LibraryCrunch Visual Archive

I recently had a very bad customer service experience with one of my favorite companies, Tivo. I moved and the Tivo in the old house was dying and I wanted to buy one of the new dual-tuner models that I saw on sale as refurbished units. So. I went online and ordered one of the new units for my new house and then began searching online for how to cancel the old and dying unit (the RF input was broken and causing much static). Well, I immediately realized it would not be easy. Nowhere was “cancel” listed as one of the main options, and only after performing a search and being routed to numerous pages did I find that you cannot cancel online and must phone them directly. My warning radar went up immediately as memories of news stories about American Online began rolling through my head. After finding the number and calling I was met with one of those amazingly annoying voice recognition systems that wants to ask you fifty question about your “problem”. Well, I just wanted to cancel so I barked “customer service” several times (I was told that that is the trick to bypassing those systems) and, after a bit of a delay, I got a real person. The call agent was quite nice and even though she asked why I wanted to cancel the old unit she sounded as if she would wrap up the problem in short order. I was wrong. The agent gave me a “cancellation number” that I then had to give to the next person she was going to transfer me to. Uh oh. Sure enough, this next “agent” was a customer retention specialist, otherwise known as the Gestapo, and she was quite unwilling to have me leave. Finally, after I again had to bark out that I wanted to cancel, she put me on hold while she “retrieved my account” – she had obviously already had it up in front of her but the stalling was part of the game. So, I waited. And waited. And waited. I counted six minutes having gone by and then I hung up, called my bank, and had my card number changed that was used by Tivo to debit my account – that only took five minutes. I was very, very frustrated. My frustration was extra deep however because I love my Tivo. It is a wonderful product with a cult-like following but, unlike Apple, Tivo’s customer service is abysmal. It’s also unacceptable. We all expect such juvenile behavior from corporate giants like AOL and Microsoft, but from a niche company like Tivo we expect much, much better. Shame. So here I sit, watching my new-refurbished dual-tuner Tivo, not willing to ever give it up, but feeling taken and betrayed by the same company whose products I still love. Now though, if a rival comes along that meets my needs, I will be far more willing to jump ship since Tivo has lost my undying allegiance. How many library customers out there feel the same thing? How many have been burned by one or two bad customer service experiences and now will not vote for a bond initiative or new library tax? How many people still use our services but do so almost reluctantly, willing to switch to a competitor at a moment’s notice? We must be certain that all of our services, all of our representatives, reflect our core values, our true mission. Tivo fell down and hired some very aggressive, very nasty customer retention specialists and, as a result, may have lost a very, very loyal customer. Let’s make sure our libraries aren’t doing the same to our customers.