Half Robot, Half Human

A little while ago a friend touted loudly the features of Vonage, voice over IP (VoIP), “A better way to phone for less.” Anything had to be better than normal Qwest (non-) service, so I gave it a look.

Fully automated companies can afford to offer great prices.

Qwest advertises, “’There’s No Comparison’ [to their phone and Internet service] for under US$98 a month!” Among other things, they’re right— on the face of it there’s no comparison to a price more than twice Vonage. There’s also no comparison in services (the other half I pay is for cable internet service), as Qwest provides only 1/10th Vonage features… not to mention all the free calling to Europe and Canada (and other places), calls which if I made, Qwest would bill me with glee. So Vonage installation went smoothly, and customer support people were actually helpful around the clock. Top marks so far for Vonage.

Fully automated companies complete orders fast.

Well, many wonderful customer support people (located in India or the Philippines) hear my problem, and counsel me to simply re-enter my billing information. I again check the accuracy of my data, and yet a day later I get an automated e-mail telling me the account number is invalid. Hey, guys, my payment works just fine. There’s apparently a glitch in their billing software.

Fully automated companies are fine until you fall between the cracks.

Today, however, I determined to get as high in the Accounts Management Department as I could. Then I demanded I keep in contact the person to whom I telephoned, Kerri Hellwig. Instead of trying to slither away behind company anonymity policies “Oh, you can just call Customer Service and talk with anyone,” she first gave her e-mail address, and told me she’d lead this matter to a conclusion. Six hours later she’s kept that promise having worked on the problem all day, although we’re slated to resume in an early Monday meeting to keep going. She painted a satisfying picture of various know-it-alls sitting around a glowing computer screen, inputting my payment information, and then watching extra digits insert themselves into the data. So it wasn’t me after all.

Fully automated companies are fine until you find a real person with backbone.

[To be continued…]