Hello Ladies and Gentlemen. What a beautiful and glorious Tuesday morning. I just got off the phone with Bell Canada. I had sent the following letter about 10 days ago... Why don't you peruse it?

_____________

President and CEO
Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE Inc.)
1000, rue de La Gauchetière ouest, Bureau 3700
Montréal, QC H3B 4Y7

November 26, 2003

RE: Bell Canada Account Number: xxxxxx
Bell ExpressVu Account Number: xxxxxx
Bell Sympatico Account Number: xxxxxx

Dear Mr. Sabia,

My family has been a happy customer of Bell Canada’s for the past 33 years. We have also been with Bell ExpressVu for 2 years and Bell Sympatico for just under 1 year. During this time, we have been generally pleased. I was recently excited to see your promotions for the new Bell Bundles and was looking forward to taking advantage of the cost savings. Little did I know that on Monday November 24, 2003, I would be disappointed beyond belief with the lack of integrity and commitment to customer service demonstrated by your company.

My frustrations peaked on Monday but to tell you the entire story, we must travel back to the week of November 10, 2003. That week, my father and I decided that we would like to take advantage of the Bell Bundles promotion that you are currently offering. We called thinking that it would be easy since we are existing ExpressVu and Sympatico subscribers. While on the phone with a CSR, we were told that in order to take advantage of the Bundle, we would have to have all the billing information under one name. At present, the phone service is under my father’s name while ExpressVu and Sympatico are under my name. We wanted everything to be billed to my credit card and we wanted to maintain my father’s name on the directory. The CSR instructed us that we would have to visit a Bell World store to get this taken care of. We got busy and couldn’t go right away but figured that when we had 30 minutes, we would go together to the nearest Bell World store.

On Monday morning, my father and I made our way (in the rain) to the Bell World Store in Bridlewood Mall. After explaining our situation to the Sales Associate, we were told that they could not make the change in-store and we would have to call the call centre (contradicting the information from 2 weeks ago). She connected us on the customer phone in the store. We explained the situation to another CSR (Patricia) and she indicated that she was not the correct person to speak with and we needed to speak with someone in the “One Bill” Department. She put us through to another CSR who promptly put us on hold for 9 minutes, until we were finally connected. She explained all of our options, took my credit card number 3 times and started to explain our future billing process. As she did this, she disconnected the line and we were stuck with dead air. We waited in the store hoping they would call us back (since we said we were at the Bell World Bridlewood Mall store). No one called back. I spoke with the in-store Sales Associate and she connected me to another number (the Bundles hotline this time). I spoke with a woman named Ruby who was not very pleasant and glossed over my problems and frustrations. She had no regard for the time I had already spent and the frustration level I was already at. Needless to say, I was becoming more agitated because she was asking me all the same questions I had just been through with the previous CSR. I was put on hold again and then told that I was going to be transferred to the Billing Department to get my credit card information (which was already completed). I was on hold for 11 minutes and could not wait any longer since I had to get back to work so I hung up the phone.

After we got home, my father decided to call 310-BELL to see if anyone could help him out. Once he got through with a CSR (Erin), she went through the same process that we had already been through twice this morning. After all that, she told him that Bell wouldn’t be able to separate the billing name and the directory name (contradicting the information we were told in the morning). My father told her what we were told in the morning but she said her supervisor would say the same thing as she and they couldn’t help us at this time. She asked for our name and number and said that a representative would call us back within 48 hours.

On Monday evening, we decided to call one more time. Our patience wasn’t very high and by this point we were quite irritable. We spoke with a CSR named Amanda (ID# F439) who was very helpful and took the time to listen to our problem and work through a solution with us. She identified exactly what we needed to speak about and saw that the CSR that we dealt with in the morning (who accidentally hung up on us) actually did what she was supposed to and had started the process of setting us up on a “One-Bill” account. Amanda did everything she needed to and then told us that we would have to be transferred to the Billing department to take care of the “One-Bill” setup. At that time, I spoke with another CSR (Crystanne) and she helped me set up the pre-authorization of my credit card for my “One-Bill” account. I asked her about finalizing the “One-Bill account” and she said she couldn’t do that. She transferred me back to Sales and Service where I spoke with another CSR (Linda) who told me that my “One-Bill” account was already set up. That is just another example of Bell’s systems and people not communicating and sharing the same information.

I was looking on the Canadian Business Review (http://www.cbr.ca) and found this information about one of your corporate initiatives:

Customers first
BCE is refocusing and simplifying its business, placing the customer at the centre of all its operations. To do this, the company is strengthening its culture of productivity; simplifying operations, particularly in how services are accessed by customers; and leveraging its own skills and those of its partners, to deliver the world’s most advanced, value-added services to Canadians. This new commitment was formalized in May 2003.

It is now November, 2003 and the long winded story that I just shared with you identifies that your “Customers first” strategy which has been implemented for 6 months is not working. The operations and processes that I have dealt with are not simple. Your services cannot be accessed easily by the consumer. I also don’t think you are delivering the most advanced service to Canadians today because it took 3 hours and approximately 8 different people to “help me”.

I realize that we may simply be one customer but I believe that the strength of a company depends on its relationships with all their customers, regardless of who they are. I trust you feel the same way as well. At this time, I am convinced I have made the wrong decision to choose the Bell Bundles because of the level of service and commitment I have received thus far. I am an Account Executive for a major corporation and know that if I treated my customers this way, I wouldn’t be able to keep them much longer. I don’t think that I was helped very much today. In fact, spending close to 3 hours on the phone and at your Bell World store is not my idea of a very productive day. All this for something that should have taken no more than 30 minutes.

Mr. Sabia, you can imagine how angry and frustrated I am with your company for me to take a further hour out of my day to document this situation and bring it to your attention. At the very least I expect an apology and some sort of compensation for my family's frustration. However as a successful business professional I am more interested in an explanation as to why it is so complicated to get anything done with the Customer Service Representatives in your company. I expect to hear from you shortly, and in particular with an explanation why myself and my family should continue being customers of Bell Canada, especially with the current competitive telecommunications landscape as it is today.

Yours truly,


Mr. AG

cc: David, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Bell Canada
cc: Charles, Chairman, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission

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The Senior Executive Consultant to the Vice President (not sure what that is) called me this morning and we had a nice conversation. He explained their side, answered all of my questions and at the end - I was offered the next 2 months of my billing free. So, in the end - I spoke up, they heard and presumably made changes and also took the time to answer me. He was a nice guy and had some excellent points. I like the way he handled my questions and concerns. Definitely had a very professional demeanor and style.

Thanks for the inspiration Kevin...
:o)