"If my call is so important to you, then why don't you answer the %&#ing phone?"

These words screamed during a rant by television mob boss Tony Soprano probably resonated with just about every person who has ever tried to contact a company for any reason. Unfortunately, the number of companies that actually have any concept of customer service continues to dwindle, and frustration among their clients grows exponentially.

Like many people, I simply expect a certain amount of basic customer care from people who are paid to provide services. Sadly, it seems to be happening less and less these days.

Two events last week solidified my long-held belief that customer service remains at the bottom of most large companies "to do" lists.

For at least the past year or so, my home e-mail service has been less than moderately reliable, as the Sympatico mail server seems to have some sort of outage every few weeks. For example, my e-mail service went down when I was at the U.S. Grand Prix June 17 as I was trying to file a story for another newspaper. Not a good thing for a reporter on deadline.

A week later, Sympatico suffered a "major outage," according to its service bulletins, which interrupted service across Ontario and Quebec customers. Last week, its mail servers were down again for about six hours and no one in the customer service department could give a more detailed explanation other than "the server isn't working properly."

Because e-mail is a "free service," Sympatico does not guarantee its reliability. Despite e-mail troubles being such a common occurrence at Sympatico, its only solution involves upgrading to a guaranteed service that doubles the $45 monthly charge I already pay. By the way, if it's free, do I get to keep the e-mail address and associated server space after a move to another ISP?

But, good luck to anyone who wants to complain to someone with any decision-making power. It may sound like complete lunacy, but a telephone company such as Bell Canada actually asks disgruntled customers to write and mail letters of complaint. No phone calls please.

Ditto for my cellular provider Fido, which is my second great example of the sorry state of customer service in this country and the apparent disdain Canadian companies seem to have for the people who keep them in business.

Last week, I received a letter from their "director, customer relationship" explaining that they are "always improving" to serve me better. The letter explains that they've recently expanded their network and enhanced their coverage from coast to coast and they'd like to show me how important my business is to them by charging extra to use it.

Considering they've "expanded their network" through being acquired by another carrier and not through any actual investment, the news that all incoming and outgoing calls in the new areas would cost an additional 25 cents per minute was a bit much to swallow.

But, not to be outdone by Sympatico in the poor customer service sweepstakes, Fido's letter gets better. Under the new network scheme, my phone may now jump from a free network to a paid network without my knowledge. Fido even admits that it "may not be able to notify customers whether they are in the expanded or basic network."

And the system puts the onus on the customer to call a special number and wait for a text message reply, which should tell them which network they are using and give them an idea or whether or not there will be extra charges. But, the letter adds in the fine print that the feature "may not work on some handsets." Didn't its parent company Rogers try this negative billing thing a few years ago with its cable services? That turned out OK, right?

A call to Fido's toll free number returns a minimum 10-minute wait. Apparently, I was not the only irate customer calling about the newly expanded network.

But, trying to talk to someone who is actually involved in the decision-making process, for example, the customer relationship director who signed the letter, is out of the question. When I asked to put in a request for him to call me, the blunt answer was: "Impossible. And he will never call you."

If I wanted to contact him, the only way is to write a letter because it would be silly to expect an executive who works for cellular provider to receive phone calls.

The hero in this story is Montie Brewer, new chief executive of Air Canada. Mr. Brewer responds to e-mails. He calls customers. He steps in when his staff is toeing the company line unnecessarily. He solves problems personally.

I know this because he called me. I fly frequently for work and I had noticed a drastic change in the mood with the agents recently. His e-mail address was listed in the airline's En Route magazine, so I sent a brief e-mail message explaining my concerns, included my phone number, and suggested that we should talk.

Much to my surprise, he called a few days later and apologized for not getting back to me sooner. After a good discussion in which he both listened and offered thoughtful answers, he stressed that I should call him anytime I see anything that I think he should know.

While he won't be able to do it every time for everyone, he won't have to. Mr. Brewer understands a simple business concept called leading by example. It works and there's no doubt that Air Canada will see incredible benefits from his personal, hands-on approach. Now, if we could only convince him to call Michael Sabia and Ted Rogers.

By Jeff Pappone

Special to the Ottawa Business Journal