i don't see anywhere in there or in any of your previous posts where you were blamed.
in fact it looks like as soon as Bell realized the mistake they took steps to fix it and apply credits.

I understand your concern about being notified, but it's not like the company did it on purpose.

nem, who is dizzy with anticipation

nem,

they seem to make those errors far too often.

Joe

i don't see anywhere in there or in any of your previous posts where you were blamed.
in fact it looks like as soon as Bell realized the mistake they took steps to fix it and apply credits.

I understand your concern about being notified, but it's not like the company did it on purpose.

When I asked for the credit telling them I was not notified of the increase, and it was unfair for me to pay for a service increase without being notified (see Article 19 of the terms of service contract), the CSR claimed all customers were notified with a bill insert. In other words, the blame is on me,
You can read that as being "I threw away the insert without reading it, so too bad for you."

Then the CSR went on to try to sell me additional Bell services. :)

th representative can only go on what is communicated to them. at the time you called in, the error with the bill inserts was not known, so the representative was correct in stating a billing insert was sent out to all customers. as soon as Bell realized the error, not only did they post a notice and update the CR's on the problem, but are they are also giving three months of credit for the 'extra charge' appearing on your bill.

Q, billing mistakes happen unfortunately. no system is 100% perfect. if a company realizes it's error and takes steps to correct it, is that not enough?

Of course you only hear about the errors, that why they seem more common. it's very seldom that you hear about the $500.00 in charges Bell writes off for 1 customer because their son/daughter/husband/wife/sister/second cousin twice removed decided to call the Quest 900 number without telling them. Or what about the $1000.00 in long distance charges that Bell discounts to the lowest possible rate when the customer's alternative long distance provider decides to drop them without notifing them, resulting in their long distance being billed by Bell because they are the local provider.
it's a known statistic that customer complain loudly when mistakes are made (on average they complain to ten people) but are substantially more subdued in their communication when they recieve good service, or a correction in their favour (on average this is only told to 5 people). that i think is a sad statement on the human condition (but that's a rant for another time)

nem, who thinks that if more people sat on the other end of the phone, they'd have a different view of things.

all the errors i have heard off and that have happened to me always are in favour of Bell. wouldn't mistakes go both ways? I think there is some exec. saying " lets see if we can get away with it "

i'm still waiting for my nov. bill.

i have this feeling that my internet and landline phone are not very important.

why would the exec's do that? in the end, it results in angry customers, lost revenue and a bad public image. not to mention the fact that any revenue generated would have to be refunded. not quite the soundest business plan.

why do you think your landline and internet aren't important?


nem, who asks questions, lots of questions

lost rev. and image only if people find out. Bell screwed there image a long long time ago with me.

because they can be easily replaced if they piss me off. :D

th representative can only go on what is communicated to them. at the time you called in, the error with the bill inserts was not known, so the representative was correct in stating a billing insert was sent out to all customers. as soon as Bell realized the error, not only did they post a notice and update the CR's on the problem, but are they are also giving three months of credit for the 'extra charge' appearing on your bill.

Ok, do you think they will call me back and ask me if I wanted to re-join because of their mistake? I clearly stated my displeasure of not being informed about the rate hike. They blamed me at the time. Now its shown that it really was their fault, are they going to even TRY to keep me as a customer? NO. If I was someone in charge at Bell for that department, I would make sure I call all those people back that complained about this to inform them it was a Bell mistake.


Q, billing mistakes happen unfortunately. no system is 100% perfect. if a company realizes it's error and takes steps to correct it, is that not enough?


The mistake isn't the problem here, the problem is their customer service skills.

Of course you only hear about the errors, that why they seem more common. it's very seldom that you hear about the $500.00 in charges Bell writes off for 1 customer because their son/daughter/husband/wife/sister/second cousin twice removed decided to call the Quest 900 number without telling them. Or what about the $1000.00 in long distance charges that Bell discounts to the lowest possible rate when the customer's alternative long distance provider decides to drop them without notifing them, resulting in their long distance being billed by Bell because they are the local provider.

Yeah, and us "PAYING" legit customers are the ones who pay for this. Why should I hear about Bell paying off some customers bill because it was CLEARLY the customers fault. Bell definately doesn't want it to be known that they do this. Also I don't "hear" about the errors, I experience them!

it's a known statistic that customer complain loudly when mistakes are made (on average they complain to ten people) but are substantially more subdued in their communication when they recieve good service, or a correction in their favour (on average this is only told to 5 people). that i think is a sad statement on the human condition (but that's a rant for another time)

True. I can't honestly say there was ever a time that I had to call Bell and was satisified with the service.


nem, who thinks that if more people sat on the other end of the phone, they'd have a different view of things.

