles for each transaction that you can use to pay for travel. So. I was thinking "fantastic! Two birds - one stone! I'm getting a Capital One card". For the first two months I was here, the card worked fine. Then it started acting up, so I called and they said I needed to put a travel authorization on the card. Fantastic. I did that. Then I bought a song on iTunes and BAM! The card doesn't work. So I called them back and they reinstated my travel authorization. This worked more or less 'til I got back from the US. My card was suddenly declined ALL THE DAMN TIME. Every store I tried to use it in "declined." I had no idea why this was happening as I paid my bill on time every month, so it should be just fine. Turns out, Capital One also has no idea why it's happening. I've talked to them four times in less than 2 weeks and they have been completely and totally useless.
"Oh, we don't see any declined transactions. It must be the computer of the store you're in." Or not, since my Spanish debit card works. Other people's credit cards work. Just mine isn't working.
"Oh what error message are you getting." Well, I'm not Spanish, so I can't really tell what it's saying on the screens, but in the past two weeks I have learned the words for 'declined' and 'denied.'
The latest? The best today?
Capital One: Okay, here's my solution. Go use the card right now and call me back while you're using it. Me: I don't think that will work, unless you are going to pay the credit card fees for me calling the US from my Spanish cell phone
Capital One: How are you calling now?
Me: From my computer as I told you at the beginning of this conversation.
Capital One: Can you take your computer to with you and call from that
Me: Uh, to the grocery store? At 10:00 pm? In Spain? No. I can't.
Capital One: How about calling collect? You can probably do that from your cell phone.
(Sure, my carrier will still charge me exorbitant fees for calling the US).
Me: No. That isn't going to work. How about you figure out what is causing this problem and try to fix it now on the phone with me.
Capital One: I'm sorry ma'am but I don't see any problem on my end. This really isn't Capital One's fault.
Sure sure. My card hasn't worked in any store in WEEKS and it's not Capital One's fault. The very best part of this conversation was when the customer service rep returned to his script and we had the following conversation:
Capital One: Okay, I'm sorry for any inconvenience you have experienced. Have I solved all of your problems you called about today?
Me: No.
Capital One: What could I have done to make this conversation better?
Me: Helped me at all with the problem I've been having for two weeks and have called four times about.
Capital One: That feedback is very useful for us. Thank you for calling Capital One. I hope we solved the problems you called about.
Ugh.
No comments:
Post a Comment