SpiceWare's Blog

So much of customer support is automated, and what isn't automated is sent to drones which dispatch customers' issues as quickly as possible. Without much understanding. Many low-cost, day-to-day, things are conducted this way. And not always to customer's satisfaction. I think we know this.

 

The way to get the show subscription reinstated would be to open a separate request inquiring as to why it was canceled when you didn't request cancellation. Make it clear you paid 19.99 on June 27th. And never refer to the original incident about missing end-credits.

 

You may have to get it escalated to the next tier of customer support, and the next. Or even try calling someone and saying your not getting satisfaction through the online support system. A lot of trouble? Probably yes.

 

Sucks for sure. Many times, more and more often, to my dismay, I have to think stupid in order to get complete satisfaction out of a product. And things online are at the top of the heap!

 

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These canned or plug'n'play responses and immediate refunds work 90% or some "X" amount of time. You can bet that whatever threshold is set, it is carefully calculated to deliver maximum profit with minimum customer interaction. It also factors in customer retention & churn and expects to lose a small number along the way. There is no striving to be the best

 

I continually (more and more) get the feeling that companies would be happiest if customers and people didn't exist and everything was done without them and by procedure.

 

The need to cut costs and automate is way overdone I think. Controlling costs, that's fine. Automation, that's fine. But please know when to stop psychotic and paranoid behavior.

Yeah, it's aggravating. It's not a lot of money, but I shouldn't have to pay for their mistake.

 

I tweeted at them, maybe something will come of that.

Apple's too big to care now. Corporately speaking. But I don't think they're where the problem actually lies.

 

A lot of licensing terms of TV and movie studio content is way out of their hands. They're a distributor - nothing more. They pay what's required, and get what they get. So they're bound by some really stupid rules imposed upon them by the publishers. Apple keeps fighting the studios for better deals, but they're way out of their league. They were successful in bullying the music industry, because the music industry was already collapsing due to file sharing. That's not happening with TV yet, as cable companies and the like still effectively have monopolies over the vast majority of consumers.

 

I keep hoping it will improve. Someday, I'd like to just buy what I want, when I want, from whom I want, and have it all be easy, affordable, seamless, and painless. But I don't think that's going to happen for a long time, if ever. I've been following your blog about it, but I'm not willing to put in that kind of effort to watch TV.

In this case, which is a customer service issue, the problem is Apple's. If it was a new subscription or new purchase or item with a newly increased price, then it would be the customer's responsibility. Naturally.

 

Apple has unlimited coffers and should draw from them and purchase a new subscription if they can't reinstate the old one.

I've sent them one final message, which I've added to the bottom of the blog entry.

Apple's too big to care now. Corporately speaking. But I don't think they're where the problem actually lies.

I disagree - I never asked for a refund, or to have my subscription cancelled; Apple support did that on their own.

Very true - although I was referring to the original problem of the credits missing (and the subsequent price change). The rest of it was completely stupid on their part.

In agreement on that - I figured by letting iTunes know they'd pass it on to whoever supplied the content, and that they'd let me know when it was fixed so I could redownload the episode.