Greetings! I know it's been a long time but life happens.
Anyway, today's blog is about Prometric. Prometric is a testing center where you can take all of the major tests in your life and they also do electronic fingerprinting. Anyway, I experienced extremely poor customer service there this past weekend and I decided to blog about it.
Let me back up and say that in the past, I've had normal experiences with Prometric so I should be specific. The Prometric on Coit Rd. in Dallas, TX is the one that this entry is about.
On Thursday or Friday (7/ 21 or 7/22) I went online, scheduled, and pre-paid an electronic fingerprinting appointment at this particular Prometric. The appointment was for 10:00 am that Saturday (7/23). I awoke that morning and made it to the location at about 9:40 am. When I walked in, there was nobody at the desk so I waited...and waited...and waited...and waited. Finally, a rather jolly young woman came to see what I wanted.
I told her I was there because I had a 10 am appointment for electronic fingerprinting. With a large smirk and before I could finish my sentence, she stated that the machine was "broken."
Lie #1
She also said that she didn't know when it would be fixed but it was working the previous Friday at the close of business. She never once walked over to the desk where I was standing so we were having this conversation as she leaned against the walk casually.
She told me that I could leave my name and number and Prometric would call me once the machine was fixed "throughout next week."
Lie #2
I told her that since I made the appointment online, she could look me up. Once again interrupting, she said that she couldn't even look me up because ALL of the information that Prometric has is stored in the computer attached to the fingerprinting machine.
Not sure if this is a lie but I call bullshit on that one because there were two computer monitors on the desk in front of me that were totally separate from the fingerprinting machine.
At that point I pretty much told her that I don't like people wasting my time, as I had risen early and sat in an inordinate amount of Saturday morning traffic to get there on time. At the very least, in 2011, Prometric should have a computerized system whereby they can send out mass messages such as "all appointments for 7/23 have been cancelled due to malfunctioning equipment." I feel that is more considerate than having people show up throughout the day to handle business only to find out that they basically just made a short sight-seeing trip because Prometric doesn't have their stuff together.
Anyway, I left my name and number and departed. Never once did I get a "sorry for the inconvenience" or anything along those lines.
Here's where Prometric made the shit list:
Monday rolls around...no call. Tuesday morning I call Prometric only to be told that I needed to call the third party scheduling company to reschedule the appointment. Prometric was NEVER going to call me at all.
I call the third party service, stay on hold for about 20 minutes, make the appointment and call Prometric back. This time I called to let the lady know (I won't say her name here but I did call her by name in my letter to Prometric's corporate offices) that I had rescheduled and to please take down my e-mail address so that if the machine should break again, they could e-mail me and save me the 20 mile trek. She said that there was no worry because "the machine is working now."
So she keeps the lie going. I call this Lie #1.5
I told her that I was not taking that chance.
I mean, this machine was working just fine Friday at close of business and they arrive Saturday morning and it's completely inoperable, right?
Let me stop here and say that it's amazing what you can get out of people if you just keep talking to them.
At this point, the lady admits that the machine wasn't really broken. "It's just that the person who does fingerprinting" (I guess there's only 1) "was supposed to come to work that day didn't show up."
At this point, I nearly flipped. I didn't want to cuss her out (not her fault that Prometric's policy is apparently to lie to the customers) so I asked for an owner or manager. She puts me on hold, comes back, and says that the person in charge (I assume she's in charge but judging by their deceitfulness...hell...she could be the person who refills the vending machine) will call me later. Get this: apparently the person in charge couldn't speak to me right then because she was doing a fingerprinting for someone else. Poor management = poor staff every single time.
I was hot so I was not going to wait for any call. Besides, I'd probably just get more lies. I immediately left a comment at the corporate website. Of course, the website had a character limit (1000 characters) so that's part of the reason why I'm blogging about this totally unprofessional behavior.
Now for the editorial (LOL)!
I just do not understand what would have possessed, yes possessed, them to lie. I really don't. Would I have been less bothered...no...utterly mad had the jolly one said, "the lady who does the fingerprinting isn't here today?" Absolutely not. I would have been just as hot. But lying to a paying a customer is unconscionable and totally unacceptable.
What if I hadn't been as proactive and called on my own, believing the word of their agent that they would call to reschedule? I'd still be sitting here waiting on a phone call that was never coming AND a $44 donation to Prometric (once again, this was a pre-paid appointment) would have been made without my consent.
What I don't really don't understand is how they only have 1 person on staff who is qualified to do electronic fingerprinting. Based on the lady's verbiage ("the person who does fingerprinting"), only one person can do this job (on which I call bullshit again). I did electronic fingerprinting years ago for my teacher certification and trust me...it's not a highly technical maneuver. When you've made a string of appointments with people who have pre-paid, you don't say, "Oops, the person who was supposed to perform this job isn't here. Oh well. We'll just lie and say the machine is broken." Nope. You call in someone who can do the fingerprinting in their place. This happens all the time in other industries and what usually happens? Someone calls in, a back-up is called in to take their place. I've never had Chili's tell me they couldn't make me a burger because the cook didn't show up.
Sure, the person who called in may have had a legitimate reason. That's not my business, nor do I care. What I care about is that as a customer, I received absolutely poor customer service that was exacerbated by being lied to. They wasted my time and could have potentially caused me even more problems by missing a deadline for licensing (had I not had the sense to distrust them). Prometric, in one Saturday morning, has demonstrated that on a business level, they have poor planning and business ethics.
What makes this whole situation way too ironic is that there was a sign up that said something to the effect of helping Prometric crack down on cheating by reporting the act of cheating if you witness it. They must be joking. A company that lies to its customers wants those same customers to "help" them by turning in the deceitful? The joke writes itself.
Anyway, tomorrow is my follow-up appointment and the only hopes I have are that the person in charge of fingerprinting actually shows up and that my utter disgust for them isn't easily seen on my face.
So, if you are in the market for fingerprinting or testing, stay away from the Prometric on Coit (and I'd actually add to stay away from Prometric altogether if you can find another company to do your testing/fingerprinting with).
