happy tunesday: "united breaks guitars"

 

If this blog is your only exposure to my social media profile, then you are blissfully unaware that I have spent the last two months fighting with AT&T's customer service. I've put it on Facebook, and I twote about it a several times. But I think the only time I mentioned it on this blog was two weeks ago when it influenced my Tunesday pick. Well, it's driving today's choice again.*

Dave Carroll's song, "United Breaks Guitars" is a wonderfully catchy and humorous take on the customer service nightmare he endured when a United Airlines ground crew at O'Hare Airport destroyed his guitar.

Now, I suppose my situation isn't as bad. It's reasonably likely that the guitar that United broke was worth more than the phone that AT&T failed to deliver. Also, according to the song, Carroll spent a year trying to get his issue resolved. I'm only two months in and it's likely I'll see a resolution this week or next.**

But it's not just about the severity of the loss and the time spent. Some of the lyrics resonate because the behavior he encountered seems similar to what I've seen. Carroll sings: "And so began a year-long sagaof pass the buck, 'don't ask me,' and 'I'm sorry, sir, your claim can go nowhere.'"

Those lines reminded me of a few things that happened to me several times:

• A customer service person on the phone would insist that they can't do anything for me. I have to get the store to deal with it. Sorry, but that's the only way.
• The store employees would insist that I had to call customer service and have them deal with it. Sorry, but that's the only way.
• Customer service would open a "case" and take down the information. A few days later they would close the case without taking action because they had insufficient evidence that I never got the phone. This, despite the store manager acknowledging that they had sent the phone cback to the warehouse. When I'd get a person on the phone, they would tell me that that's it, there's nothing they could do.

I won't say here what is causing me to have some optimism, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Even Dave Carroll got satisfaction in the end. I think.

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*I'm not going to rehash the story here, or even udate it. Because I don't feel like doing so. If you want an account of where things stood two weeks ago, you can read this post.
**Or am I being too optimistic?