Friday, February 4, 2011

eFax Customer Support Really "Wow'd" me... not in a positive way

Update March 12, 2011:
Received:

Thank you for contacting eFax customer support.

The issue that you are experiencing needs a special attention, hence to solve your problem at the earliest we request you to contact one of our Customer Service representatives at 1-323-817-3205. Representatives are available to assist 24/7.
We apologize for the inconvenience, if any.

Sincerely,
Michael W

eFax® Customer Support


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Update March 2, 2011:  Today I received the following:  There's definitely "nobody home" at eFax support.
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Dear Crockett,

Thank you for contacting eFax customer support.

We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

If you have received a "junk fax", please take the following steps:

1. If the fax contains a phone number, fax number or other contact information to "unsubscribe", please do so.

2. If you are unable to "unsubscribe," please submit the offending fax to us online at  http://www.efax.com/privacy?tab=reportSpam . We will investigate your complaint, and attempt to prevent further transmission of junk faxes from the provided source.

We appreciate your patience and look forward to continuing to make the eFax experience a positive one for you.

Sincerely,
Michael W

eFax® Customer Support
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eFax customer support... wow!
It's been a while since I've run into this degree of non-service from a household-brand-name dot-com  company (eFax!).  You know, the kind of support inquiry that actually hurts you by taking more value from you in the form of time, than it provides to you in the form of solutions?
Sure, this was common in the late 1990's when tech companies were growing faster than they could keep up with.  But not so much anymore.
Here's the story:
1) On my fax "usage," I have 19 pages of unathorized faxes billed to me (long story short, I had to add QuickBooks Billpay Errors email address to my allowed senders list to email faxes from QB through eFax gateway, and eFax now thinks I'm picking up the tab for every other QB user).
2) I email customer support.
3) I promptly receive a response instructing me to PHONE customer support.
4) Wondering why a support email is even listed, I call the support telephone number.
5) The call is dropped on the receiving end before I reach anything of use within the voicemail choices.
6) On the second attempt, now that I know my way through the voicmail, I reach a support rep quickly.
7) The connection is terrible, and I'm having trouble understanding the representative's accent.  (I'm an IT professional, so I know my way around heavy Eurasian accents.  This one is exceptional.)  After some struggle, I understand enough to give my name, eFax number, zip, and email address.
8) The eFax customer support representative confidently, almost forcefully, tells me he understands my problem, describing the problem back to me in a way that indicates he definitely does NOT understand my problem, and then he continues on to tell me how he cannot help me.
9) The customer support representative is not receptive to my attempts at clarification.
9) At this point I know the drill- get off phone ASAP to save my time, then find a route to some kind of real support or a complaints departement.
10) Indicating this, I say, "OK it sounds like you can't help me," to which the eFax customer support representative responds, "Yes thank you is there anything else I can help you with?"
11) I once again resort to emailing eFax customer service, relating what happened, and asking if there is any real support available, indicating that if not, I plan to cancel my account and find a new vendor.  This is not a silly, hollow threat. Trust me I am not so deluded as to think bluffing about taking away a single business user account will help me.  The fact is if eFax isn't working for me, and eFax customer service can't help me, it's time for a new vendor.
I look forward to seeing if eFax has a real customer support system for non-standard requests.

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