Customer Service... (Cable Company)
I have another story about the move into our new home. This one deals with the fun part of every move changing and setting up the utilities and services to the house.
For the most part everything transferred over just fine. Except for one part… Cable service. Now one wouldn’t think this would be a complicated matter.
1) We already had an account with Cablevision
2) The former owners of the house also had Cablevision for cable service
3) We were moving from one end of the Village to the other
Seems pretty simple and probably happens many times per week.
Well it turned into a hugh complicated mess… go figure...
When we moved to New York we signed up for cable television and cable internet access. Everything was great, we had very few problems. When we were set to move into our new house, they told me it was going to be a breeze. They checked to make sure there was already a hook up there. The girl was friendly and mentioned that the previous owner had recently shut her account off so transferring us over was no problem, someone would be over the following Friday to set everything up… Oh boy…
The same day that I called they shut off the account at our apartment. Not a big deal since we would be moving the next day anyway. After we moved I decided to check out to see if the cable worked. It did… Sort of... The basic cable worked but our digital boxes were useless. The Internet would also not work yet.
I called them on the day they were to come out to work on the cable and they said that it was the following Friday they would be coming out… Great.. I had to get the Internet up and running for Holly to be able to do her work!
So I call customer service. Talked in circles for a while with a person who was clueless and finally got the supervisor who was nearly as clueless at the rep I was speaking with… Grand…
She insisted that I could not get to the internet without having the tech’s come out to set up the equipment. I told her that I have been a computer tech for eight years had am very capable of setting up this end, nothing needs to be adjusted here, it’s on the cable company side that a line of information needs to be changed to make it see our modem.
She insisted that she knew better. So I entered this line of questioning:
Matt: So what you are telling me is that I don’t have any cable access right now, that is why I can’t get to the Internet.
Supervisor: Yes.
Matt: So I also can’t see anything on cable until they come out here?
Supervisor: That’s right (sounding smug)
Matt: So explain to me why I’m watching CNN over basic cable, in my house that has no cable connection. Supervisor: (long pause) I’m not sure.
Matt: So I can receive information from the cable company, this tells me that I’m connected. The modem that I have has the Mac Address: (whatever the hell it was) and should be able to have YOUR team connect it to this account.
Supervisor: (sheepishly) I’ll have to do some checking and call you back.
Needless to say I never got a call back, but I had the Internet running an hour after I was off the phone.
I HATE INCOMPETANCE!!!
This seems to be the running theme with our cablevision company. For three months we were fighting with them over the billing. It seems that they created a new account for us and never cancelled the old one. Then tired to charge us for the cable boxes that were never returned…
WE WERE STILL USING THEM!!!
I swear it was like pulling teeth with these people. After four months of fighting we finally have everything figured out but it was a royal pain.
I dealt with the technical issues at the start but Holly dealt with the billing issues. It was a team effort and we finally prevailed. It seems like the old saying of: “the customer is always right.” Has been changed to “the customer is always wrong and we will screw them over whenever possible.” Sad that it feels this way, but it seems more often than not that this is the case.
Please feel free to comment. I’m curious about how others are experiencing their customer service with other companies.
posted by Matt @ 1:06 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Matt, after my somewhat contrary comment on the FISA scandal, I am happy(?) to commiserate with you over the state of customers service with cable/internet/phone companies.
Let me tell you what's happening with me and Earthlink this week.
Two weeks back, I saw an ad for Earthlink's phone service and DSL combo deal. At the time, I was paying $60/mo for 3Mbps (3 megabits or roughly 400 kilobytes of data per second) cable internet from Comcast. This deceptively worded speed is really only about 2Mbps most of the time. 3Mbps is the maximum, something Comcast clearly told me before I signed on with them.
I also had no phone service for the past month in my new apartment because my former roommate (whose boyfriend moved in with her) and I agreed to share the same phone line via my wireless phone.
In addition, I wanted to keep my Earthlink email address, which I have had since 1994, so I have been paying $4/mo to keep that (way overpriced, but affordable).
When I saw the earthlink ad, it said I could get their TrueVoice VOIP (voice over internet protocol) phone service, with all kinds of services that would cost about $30 extra if I had traditional phone service, bundled with 8Mbps (maximum) DSL for just $70/mo.
This deal sounded perfect. For just $6/mo more than what I was paying for merely 3Mbps internet service, I would get nearly three times that internet speed and also get this great phone service, advertised as have a clean, clear sound.
I was skeptical, however, that 8Mbps speed was possible over DSL. I specifically asked the salesperson if he was certain that I could receive this maximum speed over DSL at my particular residence. I told him that I had read that only cable can give you those speeds. He asked for my phone number, placed me on hold, and told me with confident pride that he had confirmed my residence is within close enough proximity to the phone switching station that I could get 8Mbps. This was great news. That evening, I talked it over with my new roommate who agreed to share the cost of this bundle.
