In a perfect world, the Problem Solver would not exist.
There would be no need for a well-placed call with the weight of the newspaper behind it and the not-so-subtle threat of bad publicity.
My e-mail box would not be jammed with tales of frustration and woe, and my desk would not sag beneath the weight of angrily penned letters.
When I started writing the What’s Your Problem column nearly a year ago, I was warned that the response could be overwhelming. I never imagined just how many readers would feel so wronged by The Man.
The Man. He can be any faceless corporation, any impenetrable governmental bureaucracy. He can be a business that routes customer service calls overseas or employs a seemingly endless string of phone key prompts that dead-end with pre-recorded messages.
Poor customer service, it seems, does not discriminate. With companies big and small cutting costs to boost their bottom line, and government forever trying to shrink, bad service has become an unavoidable fact of life.
I have received requests for help from the well-heeled and the downtrodden, from men, women and children. I have been asked to help stave off evictions, to fight faceless insurance companies, to challenge unfair parking tickets, to take on unscrupulous contractors.
But often the calls, letters and e-mails I receive are about life’s little annoyances–the small slights that often become all-consuming.
Readers often preface their requests by acknowledging there are more important problems in the world than their own. But by the time they finish recounting their struggles, it is clear they don’t truly believe it.
For many, receiving a promised $5 refund check is more about the importance of the battle, of keeping businesses honest, than about the money.
It is a matter of principle.
In several cases, readers have sent me thick files via certified letter detailing their problems. Postal fees sometimes cost more than the sum they are hoping to retrieve.
When a reader from Lake Forest wrote last month to complain that her e-mail had stopped working, she started her letter by saying “the most frustrating thing about it is that there is apparently no way to complain to the company about the incompetence of its employees. (Is this intentional?)”
Many readers are convinced such roadblocks to good customer service are intentional, and there is some reason to believe that may well be true. Many companies have eliminated customer service representatives, increased hold times for phone calls or stopped returning phone calls altogether.
Not all businesses employ such methods, and for sure, there are plenty of agencies and organizations that have caring employees eager to help.
But those aren’t the businesses I hear about.
One Downers Grove woman wrote about a problem she was having with a carpet company.
“I hope you will be able to get a response from these people,” she wrote. “I think they just want me to go away.”
Some readers have written to say they have paid bills they didn’t owe just to avoid hurting their credit scores. Others have given up, saying it’s just not worth the fight.
In the most difficult of cases, readers must weigh whether it’s worth it to sue a company, an emotionally and financially draining proposition. By removing human beings from customer service lines, corporations leave customers feeling helpless. Some of them write to the paper because they feel there is nowhere else to turn. The newspaper is their court of last resort.
“I never thought I’d be desperate enough to write your Web site, but here goes,” wrote a Huntley man who was having no luck dealing with an unresponsive California motor scooter company. “I am at my wits’ end.”
It’s not that bad customer service is new. Neither are columns like What’s Your Problem. The concept of media outlets using their might to help individual consumers has been around for decades. The Tribune had a similar column, then called Action Line, that ran for nearly a decade in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Many readers’ problems then sounded eerily similar to those from readers today. One woman, writing in February 1973, complained that the case of wine her son had sent her for Christmas still hadn’t arrived. The Tribune made some calls, and she was quaffing by week’s end.
Another woman, writing in 1974, said she tried calling the Illinois Department of Public Aid to get an appointment, but couldn’t get through because the lines were always busy. The newspaper called 83 times–and couldn’t get through, either.
Back then, many people simply didn’t know how to navigate bureaucracy. Today, readers have no problem figuring out where to call, e-mail, write or fax. Getting through to a human being is another matter.
Of the letters and e-mails I receive, roughly half come with the words “URGENT!” “HELP!” or some other plea attached. I read them all, pick out a few to highlight, and make my calls.
I’m not always successful. In some cases, the reader is wrong, or The Man won’t budge. In some cases, I call … and call … and call … and I never get through.
In most circumstances, however, I’m able to resolve things. Most companies and government agencies want to do the right thing, even if it is under the threat of bad publicity. Some readily admit they made a mistake and, in the best of cases, change their practices.
As I write this, more e-mails and letters have come in.
A shoddy paint job in Sycamore. An unfair parking ticket in Waukegan. A vacation package to Cancun gone awry.
The problems never cease.
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jyates@tribune.com
