My Internet was down for 2 hours, and I want a credit!

[scorpionf]

From my call centre days (approx. 5 years ago) when I worked in the Internet Billing Enquiries, Customer Service and Sales department, for one of the largest telecommunications company in Australia.

For this particular SC, the internet being down for 2 hours meant Armageddon had come, and it was the end of the world as we know it.

I answer the call as usual “Thank you for calling Telco, this is scorpionf, how can I help with your internet enquiry?”

It was close to 10 minutes before I could get a word in edgewise as he screamed and carried on about his internet was down for 2 hours and he wanted a credit for the inconvenience “why should I pay for the internet when it is not working?!”

To get the abusive SC off the phone, I decided I would in fact give him a credit for the 2 hours his internet was down, and also drive home the fact he had gotten his credit. This was my spiel:

Me: “Ok, so that’s $49.95 (plan cost) divided by 31 days (in that month), divided by 24 hours. Multiplied by 2 that comes to 13 cents. I will apply that 13 cent credit to your account right now. You will see that 13 cent credit on your next bill, and I will leave a note on your account stating that I have credited that 13 cents for your internet being down for 2 hours”

Maybe it was the way I kept emphasising “13 cents” because at the end of all that, he simply said “thank you” and hung up

[earl colby pottinger]

That is the way

They should all be credited like that unless they start to complain about losing thousands of dollars per hour. At which time you response "Oh, I am sorry about that, you clearly should be on our business account. Transferring!".

Then send them to the business division with a note on their account about their money loss, as clearly anyone making thousands per hour can easily afford an extra hundred or two on their bill ensure service.

[UncleImpy]

Yeesh. The only time I bother to call for a credit is when its down for more than a day...and then, I pay about $120 a month, so a 24 hour interruption is at least a little cash...

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

I do this at Red Checkmark all the time, sometimes the SCs accept it, other times they think I should make it higher because of inconvenience or how long they've been with the company or how much money they lost from the outage, etc, etc.

Guess how far those appeals usually get.

[Agent Paperclip]

Me: “Ok, so that’s $49.95 (plan cost) divided by 31 days (in that month), divided by 24 hours. Multiplied by 2 that comes to 13 cents. I will apply that 13 cent credit to your account right now. You will see that 13 cent credit on your next bill, and I will leave a note on your account stating that I have credited that 13 cents for your internet being down for 2 hours”

This made me laugh so hard! Thank you!

[CKoch]

I work for the power company. People are billed on the kilowatt hour. After an outage - be it from a storm, or car hitting pole, or equipment failure, whatever - a customer will call asking for a credit for the two hours they didn't have power.

They seem a little puzzled when we explain that they weren't billed for usage they did not get for that two hours, so no credit!

[mjr]

My wife worked in Cable many years ago. Oh, the stories. She'd tell me that some of the older people would call up and complain about a one cent increase on their bill. Or that a "customer" would call and complain, wondering why college-age little Johnny's cable was disconnected.

And they'd try to get money back on PPVs as well.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

My wife worked in Cable many years ago. Oh, the stories. She'd tell me that some of the older people would call up and complain about a one cent increase on their bill. Or that a "customer" would call and complain, wondering why college-age little Johnny's cable was disconnected.

And they'd try to get money back on PPVs as well.

I once had a customer demand a manager over THREE cents!

[Kittish]

I'll admit we get rather snippy with our internet provider, but then, since they bought up all the other providers in our area the service has gone to crap and internet outages are a daily thing now. It's getting very, very old.

[Argabarga]

I just thought about all the unfortunate people at power companies who get letters like this demanding credits.... even though when the power goes out, your meter stops, so you aren't getting charged in the first place.

No, silly me, that won't stop them, they'll try to charge them for lost productivity all the same.

[icmedia]

I once had a frail older woman in my store who, upon the tax going up on her government subsidized phone by $0.12, threatened to call the cops on us "for trying to steal an old lady's money!"

[earl colby pottinger]

But like I said

I just thought about all the unfortunate people at power companies who get letters like this demanding credits.... even though when the power goes out, your meter stops, so you aren't getting charged in the first place.

No, silly me, that won't stop them, they'll try to charge them for lost productivity all the same.

If they lost money due to lost productivity then they must be running a business which means again they need to have a business account. TRANSFER!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

While I certainly wouldn't go asking for a credit for it, I'd just like to say it would be nice if Comcrap internet could go longer than 15 minutes without randomly going to connected but no internet access, forcing me to either disconnect and reconnect or powercycle the modem/router.

[Amadan]

Well I think 13c is fair - after all if that's the cost for 2 hrs. Mind if enough people demanded it, what with the cost of dealing with the calls and the money charged ISPs might actually think about better infrastructure.

Either that or just putting up bills to pay for the extra cost of compensation....

I work for the power company. People are billed on the kilowatt hour. After an outage - be it from a storm, or car hitting pole, or equipment failure, whatever - a customer will call asking for a credit for the two hours they didn't have power.

They seem a little puzzled when we explain that they weren't billed for usage they did not get for that two hours, so no credit!

In the UK some companies charge a daily standing charge for Gas/Electricity connections others just roll it in to the unit cost. I don't suppose it could be anything like that?

[FormerCallingCardRep]

I had a customer today call in wanting credit for his cable being out for two days due to storm damage. He does not pay for his cable. His apartment complex pays for it.