Been there.

okay so let me get this straight.

you call bell because of a charge on your bill. the representative tells you that we sent out notices to all our customers, which to the company's knowledge is what happened. you cancel the service because you are unsiatisfied that credits will not be issued. the company realizes it's mistake, publicly apologizes for the error and issues credits to all it's customers affected by the issue. We apologize for this inconvenience and we'll be applying a $13.50 credit, the equivalent of 3 months' worth of the increase, to your November bill.

you state in your post above that you wanted an apology. it's been given. does Bell want to keep you as a customer? Yes, of course they do, that's why they posted the notice, are applying credits and i believe they are also including a bill insert to those customer affected.

the representative did not say that is was your fault. the representative, in your own words, said that we sent out notices to our customers. perhaps the representative meant to jog your memory about the notice. of course, that wouldn't happen, because in reality, you never recieved the notice, but the representative would not know that until too late. so a public apology is issued.

i can't comment on the customer service you recieved because I wasn't part of the call. i can comment on what i see and hear every single day. I can comment on what I do and in particular what I offered you via PM. (which incidentally was exactly what you asked for).


i'm not sure how you feel you pay for the adjustments i mentioned. you don't. the company does. it's good customer service and in one of the examples it was not the customer's fault at all but that of the LD provider. the point of my statement was that seldomly do people mention when they recieve good customer service. i see it every day. I'm not sure how you would like Bell to inform you when we credit a customer this would sound like back patting or a tooting of one's own horn.
my statement was that customers seldom mention when they recieve good service. it's documented fact in all types of business. i'm not sure what was confusing about that statement. you seem to have taken it the wrong way. let me know if i've clarified enough.

nem, who lives and breathes customer service.

...... - because Bell likes to blame the customer for their screwups.

They always have. I have been subjected to the same thing with BEV CSRs.

Flavario, you can try to explain your position until you are blue in the face to the Bell reps here, but they will never understand. Its a corporate attitude at Bell from the top on down.

And why should they change? People still line up in Bell Worlds or wait on hold for an hour to buy products and services from poorly trained reps. And then these new customers barely whimper when they get shafted on an install or bill credits or product failures or rate hikes or system access fees increasing 200%+ or are lied to by CSRs....etc, etc, etc....

peano, i take great offense to your generalization. every representative, every employee of Bell i know would take offense to you stating that they are poorly trained and care nothing for our customers. in any company, regardless of the size you are going to have bad apples and unfortunately, it sometimes takes time to identify them and end their employment.

customer service is taken seriously. it's the only thing that is really going to make a difference to a customer. there is not sustainable discount or tech that one company can have over another it comes down to the people and people management.
in a perfect world, there would be no mistakes and everyone who works for a company would be a walking encyclopedia of all of the procedures, processes, pricing and promotions that are available.
but from programmers, to front line representatives to management, there is always going to be an element of human error. mistakes happen and individuals and company's do their best to correct mistakes and ensure that it doesn't happen again. just like people do in their everyday lives.

in regards to your particular comment about this instance, i'm sorry but you have no idea how you could even make that statement about this event. if you look on this very page*edit-okay, okay didn't realize it was going to start me on a new page, so it's the page before*, i've not only admitted that it was Bell's fault but there is a link to Bell clearly admitting the mistake was theirs as well

everything that flavario asked for has been done. an apology has been given, Bell has admitted their mistake and applied (will apply) credits to the accounts of all customer affected by this error. even before the link to Bell I had sent a private message to Flavario offering to correct the error for him. I notice he failed to mention that.

why don't you explain to me where in your opinon, better customer service could have been given, besides the obviously, the problem never happening in the first place. i'm very interested in hearing what you believe to be good customer service. so much so that if you wish, i will provide you with my personal email so that we can converse.

nem, who needs to go to sleep.

nem,

if every bell employee cared as much as you did to resolve problems this thread wouldn't exist.

I have had so many bad reps. that just get you so mad that you want to cancel everything to do with Bell.

It only takes one bad apple to ruin it for everyone. While you may know not all reps are like that the person calling in to Bell only speaks to that one person who is representing Bell.

I have not had bad experiences with sympatico or bell. I have had some very bad experiences with EV.

To be fair. The one girl with a cute voice answered one day:

" Goodafternoon.............Thank-you for calling Bell. How can I put a smile on your face?"

has made up for all the negatives. :p

ironically. BEV is the one service I won't give up. DAMN 9200!

