Customer Experience and Customer Expectations
I recently had a conversation with my cell phone carrier that went something like this:
Me: Hello, my phone sometimes won't receive calls until I power it off and then on again even though I am in a location where I receive calls all the time.
Rep: I see. How many times per day do you turn your phone off and on again?
Me: Unless I have to, I never turn my phone off.
Rep: I think you should turn your phone off and then on again at least 3-4 times per day.
Me: (incredulous) 3-4 times per day! Why?
Rep: The longer your phone stays within 1 cell tower the lower your signal strength gets. When you power your device on and off it re-registers you on the network and increases your signal strength.
Me: (still incredulous) Shouldn't the system take care of that? Why should staying near 1 tower cause me to not receive calls?
Rep: You should do it 3-4 times per day and that should solve your problems.
Me: I understand what you're saying, but I don't think this is a reasonable solution.
Rep: (exasperated) Do you leave your computer on all the time or do you shut it down?
Me: Actually I leave it on 24 hours a day.
Rep: But don't you find that it slows down the longer you leave it on? Its kind of like that.
Me: (several seconds of befuddled silence trying to decide how deep I should get into this)
Me: Yes, I see what you are trying to say, but do you think that is the way things should be?
Rep: Is there anything else I can help you with?
Me: No thanks.
Rep: Thanks for using T-Mobile
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So rather than commiserating with me about this unfortunate “feature“ and telling me why this might happen. (I'm guessing this allows more phones per tower or something like that) she tries to tell me some lame story about another industry that has had a poor customer experience. As if that justifies what she is telling me. I expect my phone to work without “rebooting“ it every 2 hours. My expectation is that it works the same as my land line. I know that technologically they don't have anything in common except a speaker and a microphone, but that is my expectation. And normally my expectation is met, which is why I'm frustrated by this issue.