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 "I'm sorry, sir, all our supervisors are busy trying to talk other customers out of trying to get us to correct a mistake." |
The cradle of bureaucracy
keeps rocking endlessly
By DAVID ZINMAN
of TheColumnists.com
Why is it so hard to get someone to correct a simple
mistake?
You might think the one who made the error--particularly if it was a corporation--would be eager to set the record straight. It doesn’t always work that way.
I found that out today when I looked at my new copy of Verizon’s 2003 “SuperPages.” In the winter, I live in Conway, a town of 12,000 near the Atlantic coast in Horry County, South Carolina. If you’re still scratching your head, I’m 12 miles west of Myrtle Beach.
The phone book lists the numbers and addresses of customers of both Verizon, which calls itself the nation’s “largest provider of wireline and wireless communications,” and its local competitor, Horry Telephone Cooperative, Inc. (HTC).
I opened the book to Conway and looked up my listing. It was almost correct. I say “almost” because Verizon got my phone number right but listed it twice and showed two addresses. The one that put me at “414 Laurel” was wrong. I live three blocks away on Main Street.
I called Verizon. After 10 minutes of recorded voices and music, a live lady in the customer care center answered. I explained the situation and asked if she could please correct the error. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “You are not our customer. The listing comes to us from your local phone carrier. You will have to get them to request the change.”
HTC is my phone company. “But I’m the one affected,” I said. “I want the satisfaction of knowing you will correct the error.”
In fact, I later realized it takes one whole year to correct a mistake in the phone book. That’s because they don’t send around a page of corrections as they are reported. Instead, they wait 365 days till the 2004 directory comes out. But they do correct erroneous listings in “Directory Assistance” (formerly called “Information”) right away.
The customer care lady repeated what she had already told me. “You will have to call HTC.” I did not look forward to making another call to fix a mistake I did not make. I dreaded starting at the bottom of another corporation and going through more wrangling.
“May I please talk to a supervisor,” I asked. “Certainly, sir,” she said. More waiting. More music. At last, a supervisor came on the phone.
I went over the problem again. She backed the customer care lady. “They (HTC) sent us the wrong information,” the supervisor said.
Maybe I should have given up right then. Three years ago, I was totally left out of the phone book-the whole nine yards--name, address, and phone number. Compared to that disaster, I was ahead of the game. And, after all, how many people would actually go to that wrong address?
Then again, maybe some would. The truth is I would never know. Why should I have a wrong address listed in the phone book? It would stay that way forever unless I persisted.
“Look, I am not trying to play the blame game,” I said. “It’s your directory. You are printing an incorrect listing. Doesn’t Verizon--the country’s biggest communications outfit--want correct listings in its phone book?”
That was well put, I thought.
Of course, she would have to agree that Verizon, with a global
presence in 33 countries, would want to correct any errors it
may have. Wrong.
“I am sorry, sir,” the supervisor said. “We are
governed by (Public Service) tariffs and rules. I have already
told you--you are not our customer. We got this data from your
local carrier. They will have to do the request.”
I wasn’t getting anywhere. I asked to talk to her boss. “Certainly, sir,” she said. More waiting. More music. Finally, a gentleman who said he was the supervisor in charge of supervisors came on the phone. He was a bit more gracious. He apologized in behalf of Verizon. But the upshot of his message was, “It’s got to come from your local provider.”
By now, almost an hour had gone by. I wondered why Verizon couldn’t make the call. After all, it was Verizon--not me--who printed the wrong address in its phone book. No, that would be too simple. I decided to do what they told me.
At HTC, a customer care representative referred me to a supervisor. She assured me that HTC had given Verizon the right information. “If it’s not correct, it is not our fault. We don’t have control over how they print the information.”
Next, I talked to a senior customer service representative. She confirmed what the previous lady had said. But she agreed to call Verizon and request that it make the change. To make a long story short, she called back and said Verizon asked that the request be in writing. She said HTC--although its records indicate that HTC had already done this--would comply.
Will there be a confirmation from Verizon? No. She said she has never known Verizon to send a letter saying it will correct a listing error. In fact, she said, neither does HTC. That is, HTC does not send a confirmation when Verizon requests a correction for one of its customers whose phone or address is wrong in the HTC pages.
So, in the end, I guess all I can do is cross my fingers and wait until February, 2004, and hope the phone book gods will be smiling.
Meanwhile, I went to 414 Laurel Street to find out who lived at that address. It turned to be a Verizon switching building, a cross-section of thousands of fiber optic telephone lines linking Myrtle Beach to Florence and beyond.
A lone Verizon technician--he
said he is the only one who works there--gave me a tour. I thanked
him and told him my address. If anyone comes by looking for me,
I asked him to please send him to my home on Main Street.
©2003 by David Zinman. The Zinman caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The cartoon illustration is from IMSI's Master
Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506,
USA.
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