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From time to time, when my company is mentioned in a TV segment, I try to obtain the clip from VMS, a company that can find the clip for you and provide it in a digital format. It's a pretty handy service but over three years of working with them, I've had spotty customer service and often slow delivery times on time-sensitive projects. But nothing quite like this has ever happened...

A recent episode of a popular television show featured one of our products, so I emailed my contact (for anonymity she doesn't deserve, I'll call her Celia) to request a clip and a high-resolution image of the product. I made sure to specify that I needed a high-resolution image or screenshot, because I wasn't sure if VMS had the capability to do this.

This original email, sent first thing in the morning, went unanswered; I only found out through a phone call I placed to the office later that day that Celia was working on it. When I asked about the feasability of getting a screenshot from the digital clip, Celia confirmed that it shouldn't be a problem because all VMS video clips are high quality. Satisfied, I asked her to please call me when the clip was ready.

First thing Tuesday morning, having not heard back from her, I sent an email checking on the status of this time-sensitive project, which elicited two responses at 10:30 a.m. and 3:20 p.m. Both emails made the misleading promise that the clip should arrive "shortly."

When I finally received the clip 24 hours later, on Wednesday afternoon, neither I nor a freelance graphic designer were able able to obtain a screenshot from the video. This was very frustrating, given that I had specified this need in my original email, and that Celia had assured me it would be possible. I called and left a message with the receptionist for Celia, requesting help getting the screenshot ASAP, but received no call or email back. On Thursday afternoon I again emailed Celia, and received the following response:

“I sent another email to rush the order.
You should have received it by now that's why I'm still in the office. [my emphasis]
You should be receiving it shortly.”

This email was sent at 5:15 p.m. 5:15! Please, don't let me keep you chained to your desk until all hours of the night. 5:15! It's inhuman to work that late! The bold-faced rudeness of this email truly shocked me.

Two more emails sent Friday and Monday received no response. I finally got the screenshot from some manager at VMS who told me quite snippily that Celia had sent it on Thursday, and that it must be in my junk mail folder. Obviously, it wasn't. Plus, if Celia had supposedly sent it, why didn't she respond to my frantic emails to alert me that it was ready? The worst part was that the image I finally did get 1) is terrible quality and 2) arrived too late to be used in a timely fashion, rendering it irrelevant.

Almost immediately, I emailed the manager back, detailing my exchanges (or lack therof) with Celia over the past week, and expressing my extreme disappointment with how this project was handled. That was almost 24 hours ago and I have yet to receive a response.

Now, to be fair: our products aren't on TV too often so we're not one of VMS's biggest accounts. However, I don’t feel that any customer deserves to be treated with so little respect. Not calling a concerned customer back after repeated messages is inexcusable.

I'll also concede that Celia's job is pretty terrible overall: high-stress, demanding customers, lots of mind-numbing video to slog through... But most service-oriented jobs have unpleasant elements like these, which can be handled one of two ways: with a bad attitude, leading to poor performance and increasing stress levels, or with a positive attitude, leading to happy (or at least informed) customers and less stressful situations. You can bet that I will think twice before I call Celia for anything in the future. Check minus for VMS.