How not to keep customers

Having read a lot of posts just like this at the ZMans, I now have my own story to share. Forgive me if this post is badly worded, because right now I am still angry with them for their inexplically bad service. I just got of the phone with the mobile company 3, where I have had a mobile data service for my computer for some time now. The service is being provided via a PCMCIA card with a SIM card in it. The connection is quite OK, and the service is working fine. Now the problem is that since I got my newest laptop, I haven't been able to use the card, since the laptop does not have a PCMCIA slot (it uses Express card instead). Well, I saw that the company had introduced a new series of adapter - a USB adapter - which I would be able to use. So with a hope of getting the thing working again on my machine I call up their sales service, as they do not have any e-mail service what-so-ever. Welcome to the new millennium. And this is from a company that takes pride in introducing next-generation technology.

After wating for a good five minutes - I know, I am lucky - listening to incredibly bad and loud music, I finally get a hold of a female salesperson. After explaining my problem, she puts me on hold for another couple of minutes. When she comes back, she explains to me that it is not their fault that I have chosen to buy an incompatible machine - and since I have been using their product there is no way that they can sell it again. Bottom line - they will not be able to help me with anything. The incredible thing with this is that they are in no way interested in finding out who I am. I could have been a large customer for all they knew. I start explaining that I find that to be incredibly bad service and she just cuts me off. So I ask her to help me with cancelling my subscription. Of cousre she can't do that as she is in SALES, and has to transfer me through music hell to another department.

Here things go smoothly, and I cancel my subscription from the first available date - which by the way is January 15th 2008. And here comes the really good part, because he informs me that the reason they can't help me is because my subscription is still in their 18 month binding period!!! WTF! So if I had been a customer for more than that they could have done something...

I am just confounded by this. Giving extra bad service to "new" customers just seems like such a bad idea. I could maybe have been persuaded to extend my service with them if I had gotten better service. Now they are instead blacklisted as a company I will never ever do business with again.

So if you are reading this I can not reccommend you to do business with them either. Maybe it works for you now - but if you get into a pinch with their technology, don't expect any help.