Cingular Customer Care is incompetant
I called cingular yesterday because my mom has an account with them and she has a nokia 5165 that she has had for three years. The battery is falling off of it and she wanted to get a new one. She has had this account for five years and has only had one upgrade before this and that was when she went from an analog phone to a digital. She has renewed her contract twice both times on a 2 year. She wanted me to call and get her a new phone because me and my husband both work in phones and she didn't want to wind up with a crappy phone. When i called I asked for an upgrade and told them that she didn't want to pay much for a phone and she was willing to sign a new contract (she is out of her current contract now) and when i told them that they offered me a SE T226 which I have heard was not the greatest phone I was looking to get her a LG 4011 and they said that it was 39.99 which is the same price a new customer pays for it I tried all I knew to get her that phone marked down a little bit and they wouldn't I even asked for a supervisor and they told me they could take my name and number and a sup would call me back. The supervisor never called me back. I would think that someone who had been a customer as long as my mother would be able to get a better price on a phone than a new customer. I work for ATT and I am also a customer and when a customer has been there for at least a year they do everything they can to get them a variety of phones at a discounted price if the customer is willing to sign a 2 year contract they can get a lot of phones for free. Now I don't see how cingular keeps customers when they only offer one free upgrade phone. Could someone tell me is this is right or if that person didn't know what they were doing because I just don't think thats right. My mom is now thinking of going to ATT and I am all for it.
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bacherry said:...
I called cingular yesterday because my mom has an account with them and she has a nokia 5165 that she has had for three years. The battery is falling off of it and she wanted to get a new one. She has had this account for five years and has only had one upgrade before this and that was when she went from an analog phone to a digital. She has renewed her contract twice both times on a 2 year. She wanted me to call and get her a new phone because me and my husband both work in phones and she didn't want to wind up with a crappy phone. When i called I asked for an upgrade and told them that she didn't want to pay much for a phone and she was willing to sign a new contract (she is out of her current contra
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just another example of customers wanting special treatment because they pay their bills. i tell you what... call your local electric company and tell them you want a discount on your service because you pay your bill on time. see what they say. for that matter, call up ANY of your utilities or insurance or anything else you pay monthly service charges on... i bet you won't see a discount. besides, the "lg 4011" is an att phone and vastly inferior to most other phones offered. cingular is in the middle of discontinuing the lg 4010. why would you want to recommend that phone to your mom?! i agree that the SEt226 isn't great either, but i would recomend a nokia 3595 for ease of use and reliability. something you can't find in the two phones yo...
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I agree that the Customer Care reps are not incompetant. I work for an Cingular authorized agent, so I have to deal with them day in and day out. If reps give special attention to one customer, then that customer will tell their friend, and that friend will expect special attention too. Instead we (both reps and agents) treat all of our customers the same. I also agree that the LG G4010 is inferior as a phone. If your mom is not a power user and does not need all the bells and whistles, then she would be fine with either the SE T226 or NOK 3595. Customers should never call into Customer Care for new service nor for an upgrade. If you go to an authorized agent you will have a larger selection of free phones that you can try out while in the s...
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"Customers should never call into Customer Care for new service nor for an upgrade"
hahaha
usually i get dealers calling in to see if the customer can get a few extra credits on the account since the phone prices aren't to their liking, and they usually really screw up on the rate plans and features and promos.
for an upgrade it's best to call care, you can usually get some credit towards the upgrade. sure sometimes you're not eligible which in the case of bacherry's mother, she's most likely on a 19.99 or 29.99 plan or something. not much those plan are eligible for in terms or promos or credits even.
getting phones direct from the service provider is not the only way to get a cheap good phone. if you don't like what the prices are,...
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hahaha
usually i get dealers calling in to see if the customer can get a few extra credits on the account since the phone prices aren't to their liking, and they usually really screw up on the rate plans and features and promos.
for an upgrade it's best to call care, you can usually get some credit towards the upgrade. sure sometimes you're not eligible which in the case of bacherry's mother, she's most likely on a 19.99 or 29.99 plan or something. not much those plan are eligible for in terms or promos or credits even.
getting phones direct from the service provider is not the only way to get a cheap good phone. if you don't like what the prices are,...
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It is not about special treatment for paying your bill on time, Everyone likes to compare cellular companies to PUBLIC UTILITIES. You can't because utilities are regulated and cellular is not,it is considered a luxury. You also do not have as many options for utilities as you do for Cellular companies. Keep this in mind that customer service will make or break companies in the near future and what the customer thinks matters. If they think we are not providing customer service because we will not discount a phone then they will leave because of poor customer service because that is their perception of issue.
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Well-- I would hope that Cingular is working hard to improve it's customer service area, and billing area. I was almost going to switch to Cingular, but I checked here and 2 other places to see what the experiences with Cingular. I checked out Epinions.com for Cingular users in the area where I live. All seem to have horror stories about billing errors not taken care of. I read the Cingular Epinions for other areas that said the same thing. So, I checked the Better Business Bureau site at bbb.org, and saw that Cingular's rating is "unsatisfactory"; Verizon, ATTWS, and others all got good ratings. So that really scared me away!
