on August 30th, I’ll be packing up a U-haul and heading out of dc.  i’m definitely excited, but i’m a bit nervous as well.  there are just so many things to do before the end of the month:

• finding an new place to live
• buying boxes
• reserving a u-haul
• packing boxes
• cleaning
• canceling my utilities
• canceling my gym membership
• changing my address with the usps
• starting all my new utilities
• showing my apartment

needless to say, i’ve spoken to more customer service reps in the last 2 weeks than i ever thought existed in the world.  only problem is, only one person that i’ve spoken to so far has had even the slightest grasp on customer service!

i’ll be honest, part of the reason i chose my apartment sight unseen was just because the girl i spoke with was soooo extremely helpful and friendly.  now mom did go check it out for me so don’t be too worried if you don’t hear from me after Sept 1.

yesterday, i had the worst of all customer service experiences to date.  admittedly, michael warned me about using U-haul, but i’d never had any problems before so i ignored him like usual.    2 weeks ago i reserved a truck to take me from dc to texas, but at that point i wasn’t exactly sure where i was moving.  yesterday i called to edit the reservation to let them exactly where i was moving to and to add a trailer to the reservation because we’re now planning to haul my car (the moldmobile definitely isn’t drive-able that far).  the women i encountered was horrendous.  she actually told me that there’s no such place as allen, texas. this after i had spelled it to her 18 times.  i offered her the address of the closest U-haul location in plano, texas, but she couldn’t find that either.  my favorite part of the conversation was when i asked to speak to a manager or just someone else and she refused to transfer me to anyone.

immediately after hanging up on her, i realized that i might not still even have a reservation.  honestly though, i doubt she knew how to cancel the reservation even if she wanted to.  i asked my father to call the number again and he was able to edit the reservation successfully, after spelling “plano” to her about 18 times as well.

after my phone call, i immediately filed a customer service complaint on uhaul.com.  now i know all of this make me sound like a whiny, hormonal female, but really – a little bit of extra communication can go a long way.  a “please” and a “thank you” really aren’t all that hard.  i know that she probably didn’t want to be at her job on a saturday and i can’t really blame her for that, but she’s representing a brand and company.  i don’t want to be hand-held (in fact, when people are overly nice it’s a bit creepy), but common courtesy would be nice.