Pugmarks, Arti Patel, and India's Reputation for Customer Support, Plus the "Call Center" Movie.
September 20, 2008
On September 15, I was sent a letter from Pugmarks, telling me that my credit card was about to expire.
Pugmarks is headquartered in India. I use Pugmarks because the American company I used originally got bought by Pugmarks. I was part of the deal.
I used to use Pugmarks to host a web site. I no longer do. The autoresponder program they hosted for me died, and they could not fix it. I do not blame them.
I still have an account, because I need to get names out of the files. So far, this has proven impossible.
Anyway, I got the warning about billing. I went to my account. The card was set to expire, but the newly issued card has an expiration date a year out. I tried to change this in the online form.
Then I looked for the UPDATE button. No UPDATE button was visible. I could not change the data. Pugmarks is about to lose my automatically billed account -- a loss to them.
I contacted the billing department. I used Snagit to make a screen shot of their on-line form, which had no UPDATE button. I also did a cut & paste of the form. On the cut & paste, the UPDATE button is visible. Here is my letter.
You have a major problem with your billing system. It does not allow editing.There is no button on the screen that says UPDATE. I cannot alter my data.
I attach a gif that shows my screen.
Strangely, the button appears here [the cut & paste], but on my screen, it does not.
I received back this reply.
Our billing system is working fine. If you are just trying to edit expiration date to existing card you may give us a call at 630-579-1200 X110 or reply back with information.Sincerely,
Arti Patel
Pugmarks Customer Support
This is the universal response of customer support around the world. "Our system is working just fine."
There is a screen shot in front of him. There is no UPDATE button. But this means nothing. Our billing system is working fine.
In short, "Look here, you dolt, everything is fine. Your screen shot is meaningless. The fact that you could not update your account is your problem. Call someone else. I am busy."
These days, millions of variations of this letter are sent out daily by guys named Patel (or so it seems).
Americans are generally committed to two slogans. (1) Live and let live." (2) "Let's make a deal." They are willing to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt if there is a way to make money. But Indian customer support is so bad, and the problems are so continuous, that we are learning to hate the thought of dealing with anyone in India.
If I were the head of Pugmarks, I would call Mr. Patel to my office. I would give this speech.
Mr. Patel, this company is in business to make money. When our customers cannot send us their money, we have a problem.This customer sent you a screen shot of the form we use to bill our customers. The screen shot shows that there is no UPDATE button. We asked him to update his credit card information. This proved impossible.
He sent you a warning. You replied saying, "Our system is working fine." It is visibly not working fine.
When you deal with a customer who goes out of his way to alert you to a problem, don't reply by sending him a letter that says, in effect, "You are an idiot. You believe your own eyes. At Pugmarks, we don't think anyone should believe his own eyes."
I am no fool, Mr. Patel. I understand the attitude of Customer Support employees. Since we do not pay you a fee for each problem you solve, everyone has an incentive to pass a problem along to the next person. This seems to reduce each person's work load. It doesn't. It just shuffles problems around, delaying solutions.
I also understand that the #1 goal of Customer Support is to keep me from finding out when problems do not get solved. A problem that I do not find out about is seen as the same as a problem solved, as far as the department is concerned.
This time, I found out. So did a lot of other people. The problem got posted online.
I want you to understand that I am paying you to solve problems, not pass them along to another Customer Support person, and especially not to get them posted online. Am I making myself clear?
The president of Pugmarks may think he is paying to get problems solved. But we get what we pay for. Until there are predictable negative sanctions against passing along problems to the next person instead of solving them, problems will not get solved the first time.
This is true in India. It is true in Ireland. It is true in South Dakota. It is true in hell. The only place where it is not true is in heaven. I hope.
Here is an example of Internet humor: the Call Center movie. It is funny because it hits a nerve. We have all dealt with this. There is no escape. We know what the future holds for us.