From: Rick Blackthorn
Newsgroups: alt.consumers.experiences
Subject: Rant: Flint River Ranch
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 14:35:59 -0800
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I've been buying dog and cat food from Flint River Ranch for
about 6 years. I could always reach a real human being when I
called (even if they didn't have a toll-free phone number),
sometimes after a short wait.
That has changed. Now, when I call during business hours, due
to "customer service representatives being otherwise busy or
occupied", I'm now directed to a viocemail box to leave my
order. There are several reasons why I don't do that: Having
tried to leave orders on automated systems such as prescription
refills and other places before, my experience is that it's
extremely unreliable and my orders haven't been filled (at these
other places). If I have a question or want to make sure of
something (as is the case with Flint River) leaving a
conditional order or a message now means telephone tag, and
several attempts to call, at my expense, again trying to reach
someone.
Now, there's not even the option of hanging on and waiting for a
live human to answer. To me that means that the company is
either too successful to bother with those who need to talk to a
live human, or that they laid off most of their staff, or that
some decision maker really believes that people like leaving
messages without being able to ask questions or confirm that the
order really will be filled. Since I'm not an insider at Flint
River Ranch, I don't know why the change took place. I've got
to treat businesses as proverbial black boxes, where you only
know what you can observe. And when I observe that a company
has decided to make things difficult or impossible for me, I go
somewhere else.
--
No one's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.