Lately, I've been on a rampage advocating for the differently abled community and trying to get able-bodied people to better understand the life we live.
This week's article will be no different.
Last Friday, October 28th, I woke up to my cable being turned off, due to myself being late on the bill. While I understand and take full responsibility of the fact that I failed to do my due diligence in paying the bill, my experience with customer service was absolutely appalling.
As a differently abled individual, I am required to have a Lifeline in my apartment, in case I fall and am by myself. If I do not have a working phone line, I do not have a working Lifeline. Due to the cable being shut off, my Lifeline was unavailable.
When I was talking to the woman, Allison, at Optimum's Customer Service, I began to explain to her that I needed at least my phone line so that if in any emergency, I could call for help. She proceeded to continue to state the guidelines of the company to me and tell me that there was nothing that she could do if I did not pay my bill. I began to explain to her that I had set up a payment arrangement for November 1st online and that the cable wasn't supposed to be shut off. She told me that they do not recognize payment arrangements online, therefore that's why the cable was shut off.
Why offer 'schedule a payment' as an option on your website if you are not going to recognize it and abide by it? I didn't care so much about the payment arrangement or the fact that they didn't honor it.
My biggest problem presented itself when Allison began to tell me that if I fell, I could use my cell phone to call for 911. Her comment, as well as her demeanor, went to show that she had no idea what it was like to live my life, and to possibly need help every day of it. If I fell on the floor, there is a 99.9% chance that my phone would not fall with me.
It is comments like this that will always burn my soul and keep me strongly advocating for the differently abled community. No one will ever understand what we go through until they have lived it.
After I asked to speak to her manager, she put me on hold and told me that she could not escalate the call. During the call, my staff had the phone on speaker and I had to raise my voice. My assumption is that Allison took that as me yelling, and in all honesty by the end of the call I was.
Refusing to put me on with your manager and suggesting that I can use my phone if I fell on the floor, where my phone would not be going with me, brought me to a boiling point.
People like Allison and companies like Optimum make it extremely hard for the disabled community to be productive citizens in society because they don't see us. They don't see the struggles that we have to face every day and don't see the things that we have to do to plan ahead to make sure that our lives are stress-free and as safe as possible. And, it is situations like this that can possibly make a differently abled person feel inadequate or feel as if they would be unable to live on their own.
Every day we fight to be seen, we fight to be heard and we fight to be understood. When you have companies and individuals that have no qualms about denying the very simple but complex things that we need in life, we ask ourselves what are really fighting for.
My hope for Optimum and any company that is behind on seeing us as a productive community is that they train themselves and their staff on better ways to assist us, starting with not telling us what we could possibly do if we were to have an emergency. I say this because no you cannot possibly tell us what we can do when you do not roll on our wheels, or walk in our shoes.
I take this moment to ask Allison if she ever reads this (she probably will never), how did you feel that day? Why do you work for a company that refuses to even speak to a customer when they have a problem? My hope for you is that you never fall and need help. I also hope that you never become ill or disabled to the fact that you need help from someone else, it is then and only then that you understand how you made me feel on Friday, October 28th.
Optimum, your slogan is 'Let's Connect More, but you fail to do so when you fail your customers. There is more than one way to connect, and as a brand, you should connect in every single way, including understanding.
