On July 3rd, I took advantage of an offer I received via email and in my Koodo online account for streaming services (Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, CBC Gem) which was advertised as $23+tax/mo. I completed my subscription on the website and paid $25.76 by Visa Debit, then activated my subscriptions. The following day, I noticed a second debit from my bank account of $38.08 labelled as KOODO STREAM PL.
Now when I log into my account, I see that my monthly Stream+ subscription fee is $34, not the $23 that was advertised.
I submitted a request for a callback yesterday to discuss this. I removed the call screening function and made sure the number wasn’t blocked but did not receive a call. I went back to the app to say this, and the chatbot told me that two more attempts would be made. This morning I realized I had never received a call at all.
This afternoon, I submitted another request. I received a call back immediately from a lovely woman who informed me that I had the wrong department and she couldn’t help me; the call was dropped when she attempted to transfer me to the correct people. I went back to the chatbot and asked for another call back, and received one immediately.
The person who I spoke with turned out again to be the wrong department and I asked him if he could please document my feedback because this was exhausting and annoying, a really terrible customer experience. He said that all of the calls are recorded and the QA team would receive my feedback. I have worked in contact centres for more than 25y and am very familiar with these processes; I told him that I was well aware that QA does not listen to every single call and, even if they did hear my feedback, they were not the ones who would action customer feedback. All I wanted was for him to document and escalate the feedback but he was unwilling to do so. He seemed caught up on internal jargon that really wasn’t my concern and increased the confusion. The conversation escalated from there to me asking him to please transfer me to someone else because I was no longer willing to work with him. I absolutely was escalated myself but he made things worse by being unprofessional with comments such as “just let me do my job” and an overall poor attitude. He then transferred me as I requested (with a snarky tone), to the French line. Unsure if this was intentional or an accident but it really added to my frustration.
The French agent who took the transfer thankfully spoke English also, he demonstrated appropriate professionalism, empathy, and ownership. He investigated and determined that he, again, was NOT THE RIGHT PERSON, and cold transferred me to tech support level 2. I am currently speaking with this individual Nelson (who is great) and he’s explaining some sort of weird backend complication that really should not be impacting the customer, and that there is no current offer for $23/mo, only one promo offer that expires after 2 months (which is not what the offer I received says). I’m continuing to work through this with him and have confidence that he’ll resolve this for me eventually, but the amount of effort it has taken to get to this point is insane.
Additionally, every single time I’ve spoken to a new person, I have had to reauthenticate myself with my name, number, and PIN, as well as re-explaining the entire situation over again. This is absolutely ridiculous as a leader in technology that you do not have transfer notes coming through for the next agent, showing that the person is authenticated and what their issue is. The amount of time and energy I have had to invest in this is absurd.
Your teams should be enabled to handle issues at the first contact without having to cold transfer customers around the company endlessly and forcing the customer to re-authenticate and explain the reason for the call. The customer experience here is absolute garbage. If there is a specific team that calls for Stream+ subscribers need to go to, then you should be providing that as an option in the callback menu rather than the three that are there.
I’m also very unimpressed by the apparent bait-and-switch here of being offered $23/mo then being double charged on the day that I enrolled at a higher rate. I am a solo parent of two children, I receive $0 in child support, and literally every penny of my income is accounted for in a very carefully constructed budget. This $38 may seem insignificant but it was not in my budget and has now affected my ability to feed my children. This entire experience has been incredibly upsetting and has made me regret my decision to get home internet through your company; I have been a happy Koodo cellular customer for years without a single problem and this is not the level of service I have come to expect.
Efforts to streamline and centralize your customer service should be explored, your internal IVR appears to need to be modernized, and the second agent I spoke to needs some coaching on professionalism and de-escalation skills. Lastly, please share kudos with Nelson and his leadership team for his diligence in resolving this for me; he has demonstrated ownership and empathy throughout the call and should be recognized for that.
