Why Rogers is Losing my Business (UPDATED - March 3rd)

March 1 2011, 5:00 PM  by The Head

This is sort of the continuation of an earlier post. Feel free to take a look at that one,HERE.

So, two weeks ago I went to Rogers because it was time for my hardware upgrade. It was very exciting because my iPhone 3G was on it's last legs. Ever since the iOS 4 upgrade, it simply sucked. It just lacked the horsepower to run it, which was especially confusing since all of the sweet features weren't even available for the device...

Regardless, it was upgrade time. I had planned out the handsets I was interested in, and was running down the pros and cons (that post is HERE). It was coming down to the wire though. There was a lot to consider, and it was tough making a choice. I went to the Rogers store that day having mostly decided to leave with a Palm Pre 2.

However, I left the store with a Samsung Focus, having let myself fall for the beautiful aesthetics and high def screen, instead of the pure functionality of the Pre 2. I made a mistake.

But it shouldn't have been an issue. While at the Rogers store, I spent maybe 20 minutes waffling between the two trying to figure out which device I wanted. The "helpful" employee however let me know that it would be fine. If I found that I didn't like the device, I had 15 days to exchange it. Knowing that, I felt a little better and made the decision to take the Focus. We completed the transaction, and I went about my merry way.

During the next 14 days, two things happened:

1) It dawned on me that I had made the wrong choice. The Focus is a nice enough phone, and certainly is gorgeous, but it lacked functionality. The Pre 2 was a better fit for my needs.

2) The Samsung Focus dropped $50 in price on the Rogers website.

Well, neither of these things should have been an issue, from what I could tell. On Monday, 14 days after I picked up the phone, I returned to the store. The trip did not go as planned.

I got there and talked to one of the employees, whose attitude shifted from being attentive one second, to seemingly being bothered by my presence once he realized I wasn't there to buy anything. The arrogance and condescension just rolled off of him. I told him that first of all, I was looking to exchange my phone, as the Focus hadn't quite lived up to what I was looking for from a phone. As it was within the 15 days I had been told about, I honestly wasn't expecting a problem.

How wrong I was. He asked me how many minutes I had talked on it. I had no idea. I never keep track of these things as I always use a tiny fraction of my monthly minutes. This seemed to irritate him as he had to call some department to find out. After a while, he hung up the phone and told me that he was "sad to say that I had used more than 30 minutes of talk time."

My natural reaction was to say: "So?"

This is where he informed me that I had 15 days, -=or=- up to 30 minutes of talk time to return the phone. Wait... what? This is not what the guy that sold me the phone told me. He said 15 days, point finale. Nothing about 30 minutes. Given how indecisive I was about buying the phone, I think I would have noticed. Hell, the guy made a point of it *because* I was so indecisive.

So he said there was nothing he could do. This of course confused me to no end, and it was about this point that I started getting angry. I was told one thing about the phone when I bought it, but now I was getting another story. The end result was that he wasn't going to do anything, and I needed to call Rogers customer service for action. Needless to say I wasn't happy. I then brought up the fact that my phone was now $50 cheaper, and I would like to have that credited to my account. Again, he said that it was a Rogers issue and there was nothing he could do about it.

I believe my word for word response was: "So you are telling me that you are completely useless? How utterly shocking."

I left the store and called Rogers Customer Service (client retention). The representative I talked with had one of those overly patronizing voices that seemed to indicate that I was an idiot, and should just refer to his all knowing, magical cosmic knowledge. I relayed my story, and he went back to the same spiel about some 30 minute talk time limit. Essentially, he was very limited in what he could do or say. He asked if I wanted to have a manager call me back the next day, which I readily agreed to. It was very clear that this fellow was just unable to solve these types of issues.

So today, I got a call from a Rogers manager. I told her my story and she responded with three things she really shouldn't have:

1) When I told her that the fellow who sold me the phone had not said anything about a 30 minute call time limit, she said that this "wasn't possible". She eventually relented on the issue when I told her that calling Rogers customers, and me in particular, liars wasn't a very good idea.

2) She told me that whatever issue I had with the store had to be resolved at the store. I told her not to give me the run-around, which she fervently denied doing. If the store tells me to call Rogers, and Rogers tells me to go to the store, what on earth is it if not the run-around?

