Some friend you are, Cox!
Cox Communications has a tagline, “Your friend in the digital age.” Yeah, some friend. If Cox is a "friend" then they are that stoner buddy who wants to move in with me, sleep on my couch, and eat all my Cheetos instead of looking for a job.
I’ve talked about Cox before (see “the cost of incompetence”). The latest episode highlights a still broken system.
The Situation
My credit card was about to expire and I wanted to give Cox my new expiration date since I’m set up for automated monthly billing. This takes about 5 minutes with most companies. Not with Cox.
What Happened
First, I tried doing it online, but I kept getting error messages so I had to call. Calling customer service at Cox requires you to navigate “interactive voice response” hell. (That’s the automated voice that pretends to be a real person, but never understands exactly what you want.) I finally got through to a live rep who said she would make the update.
A month later I noticed Cox had charged my credit card twice in July. Curious. I called again and after more phone menu hell I finally got a rep on the line. Apparently, the first rep had charged my card in July for the payment due in August. A simple transaction had turned into two calls and Cox making an unauthorized charged on my credit card. With friends like Cox, who needs enemies?
What should have happened:
-
Ideally: Their website should have allowed me to make the update. This would have saved Cox two customer service calls.
-
2nd best: The first customer service rep should not have charged my credit card a month early. This would have saved Cox the cost of one customer service call.
-
3rd best: The second customer service rep should have been empowered to do more me than apologize. A small token from Cox would have prevented me from writing this blog post.
Today, 'CoxTech1' posted the following comment on my blog. It's good to see the follow-up.
First of all, I apologize for any inconvenience this billing issue has caused you. If there is anything we can do to remedy this situation for you please feel free to email me at hrd-hsi.newsgroups@cox.com and I would be happy to do what I can to help.
--CoxTech1
