Those Dreaded Customer Service Calls

I would like to think that most people, like me, hate calling customer service. However, I have a friend who loves it. He looks forward to the thrill of arguing with the representative, the rush of victory when he gets his way. I, on the other hand, dread those calls like the plague. I put it off for days, then gather up my courage as I pick up the phone, and hope that the person on the other end doesn't make me cry.

To my extreme frustration, the new mattress I received a month ago has already developed a 1" indentation where I sleep. The mattress I spent months picking out. The mattress that, when delivered, brought a huge sigh of relief, as I thought the whole ordeal was over. After a while, I thought I could feel the mattress sagging, but wrote it off as my imagination. However, in the past couple of weeks the indentation got too deep to ignore. I am now waking up every morning with terrible back pain.

I finally sucked it up this morning and called Sears, prepared to argue my case to the death (or until they made me cry). And while I don't think customer service calls are ever pleasant (the long waits on hold, the transfers from person to person), it was not as bad as I expected. This could be in part due to the fact that I had spent the last few days psyching myself out by reading others' customer service horror stories online. In the end, they offered me a store exchange for a mattress of my choosing, which was more than I expected, but less than what I feel I deserve. Part of me feels like I should have argued longer and harder to make my point, but would it have been worth it? In the end, I'm accepting that I'm not an "arguer", and unless I want to become an arguer, I have to be willing to accept a little less. Really, it doesn't feel as pathetic as it sounds.

What are your experiences making customer service calls? Any tips?

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