Circa June 2013: Town and Country

19 June 2013:

So I call Town and Country and I think they have the worst operator/receptionist/desk worker ever. I have been calling all day without any update on our plan.

I call, the young lady on the other end, who by-the-way is sounding like I am disturbing her relaxation AT WORK!, would tell me she needs to transfer to the officers who will have access to the plan. Every time I get transferred, the phone either rings off the hook or I get disconnected. I know that getting angry with her would only reduce the "quality" assistance I am getting so I maintain a calm and pleasant tone with each call back.

When I explain to my new "friend" that I am not getting a connection, she proceeds to ask me for my application number. Why this wasn't done originally, I do not know. It didn't help anyways as all she can tell me is that my application is pending. I asked her exactly what does that mean or at what stage is my application, all I get is 'I wouldn't know that ma'am, I am not the officer so I wouldn't have access' and she remains on the line like I should accept that as a suitable update and never call again. Yeah right

I continue to request that I be transferred to someone who can give me more information. This went on for probably two weeks with one or two other persons coming on the line promising to call me back with an update or tell me to call back for them but my "friend" took my calls to another level. She knew my voice now and strangely my calls would disconnect before I even get to ask for a transfer. If I asked for one of the persons who told me to call them back for an update, my "friend" would state she doesn't know who that person is or again, the transfers would just not go through.

I was pissed and so was Samurai every time I was unsuccessful. It was now the end of July and on the day of our anniversary, we sat on the beach drinking wine and spoke about the horrible service we were getting and how badly we wanted an update to start work on the house. I originally felt so positive about having these approvals quickly because of articles like this and this that spoke about how their backlog has been reduced and their service approved. Clearly this was all PR and far from reality for this Government agency.

Samurai decided enough was enough so before we went to pick up our daughter from daycare, we made a little detour to the Town and Country office in the Twin Towers. We were both scruffy and poorly dressed. My vanity kept me in the car but Samurai is a crazy one and didn't care how he looked at the time.

He was gone for probably an hour when he called to tell me that all staff was in a meeting and there was no word on when they will be out. Samurai didn't care, he sat and he waited. As workers returned, he said they all passed him straight, probably because it was getting close the end of the day. Then, one worker walked in and noticed Samurai and asked if he was getting through. When Samurai explained the purpose of his visit, not only to get an update but to also express his disgust about the poor customer service by their operator, the guy revealed he was a supervisor and promised to have the officer assigned to our plan to give us a call by the end of the that week. He asked that we send him an e-mail detailing the issues we experienced in getting an update via the phone and promised to follow up on our concerns. We felt so relieved after that visit because according to Samurai, he felt positive Mr. Pariag would keep his word.