I'd think you would've checked that first...

[Food Lady]

Some of you know I deal with billing problems on lease contracts. I also am the person you talk to before going to the retention department. Now, we often send out renewal offers, sometimes up to a year before the current contract ends. They have expiration dates, as in respond by this date to lock in the current payment or get a discount if you continue for X amount of months after contract end or whatever.

This woman the other day assumed the expiration date of the offer was her contract date and when I told her she has another year to go she flipped out. She has already contracted another company that leases or rents the same type of equipment that we do. So now she will have two pieces of machinery when she needs one, and she blames us for creating a problem for her.

This could've been avoided had she called us to double-check her end date before making an agreement with the other company. On top of that there's a signed contract that states how many months she'd need to pay us. She could've looked at that and gone by the signing date. I feel like retention's going to get an earful in the future.

[mysticgirl5]

SMH...if there's one thing that customers will duck like a cat ducks waters, it's personal responsibility. Check a date, you say? How dare you! Don't we understand that our poor darling customers a) refuse to read b)refuse to comprehend anything they're forced to read and c)refuse to believe that there is not a team of Psychic Friends living somewhere in a giant warehouse whose sole reason for existing is to keep track of all the dates, terms and conditions, and other misc. information that dear SCs' do not wish soil their hands with, and ring an alarm when any of the aforementioned might inconvenience an SC in any way, shape or form.

I hope Retention told her to shove it. Probably not, but it's nice to imagine.

[Slave to the Phone]

Personal responsibility? That's for losers!

I wonder how she deals with all of those "renew now to lock in this special rate" things magazine companies send out on a monthly basis.

[raw1989]

Personally a year is a bit excessive unless the equipment is limited or popular because in a year I may or may not need it but I want the special rate if I do need it in a year. But with that being said no one reads anymore and tell them to go look at the contract they cant be bothered to go look in a filing cabinet because they are to good for that.

[Food Lady]

^ It is limited to a couple of companies. Some customers can go for years without upgrading so they are a-ok with renewals. I've seen a string of several renewals from an original contract going back to 2007 or -08.

[raw1989]

okay now I understand

[EricKei]

Say it with me now, class: "I'm the customer! I shouldn't have to READ!"

[MoonCat]

they cant be bothered to go look in that pile of old papers on their kitchen counter, desk, dresser, or in the junk drawer because they are too good for that.

Fixed that for ya