I was told not to go the extra mile

I will always remember this situation I once had

Customer calls in because his cable card was not working

• let me clarify there are TVs (or were) that have a slot in them hat allow people to by a card from the cable company to let them watch cable without a cable box. Kind of like the way TV’s used to work back in the day. They just can’t stream movies but they can get PPV.

Anyway this really nice man calls and tells me it doesn’t work. I’m pretty good at fixing them but for the most part but they are a bit temperamental. I would say I would be able to fix most of them 70% of the time. Sadly this was not one of those times. So I set up a technician to go out. He goes to the house and tells the man, yeah I can’t fix this call customer service again. He calls back and asks for me. I am annoyed at the tech because he could have called his supervisor for help but whatever. I want to help this man because he is really kind and sadly you don’t get that very often in call centers. So do everything I can think of and then some to fix this problem things I knew, things I came up with and things I did before. I even went to senior cable card specialist and he couldn’t help, So I had to send out another tech, I figured if he couldn’t help he could at least give him a new card.

Again very sweet. Took the appointment.

He calls me back again.

The tech who came to his house, before getting out of the truck asked him what his issue was. He told him it was for a cable card. He said and I quote “oh man I don’t know how to deal with those, call customer service” and drove off. He didn’t even get out of his truck!

Again super sweet guy and now I’m pissed for him. I went to my supervisor who said she would look into it and call him back, So I told him, he said ok and hung up. The following week I went to my supervisor and said

Me: Hey did you resolve the customers issue?

Sup: Yeah, I think he’s going to need another appointment or go to the store and get a new card.

Me: But he’s had two appointments from crappy techs! Can you at least get him a tech supervisor?

Sup: no they don’t like to go to customers homes.

Me; can you at least ask them to do you the favor and do it? And explain what he’s gone through? He shouldn’t have to drive 30 minutes at best without traffic to the store wait in line and get a card that’s not guaranteed to work.

Sup: David I appreciate you devotion to this customer but he can’t be helped.

Me: but if we just put a little more effort into this

Sup: David it is what it is. I don’t want you to be focused on this guy anymore, go take a another call.

This really made me mad and frustrated. I never got to speak to the man again and I think he wound up just trading in his cable card for a box so he would have to pay 7 bucks ( instead of two a month). This is when I started to become disenchanted with customer service. It made me realize that they just didn’t care about the customer, they wanted to do the least amount of work possible and the best paycheck. So sad how life works.