Empathy 101

I know how it will go before I even pick up my cell phone.

I will tell him that I have no internet or landline. Again.

He will fumble, mumble and scratch around until he finds his script, then will ask me all the questions I've alrady answered. Twice.

A little more fumbling and mumbling and scratching around and then he will tell me - as they always tell me - that the problem is in my equipment.

It goes exactly as I anticipate.

I ask if he's sure there's no outage and am postively assured not.

I tell him - sweetly - that he's full of shit, that in all the time I've had this sorry exuse for service that the problem has never once been in my equipment.

Oh, he wants to know, you've had issues in the past?

I've had issues since day one, I tell him, as you would well know if you'd bothered to look it up.

He makes the usual responsibility-evading excuses which I know by heart and then offers to schedule a technician visit.

It's pointless to argue so I agree. Based on prior experience, the odds are excellent that whatever outtage he doesn't seem to know about will be fixed by the time the technician arrives anyway and it's gotten to the point where I enjoy wasting as much of their time as I possibly can. We go over it one last time – I believe in giving morons every opportunity to hang themselves – and he confirms a technician visit between 1:00 and 4:00 that afternoon.

No chance he won't show? I persist.

Absolutely not, he assures me, Thank you for choosing.......

I hang up before he can finish the inflammatory thought.

At 4:30 when there has been not the first sign of a technician, I gather what wits I have left and make a final call, fully prepared to cancel every shred of this wretched service. Dispatch has put the service call on hold, I'm informed apologetically, it seems there's an outage in my area and they fully expect service to be restored by the end of the day or first thing in the morning. They are so sorry I've been inconvenienced.

It's so exactly what I've come to expect from them, that I don't even lose my temper. I calmly tell him that the service is a disagrace, that they lied from the start when they promised fibre optics in an area that has no fibre optics – some folks might see it as bait and switch, I point out – that the speed they promised has never materialized and that the reliable service is a joke.

And is it policy to cancel service calls without informing your customers? I demand, Are you really that inept or do you just not give a damn? Because those are the only two options.

He retreats to Empathy 101, assuring me he completely understands my anger and frustration, that the situation has been mishandled. He's sorrier than he can say that I was given bad information, he realizes how unfair it was, he promises me service will be restored as soon as humanly possible and he offers me credit for the outage and the missed call. It's all straight out of the “How To Handle an Angry Customer” playbook, designed to disarm, pacify and not further alienate me. And it doesn't work.

Nice try, I tell him, but none of that gives me my internet back or a single reason why I should stay with you.

He agrees and to his credit he's the only one who has the good grace not to thank me for choosing AT and T.

A pox on them all.