What are your tips/tricks for escalating your issues with big corps?
As question implies, big corporations (banks, telecos, etc.) often let customer troubles get lost in the shuffle. You're only able to call an 800 number and the system is designed to make it difficult to escalate an issue to anyone that can actually take action.
What are your tips for getting around this system? For things like Google, we often see people do a hail mary post on HN. Sometimes people email Tim Cook or Jeff Bezos. But especially for banks, it's difficult to find someone who cares. What has worked for you?
For banks specifically, depending on the error you pursuing relief for, you can also reach out to your state's financial regulator, the CFPB, and the OCC (in that order).
If your bank sucks, switch banks (either to a credit union or a brokerage, depending on your financial needs). Life is too short to deal with unnecessary levels of suck when alternatives are plentiful.
Look, we're stuck with some big businesses; it's hard to have a cell phone without the big three carriers. But there's no reason to use a big bank that doesn't care about customer service. Credit unions have big ATM networks, and most of them have good customer service, and some of them actually have interest rates on deposits (as much as anyone does these days, but 0.5% is better than 0.001%). Even doing banking at a brokerage is a step up vs a big bank.
All that said, a registered letter often helps, and so does copying said letter to their regulator and/or a relevant member of congress. If I had a major issue and couldn't get anything done, I'd try protesting at their corporate HQ.
Refusing to pay.
Every scummy telco that makes it impossible to get in touch will suddenly try to call you and even work within your terms (in a normal situation, asking them to call back at a specific time tomorrow is a no-no, but suddenly when they're out of money they'll be more than happy to do so) once they need something from you. As a bonus you will typically speak to a competent person instead of a monkey.
Of course you need to make sure you're legally in the clear. In general, if they're not delivering the service promised and reasonable efforts to resolve the situation amicably were unsuccessful then it's fair game considering if they want to take it to the courts they'd need to first explain and justify why they weren't receptive to those efforts.
"You're only able to call an 800 number"
sweetie no that's just what they want you to think. Find the address of their office and write into them recorded delivery (in the UK this means a signature from someone on receipt of the letter but you might have a different phrase for it). It shows them you're not going to jump through any hoops you don't have a legal obligation to jump through and also that you're collecting evidence to escalate it beyond them if they don't cooperate.
LIKE THIS: we use Upserve for our restaurant POS’s. We have had a new support lead every few months since the original team and CEO, Angus, left. Since then, the product has been sold several times and the product hasn’t changed, and more and more standard functions fail. Then you get on support and wait 90 min and the queue shuts down when everyone goes to line. It’s shameful. We’ll be leaving for another provider soon - just need to confirm credit card pre authorizations.
Switch to another company. For example why do you need a big bank? Unless you are a big company yourself small financial institutions will provide all the services you need.
Most companies Twitter support is much better than any phone or email line because they hate super negative sentiment of their brand being so public.
Twitter. Find all major twitter handles for the given corp and make a charged twit.
They all monitor social media and will highly likely reply fast.
I just did that today.
Many industries have government watchdog institutions. Find out and call them.
Protection groups. Stuff like attorney general, BBB, CFPB, etc.