Customer Service - a lost art?

Tonight, my dear friends, brings to a close a 5 day trial on my admittedly limited patience.  Five days ago I decided to upgrade our satellite package slightly, still within our budget, but a better package deal with some channels we've really missed.  An hour after I upgraded the trouble started.  I suddenly had half of the channels I'd had before, and none of the new channels.  After an hour on line with a live technician and another half hour on the phone, I was informed that my current receiver was "toast" and needed to be replaced for $75.  I argued this, citing a 15 year history with the company, and the cost was promptly waived.  Unfortunately, we had no service until the new receiver arrived.

Today I found that UPS had tucked the receiver behind a garden hose yesterday, so I retrieved the box and excitedly installed our pretty new, steam lined receiver.  All by myself.  Not an easy task when dealing with a component that also connects to a stereo receiver, DVD, and TV.  I then attempted to activate it and was given an error message that I needed to contact customer service.  I again got on the internet chat for the company, after waiting in line for over 20 minutes, and was told that my new receiver was now activated.  The tech then tried to end the session.  I objected saying that the onscreen guide still didn't show the proper channels.  We then argued about my upgraded package, the cost, and the timing of the loss of channels.  After 20 minutes of this I was abruptly transferred to another "senior" technician, and we started all over again.

This session went downhill even more rapidly than the previous conversation.  The final outcome was being told that I had to pay $95 for a technician to come to the house in 3 days, at an undetermined time so I would have to take off work, because the problem had to be my dish or cables.  When I asked how they explained that everything worked fine until an hour after upgrading the tech responded with, and I quote, "Coincidence".  I then firmly told the tech that I apologized to him/her personally, but that I was totally fed up and would be cancelling my service.  Obviously gone were the days when the company would send a tech on a weekend at no charge because the cause of the problem wasn't due to something we had done or by an act of nature.  I've been a faithful customer and staunch supporter of the company, but that was now over.  The tech's response, you ask?  "Ok."  Seriously.

I spent another couple of hours surfing the net checking on other TV options, streaming to computer, upgrading Netflix, etc.  When my roommate came home we discussed it further, and agreed that cancelling was the best option, and that between us we had enough other methods to find entertainment and current events.  So I called... (deep sigh).  After discussing my recent events with the live person on the phone, he was offering to upgrade my equipment, waive all repair fees, give me the package I really wanted at a discount for a year, then at normal price for a year, and send the repairman on a Saturday, also at no cost.  The hitch was that I had to agree to a 2 year contract.  I was teetering on the edge when my roommate stepped into the room and gave me "that look".  I cancelled the service.  The rep was nice enough to say that there would be no charges, and that if I call again in 24 hours I would receive a refund for the past 5 days of no service.  Basically, I should get a refund of about $1.50 in 60-90 days.

And just so you know, I was extremely nice to the live person who tried to keep me as a customer.  I even told him that I'd been a bit rude to the tech earlier, for which I felt bad, but I'm sorely disappointed with the company.  I think if I'd pushed it I could have gotten free service for a year the way he was scrambling to keep me, but I didn't feel right about that.  Mostly.

I'm exhausted, wasted 7 hours of my weekend, and ate too much ice cream a little while ago.  Now I'm having a nice Kahlua and milk (low fat, low carb - I'm not going totally off the deep end), watching Fraggle Rock, tormenting the cats, and laughing with my roommate.

The moral of the story, boys and girls?  If it works just the way it is - for heaven's sake don't upgrade it, don't replace it, and don't call customer service!