Two of the big mobile phone carriers in the UK—O2 and Virgin Mobile—merged recently. An error in their billing handoff meant that I spent 4 hours on the phone with them today sorting through the issue.
I spent >80% of the time on hold, and 2 out of every 3 calls were dropped. When I was finally able to get through to an agent, I was thrown around like a hot potato between the organisations.
The whole process was evidence of a lack of thought and care for the customer. They simply didn’t care enough. It’s possible to build great user experiences, it just takes time and deliberate care when doing so.