Xerox has the world's worst customer service, largely because they have the world's worst IT infrastructure.
I've been trying for two days to get a toner cartridge for my printer/copier (which is a terrific piece of equipment). But Xerox has a maze of disconnected phone and Web services that don't work with each other or with the company's internal customer tracking and billing systems.
One example of utter insanity: I can access my account online, which shows a balance of zero (I don't owe any money). But when I call to order a toner cartridge, I have a "credit lock" on my account and the order can't be processed. The person I am talking to has no idea why. He just shunts me over to billing, where after navigating phone mail hell for a while, I'm told by the voicemail system to hang up and try again. Nice.
More utter insanity: I went online a few days ago to pay my bill, and I could not pay online because my account was "locked." No one knew why. In this day and age, you have to wonder about a company that refuses to take payments online.
When I finally got to someone on the phone who could actually take a credit card payment, they told me it would take "two days" for the billing system to process the payment. Huh? I can pay someone in Belgium for something and they get the money in their bank account about fifteen seconds after I hit the Submit button on my Web browser. But a high technology company can't move bits around any faster than two days?
But wait--there's more. I have a service agreement that includes supplies, but as far as I can tell, there is no way to order prepaid supplies online. You would think they would try to drive transaction costs as low as possible, but no, they apparently like high service costs AND annoying customers with toll free numbers that don't work and voicemail systems that never get you to the right person.
This is an IT department failure of the highest order. Xerox is losing millions, perhaps tens of millions of dollars a year from these systems. The IT department has hijacked the entire company, saddling it with expensive and ineffective systems that drive away customers.
Even sadder: it is obvious no one in the company has ever tried to use its own customer service systems.
Update (2/21/06)
Two people from Xerox contacted me and asked if I was continuing to have problems--I have not. They said my postings had triggered an internal review of their customer service procedures and they were working to try to ensure that I or any other customer did not have this kind of experience again.
Good for them.
I'm delighted with the copier-printer I have. It cost more than the cheap laser printers you can buy in OffficeMax for a few hundred dollars, but it has been worth every penny. It prints and copies reliably, never jams, and I can get it fixed if something breaks. I'd much rather buy from a company that is willing to say, "Boy, we screwed up but we want to try to fix things," than a company that will not acknowledge that, or worse, that you can't even contact for help (I bought the Xerox printer after having horrible experiences with a Samsung printer).
Will my next printer be a Xerox? Yes--the quality and reliability, the ability to get the machine repaired, along with a company anxious to do better makes it a no-brainer.