The day I got the equipment, I was surprised that there was equipment that the instructions referenced that did not come in the box. VOIP normally reqires you to plug your phone into an analog/digital converter that must be plugged into a router that is plugged into the DSL modem (which is technically not really a "modem" but is actually a router as well). I called tech support and they told me I didn't need the converter, that I could plug my phones directly into any phone jack. This was terrific news, since it meant I wouldn't have to buy another cordless phone for the new roommate we've been looking for for our empty room. He/she could use their own phone. It also meant I wouldn't have to plug my cordless base into the DSL "modem" but could have it in my bedroom.
For two days, I had free long distance, super fast internet, and a big grin on my face.
After the second day, when I looked at my online phone record, I noticed that calls had been placed from my phone service before the equipment arrived at my house. Even though my lines had been active on the days those call were made, I didn't know I could plug a phone into the line without the DSL stuff so I never used the line until the equipment came. I called one of the numbers listed on the phone log and a woman from Arkansas answered. I told her why I was calling and she said she didn't recognize my phone number and had no explanation for why her phone number was on my call log.
That same woman, who you would think would have just forgotten about the call from a stranger about their mysterious phone log, called me back that night to make what sounded like a ham-handed attempt to explain what "may have" happened. It struck me as odd that she would even give this matter a second thought, let alone make a long-distance call to a total stranger to "theorize" about what happened.
In addition to this records issue. I was getting an echo of my own voice, nearly as loud as the people I called, over the phone. People I called reported hearing their own voices echoed as well.
I called Earthlink to tell them about these issues and asked them to get back to me with explanations or fixes. I told them I felt suspicious about what was going on with the records and warned them that there might be a case of phone service theft occurring. They told me they would look into it. I have not heard a word back from them in two weeks.
Last Tuesday, I tried to log on to my email and found that the page loaded very slowly. I tested the line speed at speakeasy.com and another speed test site and saw it was about 400Kbps, fully 20 times slower than the maximum speed I was promised. Subsequent tests clocked the speed between 300Kbps and 2Mbps. That's when my nightmare began. I called Earthlink tech support over a line now filled with static to tell them about this DSL problem and to remind them that I already had phone issues that had not yet been addressed. Over the next four days, I was transferred back and forth and even told to hang up and call different numbers at Earthlink to talk to different departments, each time having to repeat the same issues over and over. After the third person and the third explanation, I had to add my extreme displeasure with their customer service to my complaints. I demanded that I no longer be forced to keep repeating the same complaints to people who supposedly provide communication services and have email at their disposal. I demanded a tech write down my complaints and get to work solving the issues by calling all relevant workers and putting them on task. I also demanded the tech call me or email me to tell me of what is being done so I don't feel I'm being ignored. I was called back twice by an automated system that gave me a two-option phone tree: "Press ONE if your issue has been resolved. Press TWO if it has not been resolved to be transferred to the next available agent." It placed me on hold each time. A MACHINE CALLED ME AND PUT ME ON HOLD!!!
Amongst the quotes of the 11 (yes, ELEVEN) different Earthlink personnel to whom I have had to repeat myself over a total of 7 (yes, SEVEN) hours on the phone are these (I'm adding the word "sir" in places where I don't recall what they called me if they addressed me at all):
"SIr, it is impossible to get more than 3Mbps over DSL." A technical support agent.
"We have a new DSL called DSL 2 that gives you 8Mbps capability." A sales agent
"It is impossible to get more than 6Mbps over DSL-2, you'd need cable for that speed." Another tech support agent
"Your phone service is actually not TrueVoice, but a new system we are just now working with. Only 20 people in the whole company have been trained on this system." A phone-specific tech support agent to whom I complained that the TrueVoice service was advertised as having clear, clean calls.
"I will handle this for you, Mr. Baker. I will email you with my progress as you request." A technician who has not contacted me since then
"I wish I could help you, but you are signed up for the DSL/phone bundle. That's not my department." A DSL-specific technician with whom I was describing the problem I was having with my DSL.
"Well, what do you want me to do about it? What do you want me to do?" A senior-level customer support agent who supposedly had a long list of my growing complaints on her computer screen right in front of her.
"I'm sorry, sir, I cannot contact other people at Earthlink as you request unless you stay on the line with me while I do so." The tenth person I had spoken to after 7 hours of wasted time on the phone who I insisted get in touch with whoever he needed to call to get these various issues resolved so I didn't have to stay on the phone one minute more.
This Monday, when I was transferred to someone at Earthlink's main corporate office, the nervous guy on the other end was frequently trying to restate the complaints I was making but getting it all wrong each time. At one point, when I raised my voice, he suddenly behaved as if he could not longer hear me. I repeated into the phone that I thought he was full of sh*t and told him I would stay on the phone with him so a record of his claiming not to hear me would be on the recording of this call. I told him that I would wait all day and he would have to hang up on me to get away from me. At that point, he acted as if he had re-established communication and began to tell me he was sorry I had been through a rough time. I tried desperately at that point to explain to him that I had spoken to so many people and for so many HOURS with no result that I no longer wished to explain my issues on the phone, that I wanted ONE person at Earthlink to take responsibility for finding the right people in the right departments. When he CRUELLY insisted that I allow him to transfer me to someone else, I hung up on him.
I am about to call Earthlink now and will ask them if anything has been done since Monday.
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