I had reason to contact the customer service departments of two very different organisations this week. Virgin Media – run by Mr Richard ‘The customer is always right’ Bransen. And MusicMP3.ru, a Russian MP3 site (probably) run by shady software pirates with links to either the Russian mafia, Chechen rebels or both.
Virgin Media have just taken over NTL, the company I get my broadband and TV through. Both were down and I wanted to know what was going on. Forty-five minutes, five different numbers, and a dozen jobsworths who said it wasn’t their problem later, I was finally put through to lady in a call centre in India. She told me engineers were looking into and it should be resolved by the end of the day. She then had the cheek to try and sign me up for their phone service. A service that I wouldn’t have been able use if I’d had it because of the ‘engineering’ problems.
With the Russians, I’d used PayPal to top up my account and the money hadn’t been credited. Paying by credit card isn’t an option any more. The record companies have but pressure on Visa et al to stop accepting payments. I emailed MusicMP3 to tell them about the problem and I got an email back within seconds asking me to forward the receipt from PayPal showing that I’d paid the money. A few seconds later the money was credited to my MusicMP3 account and I got another email apologising for the delay. I celebrated by downloading the new Mika album.
Now that I’ve listened to it, I wish MusicMP3′s customer service had been as crap as Virgin’s.
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Recent Press Release Statement from MusicMP3.ru -
Zee reason for zee such good customer service vee enjoy here at MusicMP3.ru ees because vee shoots zee incompetents in our organization. Vee have found zis technique to be most effective in promoting excellent verk from our employees.
Hmm their press spokesman must be German…
Yes, a good comedy Russian voice needs a few more ‘dahs’
Well, Peter, it seems that you just got lucky, or maybe cause your check was a bit larger than they usually get (and it probably is larger than most Russians would pay). I mean I live here in Russia and I can tell you hundreds of stories about my encounter with the Russian services. Believe me, when I used to live in Australia, shopping was kinda therapy for for me, I felt like I am welcome at the shops, I could ask whatever questions I had, etc. Plus I had some experience working as a sales assistant in Sydney, so I can speak from both sides the client and the sales. Here (at least in Novosibirsk, where I live), however, the bloody sales people look like they always have smth better to do, than talking to some customer!! By no means do I want to put you off coming to Russia, but do not rely on getting the kind of service you got at musicmp3.ru everywhere. It is worse than is Sydney, take my word for it. There are of course exceptions, but the picture overall is not optimistic
In Soviet Russia, the customer service calls you!
(okay, that was really bad. Sorry for the lame joke)
MusicMP3 is now not even taking PayPal!!! Those bl**dy commie music companies really piss me off.