3) She said there was nothing she could about a phone swap, or the $50 reduction on my handset. The 30 minute talk time thing was a policy that could not be changed, and the price reduction was for new customers only. I told her point blank that Rogers apparently didn't value me as a customer, which she denied, adamantly. I asked her what she could do for me, she said nothing, so I responded with the fact that she was telling me that Rogers didn't value my business. She asked me not to put words in her mouth, to which I responded that actions spoke much more loudly with words.

Incredibly angry, I got off the phone with this woman as she was incredibly unhelpful, borderline insulting, and simply failing miserably at helping a customer with a serious issue. Checking online, I found a method of writing to the Office of The President for help in issue resolution. I more or less detailed the facts above, and sent it.

This evening, a representative got back to me. I'll say this much: This was the first Rogers representative that I felt spoke to me with a measure of respect, and I got the impression actually was willing to at the very least try and make me happy. We talked for maybe 15 minutes, and ultimately she told me that the employee at the store was wrong for misinforming me about the return policy, but there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't have the ability to override the policy. She did offer me a $50 credit to my account as gesture of goodwill, more or less taking the place of the price reduction I was not eligible for. She also said she would look into the issue at the store, to ensure that such miscommunications didn't happen in the future.

Now, honestly, I was and am not satisfied. But at the very least this woman spoke to me with respect, and felt that my issues were genuine. For that I thank her. Unfortunately for my views of Rogers as a whole, it is simply a case of too little, too late.

I am appalled by the level of customer service that Rogers has seen fit to provide. I have been lied to, given attitude, called a liar, and had my issues dismissed by way too many different people within the organization for me to be comfortable with. And the reality of the situation is that it completely baffles me. I was not asking for anything outrageous. I just wanted to return an item I had purchased 14 days prior. I wanted to perform an exchange for an item of exactly equal value. That's all. It would not have cost Rogers anything. Nothing. Nada. Zero. Zip. Zilch. One simple thing would have made me happy as a clam, would have showed that Rogers valued my business, and likely ensured that I would remain a Rogers customer for a good long while.

Here are some facts to consider:

• I use maybe 5% to 10% of my monthly allotted data. I call very few people, and don't really talk a lot when I do. Yet I have an expensive voice and data plan. Each month, Rogers makes a ton of money off of me, and I use up next to nothing of their infrastructure. I am, in essence, the perfect customer.

• The Rogers return policy is called "Buyer's Remorse". This policy allows you 15 days to change your mind, provided you do not talk on your phone for more than 30 minutes total in that time period. That means that if you use your phone everyday, you can talk up to 2 minutes a day. Think that through. How are you supposed to determine whether you like the phone or not, if you are not actually allowed to make use of it in that time period.

• I am seriously considering buying out the rest of my contract due to how Rogers handled this situation. My current plan would give Rogers over $2700 over 3 years. Now remember that I use next to none of what is allotted to me. That is money Rogers will never see if I cancel. From a business standpoint, how does this make sense for Rogers? They stand to lose money by not doing something ridiculously simple, costing them nothing, and earning good feedback from a customer. Instead of losing money and having a customer express dissatisfaction across social networks and writing an entire blog post about it, they could have made money *and* gotten good publicity. How on earth does this make sense?

• Regardless of the fact that I was blindsided by the 30 minute talk time policy, exactly how stupid of a policy is this? If I buy a TV and later return it, I am not limited to 30 minutes of TV watching. If I bought a microwave and returned it, I am not limited to 30 minutes of microwave time. Hell, if I bought an expensive cordless telephone and returned it, I am not limited to 30 minutes of talk time! This is a ridiculous and absolutely arbitrary rule. Talking on a handset does not somehow make it work less. If anything, things like repeated use of buttons and switches, or downloaded applications that are more likely to cause damage to the phone.

• The Canadian mobile provider business is an extremely competitive one. Smaller startups are flourishing and rapidly gaining more customers, largely because of incidents like this. Rogers is demonstrating an appalling lack of customer care. It's a social world, and stories like this one are communicated far more rapidly than ever before. I encourage anyone reading this to share any horrible experiences with Rogers on whatever social networks you belong to. Companies need to learn that they are ultimately accountable to their customers.

I am not happy. Rogers had an incredible opportunity to win over a customer, make a lot of money, and gain good publicity. They chose not to. They have treated me poorly, and apparently do not value their customers.

So I ask: Given all of this, why on earth should I remain a Rogers customer?