Customer Satisfaction!

Hello!

I would like to present a bit of show and tell today.
It's a piece that comes in the form of a letter. This letter encompasses nearly every emotion realised when discussing this particular topic, not only between myself and Brommers but also between myself and Brommers AND loads of other people!
Why? Well because it's universal. We've all been there.
The classic grumble of being plunged into an endless circular loop of crap muzak and the less than hopeful, cultish chant of:

"Your call is important to us,
a member of our customer services
team will answer your call shortly"

To which my (and everyone I've ever talked about this with's) reaction is always:
"If my call is really that important to you, a member of your snail paced customer services team should answer my fucking call now!" I am, however, an impatient bastard that, on some basic level at least, thinks that the world revolves around me. Specifically if I'm having trouble with my telephone / broadband / satellite TV service. When these illogical conditions are met the world not only revolves around me it accelerates and shifts it's orbit to not only wallop me in the face every rotation but give me a swift smack on the arse as it's lunar course passes my pale and already extremely aggravated derriere.

We have covered this topic on the show on numerous occasions and I can honestly say that the response to such treatment, as displayed within the message below, is absolute fucking genius.

If only I could one day be so lucky as to be able to vent such bile and spleen on to a page then I feel that my life would at that point be very much complete.

I would like to present to you, the only complaint letter ever worth a read, as told by the man, the myth, the legend, Mr Robert Stokes.

Take it away Bob...


Dear Cretins,

I have been an NTL customer since 9th July 2001, when I signed up for your four-in-one deal for cable TV, cable modem, telephone, and alarm monitoring. During this three month period I have encountered inadequacy of service which I had not previously considered possible, as well as ignorance and stupidity of monolithic proportions. Please allow me to provide specific details, so that you can either pursue your professional prerogative and seek to rectify these difficulties -- or more likely (I suspect) so that you can have some entertaining reading material as you while away the working day smoking B&H and drinking vendor-coffee on the bog in your office.

My initial installation was cancelled without warning, resulting in my spending an entire Saturday sitting on my fat arse waiting for your technician to arrive. When he did not arrive, I spent a further 57 minutes listening to your infuriating hold music, and the even more annoying Scottish robot woman telling me to look at your helpful website. HOW? I alleviated the boredom by playing with my testicles for a few minutes (an activity at which you are no doubt both familiar and highly adept. The rescheduled installation then took place some two weeks later, although the technician did forget to bring a number of vital tools) such as a drill-bit and his cerebrum. Two weeks later, my cable modem had still not arrived. After 15 telephone calls over four weeks my modem arrived, six weeks after I had requested it and begun to pay for it. I estimate your Internet server's downtime is roughly 35% between the hours between about 6 pm and midnight, Monday through Friday and most of the weekend. I am still waiting for my telephone connection.

I have made nine calls on my mobile to your no-help line and have been unhelpfully transferred to a variety of disinterested individuals who are, it seems, also highly skilled bollock jugglers. I have been informed that a telephone line is available (and someone will call me back); that I will be transferred to someone who knows whether or not a telephone line is available (and then been cut off); that I will be transferred to someone (and then been redirected to an answering machine informing me that your office is closed); that I will be transferred to someone and then been redirected to the irritating Scottish robot woman. And several other variations on this theme.

Doubtless you are no longer reading this letter, as you have at least a thousand other dissatisfied customers to ignore and also another one of those crucially important testicle moments to attend to. Frankly I don't care. It's far more satisfying as a customer to voice my frustrations in print than to shout them at your unending hold music. Forgive me, therefore, if I continue.

I thought British Telecom was crap; that they had attained the holy piss-pot of god-awful customer relations and that no one, anywhere, ever, could be more disinterested, less helpful or more obstructive to delivering service to their customers. That's why I chose NTL and because, well, there isn't anyone else is there?

How surprised I therefore was when I discovered to my considerable dissatisfaction and disappointment what a useless shower of bastards you truly are. You are sputum-filled pieces of distended rectum, incompetents of the highest order. BT, wankers though they are, shine like brilliant beacons of success in the filthy mire of your seemingly limitless inadequacy.

Suffice to say that I have now given up on my futile and foolhardy quest to receive any kind of service from you. I suggest that you cease any potential future attempts to extort payment from me for the services which you have so pointedly and catastrophically failed to deliver. Any such activity will be greeted initially with hilarity and disbelief and will quickly be replaced by derision and even perhaps bemused rage.

I enclose two small deposits, selected with great care from my cat's litter tray, as an expression of my utter and complete contempt for both you and your pointless company. I sincerely hope that they have not become desiccated during transit -- they were satisfyingly moist at the time of posting, and I would feel considerable disappointment if you did not experience both their rich aroma and delicate texture. Consider them the very embodiment of my feelings towards NTL and its worthless employees.

Have a nice day. May it be the last in your miserable short lives, you irritatingly incompetent and infuriatingly unhelpful bunch of twits.
May you rot in Hell.

Robert Stokes



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