THIS JUST IN: cheating on your wife may have consequences.

If you want to keep your home life private, perhaps you shouldn’t expose your private parts outside your home.

And these, as the subject of celebrities cheating and same sex marriages both trended on Twitter on the same day:

One of MY values is married people shouldn’t cheat. Therefore, I hereby invalidate a fuck-load of marriages. Go get a civil union, cheaters.

…And if I was a cheater I’d still be allowed to be married but same-sex couples aren’t…

I found two fantastic Esquire articles about Tiger via Twitter as well, tweeted by @jonniker, which I think everyone should read. The first Is This the End of Tiger Woods? was written on December 3 regarding recent events. That article links to an earlier story written in 1997 which speaks to the highly constructed images of celebrities like Tiger’s, images that no person alive can live up to.

Yes, I guess I’m playing into the cult of media obsession by talking about this on Twitter and here. I guess. I don’t want to dwell on it, but I do think he has lost some right to privacy by breaching it his damn self . But. I don’t believe we have the right to be informed of every step along the way to the ultimate resolution Tiger and his wife come to, whether that is a reconciliation or a divorce, and it is not up to the media to decide or speculate about that resolution.

What I do want to say is this: How would this have played out if Tiger’s image had been one of a human, flawed individual instead of the Second Coming? In a world where we are fascinated by reality television and peering into the homes of celebrities, why do PR folks and other handlers (I don’t know the correct terms) insist on spewing forth unrealistic images of celebrities? Why not be honest and present them as they are, warts and all? Tiger was a very young man when he emerged into the public eye. It is only to be expected he had some flaws, and maybe some serious ones. But hiding his flaws from the public only resulted in a fall from grace that has been that much more disastrous and fascinating to the general public.

I don’t want to know every detail of celebrities’ lives, I truly don’t. But I also don’t appreciate essentially being lied to by the false fronts we are so often presented with. Be honest. We know these people are human, give us some credit and stop trying to whitewash them if you don’t want the media salivating all over the place when they do mess up.

Lastly, with respect to his privacy being breached, please read this while I’m busy rolling my eyes clear out of my head:

“1) “Although I am a well-known person and have made my career as a professional athlete, I have been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means.”

It means you can’t misbehave without people finding out, stupid. Tiger Woods gets all huffy about privacy in his web message last week about his “transgressions,” perhaps forgetting that picking downmarket kiss-and-tell girlfriends might have an effect on his wife’s privacy. Just a thought.”(source).

Exactly.

• Rogers made me lose my shit and I started talking smack about retarded three year olds. Also: I blew up their website
• And then I was like “I’m gonna tell Twitter on you” and they were all like “I’m not allowed to play with Twitter” and I said “Ya well, you suck”
• So then Rogers said “I’m not listening LALALALALALALA” and I was like “NO SHIT, SHERLOCK”
• Then Rogers said “Ya well, you OWE ME MONEY, pay up or else” and I said “No YOU owe ME money” and they were all “I know you are but what am I?”
• @RogersHelps stepped in and said “Hey, hey, what’s going on here, kids?” and that night the principal’s office, I mean the president’s office, called and promised to give me back my lunch iPhone money

Yes, that’s about where I left off.

So. I spoke to someone in the president’s office on Tuesday night and he said he was actively looking into the matter and would call me back the next night. I (very calmly, I may add), reiterated my concerns with their customer service:

