Quick Update to the Situation With Rogers

March 3 2011, 7:59 AM  by The Head

This past week, I have been having a pretty serious disagreement with Rogers. It was to the point that I was planning on buying out my contract and taking my business elsewhere. Feel free to read about it HERE.

Well, I am happy to say that the situation has been resolved, or will be very shortly. It took an awful lot of work and phone calls, but Rogers will be providing me with the phone exchange I had been looking for. The overall path to conflict resolution was as follows:

1 - Returned to the point of purchase. They would not help me.

2 - Call Customer Service (client retention). They would not help me.

3 - Had a manager from Customer Service call me back. She would not help me.

4 - Wrote to the Office of the President detailing my issue.

5 - Had a representative from the Office of the President call me. Could not give me the resolution I sought, but was the first one to actually show me respect.

6 - Was contacted by a Rogers representative on Twitter offering me her help. Unfortunately I had already taken all of the steps that she could have used.

7 - Wrote to the Office of the Ombudsman at Rogers, detailing my issue.

8 - Today, I received a call from the Office of the Ombudsman. She apologized for all of the trouble I had gone through, and agreed to exchange my Samsung Focus for a Palm Pre 2. The new phone should arrive here sometime next week, and I will then send the old one back to her.

I am happy that this issue has been resolved, and that something that was initially promised to me as an option will now take place. I am still not particularly happy with Rogers as a whole, as I had to go to fairly ridiculous lengths to even be treated with a measure of respect.

What happens now? Well, I will most likely ride out the rest of my contract with Rogers. However, I am not sure what exactly I will do once that contract expires. Given the difficult time they gave me, I doubt I will want to remain their customer. But, that is all a good long way away. Time will ultimately tell.

The lessons I learned are twofold: Firstly, never take a representative at their word. Be a little bit skeptical and make sure that whatever you are told is backed up in writing. Secondly, when you feel you have been cheated, don't give up. Take every available option you can to try and come to a satisfactory resolution. Always remember that you are the customer, and while the old adage of the customer always being right isn't quite accurate in this day and age, a customer should always be valued. Remind the company, no matter how big or how small, that you deserve to be treated fairly, and with respect.