What's it gonna take to get someone to fix this problem?

There are times when the only way to break through is to behave like an angry white lady in yoga pants at the Target customer service counter. 

🦹‍♂️ I call her “Claire-en.”

I’m working through a particularly awful dumpster fire at the moment. 

🔥 Payroll tax issues going back to 2023.

🔥 Taxes reported in the wrong state.

🔥 Reports filed under the wrong EIN.

🔥 Fees for not doing things that aren’t required.

Every time I reached out to support, I was getting nonsensical answers. 

Them: Because: Compliance

Me: Compliance with WHAT? The state website says that I’m right and you’re wrong. 

Them: You’ll need to talk to a tax expert.

Me: YOUR tax experts messed up. 

Round and round until...

Me: I need to speak to a manager!

There were a few problems:

1. Their support culture seemed to be based on "the customer's always wrong" (easy to get to when it comes to taxes)

2. Front-line support wasn’t trained to tell a real problem from client confusion. So their answer was "compliance."

3. The company made it hard for the support team to escalate. So even if something was wrong, you’d get thrown back to the “Here’s an unrelated help center article."

🦹 To get this one solved, I had to engage Claire-en mode.

☄️ I demanded to speak to a manager. 

☄️ When the first person wouldn’t call a manager, I hung up and called again.

☄️ And a third time. 

☄️ When someone finally said a manager wasn’t available, I demanded that they start an email thread while we were still on the line. I wouldn’t hang up until I saw the email was addressed to an individual. 

☄️ I insisted that the manager schedule a time for a call when it was convenient for me.

☄️ I followed up daily until the call was scheduled. 

☄️ I came with receipts. Specific examples. Dates. Screenshots.

☄️ She came with the poor guy Claire-en had been beating up on.

Once I convinced the manager that there was, in fact, a problem and that we deserved a refund, I pivoted.

☝️ “And another thing...”

I think it’s really lousy that you made poor [Support person] come back to me 100 times with non-answers rather than taking the problem seriously. He had to put up with me pitching a fit at him for WEEKS before we could get anyone to look at this. He handled it with grace and poise. 

Do you think that’s fair to subject [Support person] to that kind of treatment for other people’s mistakes? Because I don’t.

After we got off the call, I kept working with [Support person]. We spent about 4 hours on calls over the coming weeks, going through the problems one by one.

He is wonderful. He cares. He takes a lot of pride in his work. 

So why the f🦆 wouldn’t his managers take him seriously?

My complaint got escalated up a few tiers of management. When our (full) refund was finally confirmed, I made sure to thank the person who got me there.

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👋 I’m Claire. I recognize how hard it is to be under the Eye of Claire-en. But if you pass the test, you will have a fierce advocate for life.