• I was given misinformation about the best way to place an order
• Their e-care system allowed me to order a back-ordered item without any indication (or follow up) that there would be a delay
• They screwed up canceling the port request on the e-care order
• I had to speak to multiple people to find someone who could correct the port request issue
• I was given misinformation about when I could expect to receive my refund
• Their phone system assumed I was a Pay As You Go customer, making it hard to reach the right department
• Their phone system repeatedly cut me off
• They passed me around to multiple customer service reps, none of whom could help
• No one could find any evidence of the e-care order or its cancellation
• The fact that I had an e-care order prior to being a customer Blew.Their.Damn.Minds
• It took over 45 minutes to ultimately be told “umm, can’t help you. sorry.”
• Their customer contact page bombed out when I tried to contact them through their site
• The responses I received in reply to my emails were devoid of any useful information
• Their customer service staff had a complete lack of understanding regarding the implications of me taking my complaints to Facebook and Twitter
• Their own staff is unaware of the @RogersHelps Twitter account
• Their system failed to keep a complete record of their dealings with me, which led to their accounts receivable department demanding payment from me while the credit owing to me was still in dispute

He agreed that the things I experienced were neither appropriate nor in line with the kind of customer service Rogers wants to provide its customers.  He acknowledged there is a need for work to be done on some of their “back-end” processes, especially surrounding e-care, and he told me he’d call back the next day.

Early Wednesday morning , Miranda at @RogersHelps sent me a message on Twitter, asking if the matter had been resolved.  I let her know I was expecting to hear back sometime during the day, and I did – that evening I received a voicemail leting me know that they would know the “timeline” for when I could expect my refund by Friday.  Not super impressive, but a step in the right direction.

Miranda continued to follow up with me on Twitter and on Thursday afternoon, I received a final call from the president’s office – he said the refund had been processed the night before, (on Wednesday, September 23) and I should expect to see it on my credit card statement within a few business days (it showed up on Saturday – only two or three days after it was eventually processed). He apologized for the experiences I had with Rogers, especially given that I am a brand new customer.

Additionally, in order to somewhat compensate me for the significant amount of time I spent trying to resolve this matter, and for the frustration and roadblocks I faced along the way, my first month’s bill has been written off. That and the acknowledgment they had, indeed, dorked me around was enough to satisfy me and bring this matter to a close.

Am I terrified I may have to contact customer service in the future? Yeah, a bit. But I’m hopeful Rogers is trying to reach out to their customers in new ways, including Twitter, and I know they have at least one awesome customer service rep, Miranda at @RogersHelps.  I am positive that without Miranda’s help I would still be trying to storm Rogers’ customer service brick wall with email and phone calls and swear words.

Finally, I need to emphasize that this matterwas ultimately resolved using Twitter, and I’m delighted it was – but I have another post brewing in my head about that.

@purplelara Hi, I’m with the RogersHelps team. We try to assist customers online.  Is there something I can help with? ^mm

Obviously, given the length of my posts below, being succinct isn’t one of my strong suits, so I wasn’t entirely sure how to reply in under 140 characters, so I directed her back to my blog.  In the meantime, she (^mm is apparently their rep, Miranda) followed me on Twitter so we could DM each other and sent this message:

@purplelara Can you DM the # associated with your account? I’d like to try and help. ^mm

I DM’d my account number and e-care order number and received another message:

@purplelara Thanks for the info. I’m looking into this for you. ^mm

Now this is very interesting. In all the (lengthy) email correspondence I had with Rogers, they repeatedly told me  Twitter was not an acceptable means of communicating with them – and I tried to make clear to them how misguided I thought that was.

And yet, the quickest, most helpful communication I’ve had from Rogers in the last month or so was via Twitter.

It appears that Rogers does in fact monitor their Twitter activity and has a team in place to follow up on tweets from frustrated customers – a quick look at the @RogersHelps Twitter page shows the majority of their tweets are directed to other Twitter users who mention Rogers.

Encouraging.  Somewhat.  I had been tweeting about Rogers for a few days before I heard from them, but in their defense (I’m not trying to be unfair here), I mentioned the @RogersWireless account and not @RogersHelps. In my defense, I had no idea the @RogersHelps account existed.  I searched for RogersWireless in Twitter and assumed @RogersWireless was a main Rogers Twitter presence, but it seems I was wrong.

