Hey ya’all…great to see you again!
Hope the summer is treating you right.
We here in Phoenix have had a fairly mild one so far—and we are NOT
complaining! I have no doubt it will
catch up to us eventually, but for now the horribly extreme heat seems to be
holding off. And with a chance of rain
in the forecast, I’m almost giddy with anticipation--even at 109!
So, I wanted to get something off my chest today—and it aint’ my
bra. (Although now that you mention it,
that’s not a bad idea.) Anyway, what I
want to talk about is why…in this age of high tech and online everything…can’t
my internet provider manage to get true high-speed service to my home? And why, for the love of God, doesn’t the
person on the phone know that they can’t do it? And while we are wondering all
these whys, how freaking hard is it to maintain enough staff to answer the damn
phone in less than 45 minutes?!
I literally spent 45 minutes on hold for my local provider (15 minutes
less than the freaking IRS!) just to get information on whether or not they could
upgrade me to the faster service I’ve seen advertised on TV. Because I have finally realized that I
thought I was getting 12 Mbps, they thought I was getting 7Mbps, and I’m actually
getting 1-3Mbps. Seriously? Where’s the breakdown? Because there most certainly is one! Anyway, I digress…
I hold for what seems like forever, and finally I get a nice young lady
who tells me yes, 20Mbps is available in my area.
“Really? What would that cost
me?”
“Oh, there’s no difference in what you are paying.”
Seriously? And why haven’t they
just automatically upgraded me? Exactly? Are they afraid I’ll be pissed about getting extra
speed? Yeah, I guess that makes sense
now that I think about it. (NOT) WTF?
Oh…because they need to sell me a new router. I get it now.
The limitation is in the last router they sold me. Got it.
And for only $100, they will be happy to sell me a new one that will
upgrade me to 20 Mbps. Hmmm… I gotta think about this a while. I hate it when I call the henhouse and have
to talk to the fox. It’s such a
difficult dilemma for me.
Okay, it grates on me like nobody’s business, but these guys are pretty
much the only game in town—or at least in my rural area. So, I call back a week later, hold for 30
minutes more, and finally agree to pay the ransom…er…cost of a new router…oh,
and the service call fee. Now we’re up
to about $250 on next month’s bill.
Sigh. And they didn’t even have
to use a gun…I signed up reluctantly, but willingly. Why? Because
internet service has now become a necessity.
And because in my area, they have a monopoly—which I thought was
illegal, but that apparently doesn’t apply to where I live.
Now…the day of installation comes and the technician knocks on my door. I open it to find a very stressed guy who has
the look of bad news on his face. Sure
enough, he opens his mouth and it’s not pretty.
Bottom line is that I’m currently on a very old line that is one of the
few in the area that actually works. Oh,
he can do the work that’s been ordered, but the infrastructure in this area is
so bad that moving me to the new sort of line will get me higher speeds for
about 15 minutes at a time. Then it will
drop me repeatedly throughout the day.
But if I’m online early in the morning and late at night, it’ll probably
be okay.
Huh?
Let me see if I have this right…I’m going to pay an extra $150 on my
next bill for increased speed and crappy uptime? How is that an improvement, exactly?
He shrugs. It isn’t.
I immediately like the guy…he’s one of those honest souls who actually
believes in telling the customer the painful truth. Sort of like a unicorn…you hear stories about
them, but have never seen one to the best of your recollection.
So longer story shorter, he can install the new router, move the service
to the faster, less reliable line and I will be calling their office the next
day threatening to throw tires through their windows.
Or…
I can stay with the service I have and tolerate the slower speeds, stay
with the router I have which works fine on the current speeds, he cancels the
order and I pay for nothing additional—and my service remains (at least)
dependable.
Seems like a no-brainer to me. “Fast”
ain’t worth “won’t work”.
Now, what blows my mind is that he says he runs into this all the time
in my neighborhood because of the age of the lines. So why is it that this internet/phone
provider can’t flag the accounts in this area and know ahead of time that
upgrading is a bad idea?
Or can they?
The Doubting Thomas in me says if Google Maps can take
you straight to my front door, why can’t these guys know what homes are in service-challenged
areas? The answer—they can, they just
choose not to. Because just maybe you’ll
be stupid enough to buy their new router, pay for the upgraded service and then
tolerate the crappy service that results.
Maybe they need those old tires I would be throwing through their
windows. Or perhaps they are counting on
crappy service personnel who won’t bother to be honest with the consumer? For shame!
Well, I (for one) am thankful for the honest man who
came to my door today. Kudos to you,
sir, for exceptional and honest customer service. It’s a sad day when the guy in the field has
to clean up after a company’s poor procedures, but THANK YOU for going the
extra mile for me! If I had encountered the
crappy service that may have resulted from this upgrade, it would have been the
end of my relationship with your company because the only thing keeping me
there has been the dependable uptime—it sure ain’t the speed of their internet
service or the speedy and honest phone support. Mr. Good Serviceman, you deserve a raise for your customer retention program!
Got a good or bad customer service story? Share it in the comments. I'd love to hear it! You know you have one...we all do.
That’s my story, preposterous and peculiar, and I’m
stickin’ to it. Hang on tight now, ‘cuz we’re gonna go real, real fast!
Love ya,
Kayce
Just ONE???? I, like most people have quite a number of them. One that comes to mind is the cell phone provider I USED to have. The first phone I got through them, I loved! The service wasn't the greatest, but the phone was good. Problem, it was discontinued after I bought, so that when I needed a new battery for it, I could no longer get one. In the space of a couple of years after I had to renew the contract, the service got worse, and I went through 4 newer phones, at least one of which they had to reprogram EVERY month until they figured out it was a bad phone. All of them dropped calls more an more often. It got to the point that I called their corporate office who told me that the problems I was having were due to my living in an area that was too RURAL. I asked him to repeat it and he did. REALLY? I live in the suburbs of Phoenix. I would have to drive at least 20 miles to get to a rural area. I asked him where he was and if he had ever been to Phoenix. He was a little snotty and got put in his place. I finally dumped them, but had a few more issues before I did. Whenever I see their commercials, I laugh.
ReplyDeleteThat guy deserves a gold star!!! Seriously :) You got a good one!
ReplyDeleteMy story - we have lived in this apartment complex going on 8 years now. And because of hubby's MS, it's gotta stay cold in here - I walk around with freaking long sleeves in the house when it's 117 outside. Well, to be fair - cold to me is the constant 74 degrees - brrrrrrr!!!!!! SO....Out of the 8 years we have lived here, there has only been ONE summer we haven't had our A/C go out - 2 of those where the compressor hasn't gone out. Maintenance men have come and gone and some told us it was our fault for keeping it too cold. Seriously???? 74??? I know people who keep it in the 60's!! And other guys who just told us the units were too old - when it had been fixed/replaced the year before! This year we got an actual good guy who knew what the heck he was talking about! He ended up totally replacing the unit and running and extra wire so we could put in the programmable thermostat in which might help us navigate the weird peak times our provider now uses - UGH! And he was a damn nice guy! Yes, he spoke in broken English, but he knew his work, worked hard, we understood him just fine and he was a good guy. Another Unicorn in customer service, as you put it! So now I'm back to freezing and Jon is enjoying the cold and the kitties are cuddled up with me shivering...LOL. I'm just hoping we don't go for a record of 9