I worked from home Monday because my home phone line had corroded from excessive moisture in the basement and the only time that the phone company could offer me for repair service was a nine-hour window: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. When I spoke to the service representative on Sunday, I was dismayed with the idea of staying home the entire day, and I let her know: "Your company should be ashamed that all it can offer me is a nine-hour window for repair." Up until that moment, the service representative was calm and polite. The moment I changed my tone though, she became cross and began to speak louder in an upset voice, defending the long wait as "standard." I asked her to please not raise her voice. She was now angry that I was not happy. She at least wins points for identifying closely with her company, but what about the customer? Who is on the customer's side?

I was trying to resist laughing at the absurdity of the situation. This same company, not two days earlier, mailed me an offer to move my broadband to its DSL service, because it was cheaper than the competition. Sure, I thought, now I can double my chances of being chastised and getting poor service. But I was in for a bigger surprise. After waiting the entire day Monday, no repair person showed up at my house. At 5:30 p.m., an automated voice unit called my house: "This is to confirm your repair for tomorrow, Tuesday, 16 May 2006, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m." The service repair agent had gotten her revenge. She mis-scheduled the repair call. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, we'll never know. And when I called again, they apologized for their error and promised me the first appointment on Tuesday: between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. In my dreams, maybe. The technician arrived at 5 p.m. and sat in my driveway talking on her cell phone. She was blissfully unaware of the promise made to me the night before.

What can we understand from this? This telecommunications company will never uncover that it might as well be burning its marketing dollars, because during its moments of truth, in front of the customer, it is failing. And worse still, it will never know that it is failing. The processes are flawed, the brand promise is not kept and the offers are poorly timed. For all we know, the National Security Agency is likely to hear the conversation of my poor customer experience before a customer service supervisor.

How good are you at understanding the true customer experience?