So, while I applaud Rogers for having a team monitoring Twitter and addressing customers through that medium, I’ll remain critical of their commitment to new ways to connect with their customers until they actually make  their Twitter presence known to their customers AND their own customer service reps.

Nowhere on Rogers.com (that I could find, and again, if it’s not accessible, it’s not effective) is there any mention that “RogersHelps” customers on Twitter. Searching “Rogers Twitter” on Google won’t find it for you, and their very own customer service reps not only are unaware of it, they actively discouraged me from using Twitter as a means to communicate with them, telling me “we are not allowed to visit Face book [sic] and Twitter while we are at work.”

So, is Twitter an effective way to communicate with businesses?  Miranda forwarded my concerns (whether she tracked down my emails or simply forwarded the contents of my tweets and blog link, I’m not sure) to someone in the office of the President of Rogers Wireless, who called me tonight.

The story is not over yet, but I have now spoken to a live human being who had all my information at hand, who promised to call me back and (get this) GAVE ME HIS DIRECT LINE.

Hopefully I’ll be able to write the end of this story tomorrow. In the meantime, thank you Miranda.

Someone from Rogers replied to me on the weekend, a lengthy email full of nothing and yet rife with typos and continuing to miss the point entirely.

To sum it up:

Blah blah Facebook blah blah Twitter blah blah not the right forum blah blah blah. Name, postal code, birthdate?

and of course:

I understand your frustration, Oh Valued Customer. Call me!

It’s almost like they are TRYING to be useless. My latest reply:

You have suggested that I need to send my concerns to you in an email format. Unless it is so extremely well hidden that I could not locate it, there is no email address provided on your site as a means to contact Rogers. The story of my customer service experience with Rogers is a long one (and I wish it were not so) so I had a long comment to make. Given that you have forced me into such a long story and given your site completely and inelegantly prevented me from submitting a long comment AND given that I had no email address to contact you, the best I could do at the time was to type up my comments externally and forward the link to you.

You have stated that using forums such as websites and social media sites are not the correct way to have complaints addressed. You seem to be missing the point that in the absence of giving your clients a forum on which to submit their (sometimes long) complaints, they will take their voices somewhere they will be heard – if not by you, by hundreds of other people. Instead of having one person (me) aware of your ridiculous customer service, hundreds of people are now aware of it. If that is the face you wish to put on your business in the age of social media, so be it.

In any event. Once again, for about the 15th time, here are my relevant details:

Postal code: XXX XXX
Cell number: XXX-XXX-XXX
Date of birth: XX/XX/XXXX
Account number: XXXXXXXX
e-care order number: XXXXXX

My email address, phone number and e-care order number were provided with my original comment. I do not have a pin number.

I am not sure why you would make reference to contacting Pay As You Go customer support. I am not, and never have been, a Pay As You Go customer. I have never mentioned that in any of my contact with you – the only reference to Pay As You Go is in my blog post, which, according to you, you are unable to read.

I would rather eat glass than attempt to make my way through the minefield you call your customer service department. The last time I called I was cut off (repeatedly), transferred to about seven different people AND ended the call after 45 minutes no closer to a resolution that I was when I began the call.

Which is kind of the point.

Please do not thank me for my patience, and do not tell me I am a valued customer. Valued customers would not be asked to be as patient as you have FORCED me to be. If you valued your customers you would not have them experience such extreme frustration every time they contact you. From the first time I called Rogers, every contact has been an exercise in frustration. I have been given conflicting information, cut off, passed around and mislead.

If I were a valued customer, you would have returned the money you owe me in a timely fashion. If I was a valued customer you would have attempted to resolve my issue in one short phone call, rather than make me spend literally hours trying to resolve this.

I will only believe I am a valued customer if you immediately return my money, provide me with an explanation as to why you have held this money for so long AND explain to be why I have had to go to such lengths to have this issue resolved. At this point simply returning the money is not enough.

Thank you. My original comment appears below.

…..

Lather, rinse, repeat…SIGH.