Are any of you other Cingular users experiencing these billing errors, with difficulty trying to get the er...
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Are any of you other Cingular users experiencing these billing errors, with difficulty trying to get the er...
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The BBB says that it is unsatisfactory rating if there is only one unanswered complaint.
Out of all of Cingulars Complaint, there were only 5 that were not answered, which could be recent or not. All others were successfully resolved, or a good faith effort was made to resolve. Also, I checked the others, and they have responded to all of their complaints.
http://www.atlanta.bbb.org/commonreport.html?compid= ... »
Side Note: Do not call Customer Care for billing issues. Stop being lazy, and visit your local retail store or authorized agent. It does not matter what company your service is with, agents and retail stores are there for a reason, for customers to get local, personal help.
Out of all of Cingulars Complaint, there were only 5 that were not answered, which could be recent or not. All others were successfully resolved, or a good faith effort was made to resolve. Also, I checked the others, and they have responded to all of their complaints.
http://www.atlanta.bbb.org/commonreport.html?compid= ... »
Side Note: Do not call Customer Care for billing issues. Stop being lazy, and visit your local retail store or authorized agent. It does not matter what company your service is with, agents and retail stores are there for a reason, for customers to get local, personal help.
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Hold on partner, we don't do billing issues at the retail stores. The customer has to call customer care, they are the only ones that can give credits. And authorized agents definitely can't help you, they don't have access to CARE.
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As an authorized agent, you do not need CARE, you call Cust. Care directly for the customer.
Agents are able to get things processed a lot quicker than a customer normally can, thus it is logical to visit an agent or retial store.
We (my agent) have built our reputation and customer base because of our great prices, excellent product knowlegde, and great customer service. We did not build our customer base by telling customers that "we can't help you here" or that "they have to deal with it themselves", instead we take care of almost any issue that arises (of course we can not handle equipment problems and insurance issues, and our customers know that before they leave our store, and they know who to go to for resolution os such issues)....
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Agents are able to get things processed a lot quicker than a customer normally can, thus it is logical to visit an agent or retial store.
We (my agent) have built our reputation and customer base because of our great prices, excellent product knowlegde, and great customer service. We did not build our customer base by telling customers that "we can't help you here" or that "they have to deal with it themselves", instead we take care of almost any issue that arises (of course we can not handle equipment problems and insurance issues, and our customers know that before they leave our store, and they know who to go to for resolution os such issues)....
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I'll be the first to admit that there are billing errors with cingular sometimes. but i also know that IF and WHEN there is a billing ERROR- the problem is fixed. 90% of reported "errors" are on the part of a long winded customer. when there are legitimate billing errors, we are notified ahead of the bills being issued most of the time.
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ahem... by "we" i mean customer care. Oh and the last guy is right. billing errors and possible credits are handled by one and ONLY one dept. customer care. if you have a billing error, call us, we will fix it.
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good idea, check out websites where people do all their complaining. whos gonna take the time to write how good their service is? people only take the time because there so ticked with the company. this goes with any company.
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i'm in northern cali and cing csr are pretty good for me. i have had one problem when i first joined cingular. i tried a phone and returned within 15days (only 2 days) because the phone was def. and the store did not have a replacement or another phone model that i wanted. about 13 days later the store called me because they just got the t616. i bought that phone but returned it because it was defective(after 10 days). that rep. at the store did not remove the phone from my account when i returned it and csr said i had a phone and would be charged $150 dollars. they said because cing. joined the time that i had both phones and the period where i had no phone and it was longer than 15 days. i spoke to a manager and they removed the charge af...
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I know it sucks but we have to treat all of our customers the same. I'm an agent in West Texas and I deal with this very issue all the time. Cingular had to implement protocols because customer care would approve upgrades and issue credits for any reason, valid or not. Since most were not valid, Cingular had to come down on this because they lost money. Now I do agree with you, there is a lot of corporate B.S. that I don't agree with either, but what are we going to do? Anyway, I wouldn't go with an LG 4010, the Samsung x427 is a much better phone for the money, or even a Siemens a56 or Nokia 3595, both of which are free on a 2 year renewal.
Tim 😁
Tim 😁
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they didn't give the option for the siemans or nokia when i called only the SE ericcson t226 i would much rather get my mom the siemans
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The Siemens a56 is a perfect phone for a novice or casual user. And it's free if you renew for 2 more years. There might be an additional charge for the SIM card depending on who you purchase it from. Keep in mind the buyer's remorse policy, too.
Tim 😎
Tim 😎
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don't forget about the rebates. i know these may vary by region but you can get the 4010 free after rebate in dallas (if you insist on it), and you can even get the S56 free after rebate. Granted, it's $50 in store, but you'll get it back after a month.
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My suggestion would be this: Have mom stop into any Cingular location... you mention her being out of contract. she would be eligible for any phone we carry at the two year contract price, which is the same deal we offer new customers.
As for phones, I like the Samsung x427 and the Nokia 3100...great phones for cheap money.
Good luck!
As for phones, I like the Samsung x427 and the Nokia 3100...great phones for cheap money.
Good luck!
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