Good Plan- Customer Disservice
Written: Apr 22 '00 (Updated Apr 22 '00)
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Pros: Good coverage, flexible plan, no roaming or long distance charges
Cons: Arrogant management, insensitive, incompetent customer service
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| juliewh's Full Review: Houston Cellular Mobile Phone Service in Houston |
We have had Houston Cellular telephone service for about 15 years. One of their plans is among the best for our needs. Our service includes 300 shared minutes between our two cellular phones for $50 a month. This gives us good flexibility since my husband uses many more minutes than I do. We have free long distance calling and no roaming charges in Texas.
We regularly get furious at them for the way we are treated by customer service. My husband regularly investigates other servers as a result and always stays with them because of the reasons cited above and the inconvenience of changing phone numbers.
Let me tell you about our experience with customer service. Our account is automatically billed on our credit card. We changed credit card numbers because of a lost card. We faxed them our new card information. Somehow they didn't get it in their system. One day we answered the phone to a recorded message telling us to call Houston Cellular billing department on the phone. After being on hold for 15 minutes, my husband hung up and called another Houston Cellular number. He told the person the problem and they said they would transfer him. He was disconnected after waiting several minutes. Eventually, after repeated calls, they straightened it out. But not because they are customer service oriented..
Our current credit card expired in January. (The number stayed the same but the expiration date changed from January 2000 to January 2003.) So when we were notified that we needed to let Houston Cellular know the new date, we again faxed them the information. You guessed it. They somehow didn't get it in their system again. We once again received a pre-recorded phone call to call them about our phone service. Again we had to go through the rigamarole of calling back, being on hold, being disconnected, calling again, and re-faxing the expiration date. (They won't take the date over the phone even though the credit card number has not changed.)
My husband asked for the telephone number of the executive in charge of customer service and was told to write a letter. “The executives do not talk to customers,” he was told. He asked for the name of the executive and was told that they do not provide that information to customers. He should write his letter to customer service.
Houston Cellular customer service representatives don't know the meaning of the words "customer service." They act as if their time is more important than yours. They are very inflexible (and incompetent) when dealing with credit card changes. It has been frustrating to deal with them. Further, a management that is inaccessible to its customers--and allows such mismanagement of customer service and sets up policies that send customers recorded messages to call into an already overtaxed and undermanned telephone customer center--obviously doesn't concern itself with customer convenience or with maintaining good customer relations.
Some day, one of the competing companies will be able to offer the coverage we want where we want it, and we will have no regrets at saying "good riddance" to Houston Cellular, it's customer disservice department, and its arrogant management.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 50 per month
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Epinions.com ID:
juliewh
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Member: Julie
Location: Lake Conroe,TX
Reviews written: 29
Trusted by: 39 members
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