This is one of those things with the “green” movement that has been driving me freaking crazy ever since it started. I’ll give you an example. Consumers Energy handles my electricity needs. I’m okay with that. They send me a paper copy of my bill. I’m okay with that. They let me pay my bill either through the mail or online. Sounds great so far. But whenever I make an online payment of my bill, they automatically switch me from a paper bill receiving customer to an online only bill receiving customer. I never asked for that. I never approved that. They just do it every freaking time I try to make an online payment.
Here. I’ll let you in on a little secret. If I don’t receive a paper copy of a bill, I’m probably not going to pay it. I don’t pay attention to email crap that gets sent to me because my email is filled with so much spam (yes, obviously from all of the porn mail lists I’m on…whatever), but regardless of why I receive so much spam, there’s no rule, written or unwritten that states that I’m somehow supposed to be a diligent payer of attention to crap that gets sent to me that way. But I do look at EVERY piece of physical mail that gets sent to me.
Yet, EVERY month, Consumers Energy attempts to push me off physical mail and make me one of its email bitches. I’m not interested, and I wish companies would stop trying to make that happen.
Recently, I wrote an article about how some company’s “green” policy is not MY green policy, which means that I don’t give a frack that they’re now going green. It’s not part of my business relationship with them, so they need to stop trying to force it on me.
I get so damn upset at Consumers Energy every time they do this to me that if they were any other company where I could turn to some other company to replace them, I’d have done it years ago. That is probably the worst customer service response a company should ever desire, yet I get the impression they don’t give a crap whatsoever. But sure enough, in a few days when I go to make that payment,I’m going to have to go through tons of extra screens of paperwork in order to get myself back on the mailing list again because they’ll automatically try to dislodge me from it yet again, without my permission, desire or intention.
And that’s a horrible business model for any company whenever your customer leaves your interaction fuming at your company after having just paid for your services.
I’m just saying.