My Name Peggy

If anyone has any lingering doubts that American businesses have lost their way, I invite you to pay particular attention to the customer service skills of any company or organization with whom you regularly do business. My reminder came recently, with a company with whom I had done business for over fifteen years.

If you think about it, customer service is the basis of any business. Even a monopoly has to pay some attention to its customers, or it risks customer revolts or crippling regulation. Witness the fate of the old “Ma Bell” of the 1980s or the mounting customer complaints against the cable companies today. And if you are not a monopoly, customer service is not an after thought or even a memo thumb-tacked to the back of the employees’ lounge door. It is the company. And without it, you are a company on borrowed time, because no matter how good your product or service is, if you cannot or will not satisfy your customers, then you have failed in your business.

As I mentioned, I recently experienced what it is like to be a customer of a business for whom I, as a customer, have no value. Here is what happened. After fifteen years of buying all my gasoline - and I mean all of it, from Chevron Oil Company using my Chevron Oil Company credit card and dutifully paying my bill every month, without fail and never late, I missed a payment. I missed a payment because Chevron Oil Company failed to send me a monthly bill. I know it was Chevron’s failure that I did not receive the bill and not the fault of the post office or other intermediary, because they told me so. They told me they had suffered a “glitch” which caused some bills not to be printed. That “some” included my bill.

When I discovered the error, I called them immediately to request a new bill, so I could pay it. They informed me that they would send me a “courtesy copy,” but that because the grace period had passed and I had not paid the bill, they would be assessing me a late fee.

Their response still confounds me. First, it was Chevron Oil Company that failed to send me a bill, as they have done for the previous fifteen years (that is roughly 180 bills. Well, 179). They then informed me that they would be sending me a “courtesy copy.” To whom are they being courteous. Not me. My agreement with them is to pay my bills in a timely manner. Their agreement with me is to send me a bill informing me of the amount I owe. The courtesy, if there is one, it seems to me, would have been to send the bill to me in the first place, as they agreed to do. After all, it is in their interest to send bills to their customer to facilitate payment of those bills.

Then, they informed me that they would be assessing me a “late fee.” Now, I realize that it is ultimately my responsibility to pay my bills. And I do, as soon as I receive one. It is the receiving of the bill that reminds me to pay. I, like most people, I submit, do not keep track of each of my credit card’s “cycle” dates each month. Rather, I rely, and reasonably so, on the vendor to send me a bill each month, which contains the amount I owe and the date the I owe it. I use that bill to pay the vendor what I owe. It is a simple and longstanding system, that is, generally, reliable. And when it breaks down, which, like most things is bound to happen once in awhile, human intervention is required.

When, on the occasion of such a system failure regarding my bill from Chevron Oil Company, I called the “Customer Service” number on my credit card. When my call was eventually answered, I felt like I had been transported into that Discover Card commercial. You know the one: an Eastern Block-like man is sitting in small room full of 1950s-style telephones, with dials, each having been fitted with a large red light, most of which are “blinking” indicating a call is “on hold.” The man, who is obviously the sole employee for this company’s “call center,” answers one of the phones which is ringing. The caller is customer who is trying to reach “Customer Service.” The call center employee, who is a large man with a husky voice, tells the callers “my name Peggy.” Not, mind you, my name is Peggy, because the irony, of course, is that not only is this man’s name not “Peggy,” but he can’t speak English either. Essentially, the call center is a fraud, the operator is a liar and the company who creates and maintains it has no integrity, much less any customer service skills.

After the twenty minutes I was on hold with Chevron’s “call center,” the customer service representative answered my call. It was Peggy.

I explained that I was calling because I had been charged a late fee and I wanted it waived. I asked him to look up my account and confirm that I had not, in the fifteen years prior to the month in question, ever missed a payment or made a payment late on this account. I also explained that Chevron Oil Company told me that they did not send a bill. Peggy confirmed everything I said and replied, “We not waive fee, that our policy.” Really. That your policy?

In a calm voice, which was masking my simultaneous outrage and disbelief, I said, “you mean after fifteen years of loyal use of your product you are unwilling to waive the late fee, which you caused?” “Is that the extent of your customer service?” Peggy, in a heavy Eastern Block-like accent, right out of the Discover ad, read, “Jep.” Not, mind you, “Yes,” or even “Yes sir” or “Sorry, but yes.” No, Peggy grunted, “Jep.”

I hung up the phone, cut up my Chevron Oil Company card (which had a line embossed on the front of the card that said, “customer since 1995"), and I have never purchased gasoline from them again. Nor will I ever.

Now, I realize that I am a humming bird’s tear in the Chevron ocean and that not only could Chevron Oil Company care less that I purchase all my gasoline from a competitor, but they won’t even notice my absence. Both of which simply reinforce my point: customer service is something only an excellent business understands. It is my sincerest hope, that others, who experience “customer service” the Chevron Oil Company way, will similarly send the message that Peggy does not work everywhere.