While I understand your sentiment and don’t totally disagree with it. The job of a CSR is to represent a company—to speak and act on its behalf; their title even includes the word representative. The company literally pays CSR’s to speak on their behalf, so to an extent, at least, you’re incorrect; T-Mobile did, in fact, fail.
Now, it‘s certainly true that I’ve only interacted with this 1 individual until now, and another CSR could lead to a better experience, but they had 1 job, and they blew it.
I would argue that this is literally not true anymore, just that people want to cling to that myth because the alternative is offensive.
Frontline CSR support (for almost any company) is paid to solve the company's problems, not yours. What is the company's problem? Customers who have problems and call in.
It costs a company both time and money to deal with your problem. So the people dealing with your problem are paid to 'resolve' it as quickly as possible. Any resolution that means the company no longer has to hear from you or speak to you or deal with you is success. Whether that actually does solve YOUR problem or not is irrelevant.
Now, we add in overseas support. The company saves even more money because these people can be paid less. There is high turnover, but there will always be someone to answer the phone because these jobs still pay more in the local market. The fact that overseas support is hard to understand, don't speak your language, etc leads to problem resolution to the company. If they hang up on you or you hang up on them - problem solved.
Finally, add in sales metrics. All of these people have to meet certain sales goals and those numbers are directly relevant to whether they keep their job or not. Remember, someone else is already gunning for their job. So, lies, fabrications, dirty dealing, all is fair. If they don't sign you up because you get mad at their tactics someone else will come along.
None of this is good, none of it's right and none of it shows any company in a good light. But when it comes to profit for the shareholders the customer is not who the company cares about. Companies can afford to lose a few customers or deal with a few pissed off ones. It's only when it becomes a full-blown crisis that it's dealt with and then only to the extent that it blows over.
If you don't agree with me, I will just point out Comcast. Big company, lots of pissed off customers because their customer service is anti-customer. Still in business.
It'd be nice to see it the way you point out, but that outlook changed a long time ago - especially in wireless.