Joe

peano, i take great offense to your generalization. every representative, every employee of Bell i know would take offense to you stating that they are poorly trained and care nothing for our customers.


I must be terribly unlucky then. Every Bell World employee I have spoken with (around 10 or so) has not known the current BEV offer or any technical details about receivers or installation.

And I did not say you care nothing about your customers. Obviously you do. It is the attitude when something goes wrong that is the problem. IE, the CSR blamed the rate hike on the CRTC....another told the customer he must have missed the notice. This stuff goes on every day. This is the kind of thing that drives customers away.

And if all BEV CSRs were as knowledgeable and concerned as yourself and DJ, this thread wouldn't exist. Unfortunately, you guys are the exception.

Memnoch, first let me say I appreciate your PM and offer to make things right. The reason I didn't mention it in my previous posting was I didn't realize you did send me a PM. Sadly, I'm going to have to decline the offer.

I know that companies do make mistakes. It's how you handle those mistakes that matters. There are a lot of good people that work for Bell, and there are also people in the organization who just don't care.

I'm not going to go into details of what Bell has done to me in the past, but when I do tell my story to others (and I do whenever I get a chance) they ask me why I am still a Bell customer.

You ask how better customer service could have been given?

In the first call, The CSR should have just credited the $4.50+ network charge to begin with, why should I have to argue about it? If Bell is so nice by crediting hundreds of dollars to people who "accidently" call 1-900 numbers, why are they so hard pressed to credit me $4.50?

In a previous post you mention why I would think I am (and other Bell customers) are paying for these credits indirectly when they write off a customers 1-900 call. This is why. You can only credit so much until it becomes a problem, then management start telling CSRs to not credit as much, next they'll be printing reports on each CSR with how many credits they've issued in a day. So when a customer really deserves the credit when they ask for it, they don't get it because the CSR is thinking twice on giving the credit.

Also, the fact that this problem was already known before I called about it just reinforces that CSRs are not properly given the information they need in a timely fashion in order to do their job properly.

I wouldn't doubt, if I called today, asking the same question -- I'd be given the same response that I was given in my first call to Bell.

I've been on the losing side many times with Bell, they just don't live up to the promises they make. I guess this was the last straw for me. Until they start hiring more people who care (like yourself), I'm going to stay away.

Got my bill.

Still have seen nothing about adding a network charge.

I got charged in the main bill $4.50 for NC

then underneath there is a section other charges and credits where:

they credit me $4.17
they add $4.17
they add $3.75

My final bill is $8.25 + tax more. There is no exta credit as described by nem.

Still no notice either.

I will update later today when I call them.

Joe

2 yr contract is up so they increased the rate. She went on to sell the product saying a $4.50 network charge is low. No credits. I asked why I wasn't notifyed and she happily went on to say your 2 yr. contract is up.

anyways.

I am now looking for alternatives to my land line and internet.

short term the bell telephone is gone and going with something else. Vonage is at top of the list right now.

2 yr contract is up so they increased the rate. She went on to sell the product saying a $4.50 network charge is low. No credits. I asked why I wasn't notifyed and she happily went on to say your 2 yr. contract is up.

anyways.

I am now looking for alternatives to my land line and internet.

short term the bell telephone is gone and going with something else. Vonage is at top of the list right now.

You got billed for partial month of a network charge. The new network charge started on Oct 15th, so you've got a partial charge from Oct 15 - end of your billing cycle, plus $4.50 for the entire month.

They didn't mention the $13.50 credit off your bill? You should be getting this if you were never informed about the increase. My guess is they screwed up again, failing to inform all the customers that didn't get informed the first time! plus they didn't inform the CSRs yet, so the clueless CSR didn't even know about the $13.50 credit that was applied to some customers.

Typical Bell service....just as expected!!!

yes i got charged oct to nov. $3.75 and then $4.50 from nov to dec. i heard the word prorated like 15 times.

normally i am pissed about these things and always get something in return but for some reason I am not this time. I am just going to look at the whole picture and do what makes sense to me.

I never saw anything about the rates going up. I never went back to look at my bills but there is a small chance I missed it if it wasn't clearly laid out.

Yeah, pro-rated. Nice positive sounding word that gets Bell the money and us, the consumers, the shaft.

What makes sense is to call and threaten to cancel your service, let them negotiate with you. Otherwise, give them the shaft like I did. Eventually, they'll screw up my other services and I'll cancel them as well.

UPDATE: Bell charges me for the entire month of mobility service + long distance / network charge when I cancelled it! Looks like another call to talk to a CSR, I can't want to hear what excuse they are going to use this time!!:rolleyes: