Amazon (and other large companies who have less than stellar customer service)

[MaggieTheCat]

So, I normally don't have issues with Amazon 'cuz they normally get things right the first time around. But it seems that when I DO have problems or questions, it's difficult to get them resolved.

The latest question I had for them was whether I could gift Kindle books to another person. My husband recently got a Kindle and I thought, awesome, what a great Christmas present: eBooks for his Kindle. Except the only real way I could see to give such a gift would be to get a gift card, and there was a specific book that I wanted to get for him. I think giving him a gift card along with a note saying, "Get this specific book!" is a little tacky, so I emailed Amazon customer service to ask if there was a way I could buy a Kindle book and send it to his account.

The response I got back was pretty obviously from someone who didn't know English too well. Part of the response was,
"I understand your concern about you want to purchase a kindle content to your husband as gift."
I mean, really? That's not even proper English. I thought Amazon would be a bit better than that. The CSR also said something about linking our two Amazon accounts together, but she didn't explain how, and again, that particular sentence was so poorly composed that I barely managed to ascertain that much information from it.

I guess I'm spoiled, because I worked for a call center that really did have stellar customer service. All of our phone agents at least knew how to speak proper English, and the ones who replied to emails and chats were put through a training/screening process first to make sure they knew how to spell and properly compose sentences. I realize that not everyone is perfect and that spelling, grammar, etc. are not everyone's strong points, but if you're going to work in written customer service, you should at least have a grasp of the language you're working in so people can understand you.

[Rageaholic]

What I hate is when I ask a very specific question that should easily be answered. Instead of just directly answering that question, they give a long list of reasons that might relate to the question but never actually answers the question you asked. If that's going to be their answer for everything, they might as well just post it on their FAQ page. Save a lot of time and money that way.

[Andara Bledin]

My favorite is when the long list of only semi-related answers is their FAQ.

I actually chewed someone out (through email) for completely failing to read a complaint when they sent a canned response, once. The next reply I got was a real answer.

^-.-^

[smileyeagle1021]

Rageaholic, I see that you have used Charter Cable too
My mom has that problem with them. Every time she gets a new remote she has to call them for the code for programing the cable box (okay, so this has only happened twice), and this should be a simple process, have her read the model number off the box, they enter it in the computer and give her the code... nope, they want her to power cycle the box, change the batteries in the remote, and a dozen other trouble shooting things for the remote but refuse to just give her the fracking code.

[wraiths_crono]

My ISP hates me because I work for a network group (that I found out they lease fiber optic lines from us) and so ive already done the basics, and I do not like to be BSed with answers, and ATT when I worked for them, no codes just a standard script of how to reset the remote and make it auto tune, if it failed once, well i guess your tv really never worked with it have a great day (my arse)