The Worst Companies for Customer Service

Large companies today spend billions to manage their public image. And in many industries no part of that image is more important than how people think a company's customer service is. Customer Service is becoming a lot more than an ‘industry buzzword' as large companies who treat their customers poorly are starting to lose customers right and left.

Customers want good customer service, but if companies can just hire good PR people to cover problems up, how do we, as customers, ever demand that companies improve. We thought that a good start would be to close the information gap, so that customers know who is good and who isn't. With that in mind, we have sifted through customer surveys and studies as well as some real-life experiences of customers, to pinpoint and ultimately learn from, the 10 worst companies for customer service. 

1. AOL - Playing Dirty, Tricking Customers?
           
An overwhelming majority of netizens have had bad experiences with AOL - especially while closing their accounts. Listen to Vincent Ferrari's conversation with AOL CSR John here.

About Ferrari's experience, blogger Rich Brooks says: "After 15 minutes he finally got through to a human being. The call resulted in something that's a cross between Dante's 9th ring of hell and Orwell's 1984. The king from Monty Python's Holy Grail had an easier time explaining to the palace guards to keep his son locked in his room than Ferrari had explaining that he just wanted to cancel the account."

Dan Spencer says, "I will never forget when I called to cancel my family's account with AOL after my dad passed away very suddenly. This was about six months after the death. AOL said because the account was in his name they needed to talk to him to cancel it. We explained how difficult that may be considering the circumstance and they then had the nerve to tell my family they will not cancel it with out proper identification of the death such as a death certificate. They then even said that they billed my father for the six months each month. We had moved and never recieved these so we told them if they get the money from him to call us ASAP so we can witness a miracle. Even with all the information concerning the security provided with them they refused to cancel it."

When a company believes it can retain customers by antagonizing them, something is very wrong with their customer service policy. Also, AOL is not above tricking customers into buying stuff online that they were only browsing.

2. BEST BUY - Worst customer service?

            

Though it faced serious competition from Wal-Mart, Best Buy beat its competitors to bag the position for worst customer service in the retail sector. Bill says, "Best Buy and AOL seem to share that short-term thinking, screw the customer, anti-social mindset."

A whole lot of customers are unhappy with the company, mainly because of the customer service policies. When your insistence for selling protection plans drives away customers, you need to rethink your policies, buddy!

And what's with all the sour faces, guys? Do they treat you so bad at best buy? Read this customer's experience with Sour Face Jim and Handshake John at Best Buy.

3. LASTMINUTE.COM - Customer who?

       

In the online service provider category, the winner undoubtedly is lastminute.com. This company has been featured on watchdog for fraudulent practices, yet continues to survive and harass customers who are not aware of its history. Tom Wright says, "A series of phone calls and broken promises later - lastminute finally agreed that they had made a mistake by not sending through the booking - and offered to refund me……….HALF the purchase price!!"

Dave had a similar experience with the company, that he has described on his blog. Another customer, Claire says, "If you have a problem no one listens, they honestly do not care and have no idea what customer service means. The so called manager of this company laughed at me with my complaint and when I I asked for his company address to write a complaint he answered I don't need to give you that!!? and refused to do so."

4. HOME DEPOT - Who cares about your home? Not us!

         

Lowes, though having its fair share of disgruntled customers, is not the topper for bad customer service - it is beaten by Home Depot. When this customer wanted to complain to the Home Depot manager about a rude employee, the manager seemed to be worse! "After 10 or so minutes I asked where the manager was, the person behind the desk called again. At that time the so called manager Anthony called back, did not bother to come to the service desk just called and said, "What does the customer want"."

This Business Week article elaborates "The University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction index shows Home Depot slipped to dead last among major U.S. retailers, 11 points behind Lowe's."

Americans ranked Home Depot's customer service as dead last, according to Steven Silvers. Home depot customers complain about the worst service they received from the company.

5. AT&T - The Next Dinosaur?

In the article entitled ‘Should you remain an AT&T customer?' Liz P Weston states, "It's not as if AT&T horror stories are anything new. Those old enough to remember Lily Tomlin's Ernestine the Operator can recite her mantra: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company!" With that attitude the company may soon become the "ex" phone company! Weston observes, "Of the six largest cell-phone carriers, AT&T Wireless generated the most complaints overall and the most complaints per subscriber last year, according to FCC records obtained by Consumers Union."

6. SBC - $200 to cancel the service!!!

           

Cliff Edwards writes about his experience with SBC customer service, "Another eight days later, still no faster speed. In fact, the upstream speed appeared to have slowed down! I called customer service again, but was told the speed had been upgraded. My testing through dslreports.com told me otherwise. The new suggestion: Wait a few days more, then call back."

In "Stay away from SBC DSL !!" A Anand says, "My basic complaint is that AT&T Yahoo charged me 350 dollars unfairly. They also have a very unfriendly attitude, stay away from them!"

7. DAY'S INN- We're racists AND We break promises

         

While this customer was told to "go back to China," Stan Dulkiewicz of Rochester was denied the one night free stay that he was entitled to.

8. ALBERTSON'S - No value for customer privacy

          

"Albertsons' pharmacy customers receive direct mail and phone solicitations derived from confidential customer medical information provided to the pharmacy solely to fill prescriptions. The solicitations look like they are from the patient's concerned local pharmacist and remind the customer to renew a prescription or consider an alternative medication. But they are actually generated for pharmaceutical company's sales purposes by a specially-designed marketing database, sold by Albertsons."

9. MCIMETRO ACCESS (Formerly known as MCI Communications) - Billing for eternity …

         

The company violated state service quality rules 850 times, including failing to:
• Inform customers when the new service will be provided
• Investigate customer complaints promptly
• Repair service interruptions within 48 hours

The most frequent violation by the company involved the continued billing of customers who had cancelled the phone service. Here are some MCI customer complaints.

10. CIRCUIT CITY - We have your money - now get lost!

           

One example of the many disgruntled Circuit City customers - Though it was acknowledged that the laptop purchased by Matt Southerton was defective and no other pieces were in stock, the customer service rep refusing to refund his money.

And if you're thinking about purchasing their extended warranties, stop for a moment and read about John Alexander's interactions with the company when he tried to (and deserved to) get his TV replaced.

Linda Meister has wasted money on extended warranties that are not worth the paper they are printed on. According to Consumer Affairs, "Circuit City pushes a lot of electronics out the door — and they're also pretty good at loading up the customer with extended warranties and other add-ons, many of which turn out to be a big disappointment if they're ever needed."

* The University of Michigan compiles the ACSI in numerous product categories by randomly calling U.S. residents and surveying their buying habits.

Source CompareBusinessProducts.com