Cool Ideas: Not such a Cool Idea after all

Let's talk about cool ideas! Actually they are not very cool! I have been a customer of Cool Ideas and I am in the process of moving mid December. I initially sent an email to find out about transferring my account to my new address and gave notice. The email response was not clear as the sender told me to cancel my account and sign up for a new account. I found it a bit strange for a company to cancel their relationship with an existing customer and then re-sign up. They must think highly of their customer loyalty efforts to think there would be no risk of the customer going somewhere else in the interim...but anyway, I am not the CEO.

As I was confused, I called the call centre and I was put through to an agent who was the most disrespectful person I've met in the longest time. As she was explaining, I told her that I didn't understand what she was saying. Guess what she did? She said the same thing again...but this time she started speaking me slower and louder! She refused to stop speaking in that patronising tone. She made me feel as though I was slow to understand and of a low IQ. I asked to be transferred to another agent who then said she would escalate it.

Eventually I received a call from another team leader. She was pleasant enough and offered to sign me up waive the new contract prorata fee. This worked out to be a saving of R150. That is how much the consider the value of my disrespect and dehumanisation to be...R150!!!! The team leader unfortunately was given a hospital pass as they not even brief her on why I was upset. When I told her, her reaction during the call suggested to me that she was horrified!!! We agreed that a manager would call me. It took almost 24 hours later for a so called manager to call me. I'll get to that in a bit. On a side note, as I was in meetings, I kept missing the team leader's calls. And when I was able to return the call (back to the call centre), guess who I got through to? Yep! You guessed it...the same person who made me feel dehumanised in the first place!!!! Nice one Cool Ideas!!!!

Coming to the manager's call. She called me over 24 hours after the inhuman treatment I received from Cool Ideas. She told me that the Agent was going for a Disciplinary with HR. While that was not my intention for an individual to get into trouble, I asked why did it take so long for Cool Ideas management to get back to me after such treatment. Her response was that they tried to call me the previous day and even had the temerity to give times of the calls. She was actually referring to the team leader's calls from the previous day and NOT calls from Cool Ideas management. She tried to gaslight me into believing that management was trying to get a hold of me with absolute lies when as I mentioned that it was in fact the team leader and not management. She did not listen to me and started bordering on belligerence before I hang up as I did not want to go through the experience again. It seems that it is the modus operandi when it comes to dealing with their transgressions.

Cool Ideas seems to think they can get away with dehumanising behaviour...treating their customers as less than people. They believe that their behaviour should be worth R150 (waiving of their pro rata fees for the rest December). To think that all I was trying to do was to actually remain their customer!!!!

I would urge anybody who reads this review to not sign with them if you are a new customer or alternatively cancel your contracts and go to a company that treats you as a human! If the lower levels of the company treat customers in the way that they did then I shudder to think what their CEO is like. Leadership sets the tone of a company and remember that fish rots from the head!