beware the blue bars
Written: Jan 22 '05
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Pros: Family plan pricing
Cons: Customer service is the worst; see 2/05 Consumer Reports
The Bottom Line: Stay away from AT&T. I thought Sprint's customer service was bad. Sprint looks great now!
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| wstaple's Full Review: General Reviews of AT&T Customer Service |
To Whom It May Concern:
For several months, my wife and I had shopped wireless services. I’ve been a Sprint business customer for over three years, and I bought a Sprint phone and plan for my wife a little over two years ago. We were less than satisfied with my wife’s plan and service, and since we planned to add our 14-year-old daughter to our service (a surprise for Christmas), we started shopping wireless plans.
We looked at all the major wireless networks, and decided to go with AT&T for these reasons: price, nationwide coverage, and nights that start at 7:00 PM instead of 9:00 PM. My wife visited a local AT&T Wireless retail store and decided upon which phones to purchase. After comparing the retail store prices to the Internet prices, we chose to place our order on-line. I’d bought my office wireless phones over the Internet and had no problems, so I felt comfortable doing this with AT&T and assumed there would be no problems. That was an incorrect assumption on my part.
Since my daughter’s phone was to be a surprise, we had both phones shipped to my wife’s parents’ home. When we received the phones, we opened and activated my wife’s phone, and then put my daughter’s phone back (as it was to be a surprise Christmas gift; I apologize for the redundancy, but this is an important part of the story.) My wife’s phone (***-***-****) came out of the box and was fine. The week of December 13, we decided to get my daughter’s phone (***-***-****/Motorola V220) out of its box and make sure it was working properly. The instructions said that after the SIM card was inserted, the phone should be completely charged. We allowed the phone to charge overnight, and then returned to activate it.
On Friday, December 17, I went to my in-laws’ home to activate the new phone just before 8:00 AM CST. When I unplugged the phone from the charger and powered the unit on, the outside display seemed to work properly, but the inside screen display was gray. I turned the phone off, then turned it on again. Same gray screen. I removed the battery and the SIM card, installed them again, and then powered the phone on again. Same gray screen. I called AT&T’s customer service number and spoke to a lady who promptly transferred me to someone else when I told her about the problem. Before the 55-minute call was over, I had spoken to 6 different people. The last person wanted to send us a refurbished phone. After I hung up, I called my wife from my car to tell her about the conversation. Since this was to be a surprise Christmas gift for our daughter, she called and spoke to two different representatives about getting a new phone instead of a refurbished one. She spent about 35 minutes on the phone, and was assured that not only would we receive a new phone, but also that AT&T would not send the refurbished phone. In fact, the lady told my wife that she didn’t even see that the order had been input, so it shouldn’t be a problem.
On Saturday, December 18, my wife called to get a confirmation number for the new phone that was promised to us. This conversation lasted over 2 hours and 45 minutes and she spoke with 9 different representatives. (We had planned on leaving for a trip to visit relatives that morning; this call delayed us over 3 hours.) She was first told that the phone she was promised the day before was on back-order. No one had bothered to tell my wife this small detail. Someone else, who said she would take care of the problem, said they would find another comparable phone. Somehow during this conversation, my wife was disconnected from AT&T. She called back, only to be told that the phone she was promised only minutes before was also on back-order. Not until my wife spoke with a representative named ***** *****(ID# **********) did she feel that anyone from AT&T was concerned about the ordeal. (My wife had nothing but nice things to say about ***** *****. She was very professional and did what should have been done all along.) Ms. *****, realizing that my wife had already been through a terrible customer service experience, authorized for us to go to an AT&T retail store and get the replacement phone. She assured us that we would receive instructions through the mail concerning how we were to mail the defective phone back to AT&T. But the story doesn’t end here.
While visiting relatives over 300 miles away, my wife’s mother called us to say that a phone had been delivered from AT&T. Turns out, this was the original refurbished phone that we were promised would not be sent. When we got back into town, I promptly shipped the refurbished phone back per the instructions that came with it. I also called AT&T, explained the situation, and was assured that we would not be charged for the phone. (It showed up on our latest bill.) About two weeks later, another phone arrived at our house. We now have two unused phones – the original defective phone, and the other phone that was (evidently) on back-order.
When it was all said and done, we spoke with 17 different customer service representatives for over 4 hours and 15 minutes over a two-day span. And that doesn’t include the other calls that we’ve made since then, attempting to correct the errors on the unexpected various phones shipped to us.
My wife is a very calm, docile person. However, your customer service representatives (except for ***** *****) were able to completely exasperate her like no one I’ve ever seen. The entire process was nothing short of inept. It seemed that not only did no one care that there was a problem with the defective phone and our account, but it also seemed that no one there knew how to rectify the situation.
We aren’t impulse buyers when it comes to purchases like this. We make informed buying decisions. I was very disappointed to read the following information after we made our decision to go with AT&T:
According to a survey in the February 2005 issue of Consumer Reports, AT&T/Cingular had “middling/low levels of customer satisfaction.”
After our ordeal with your customer service representatives, or at least 16 out of 17 of them, we agree whole-heartedly with the survey. Had we been able to read this article prior to making our choice on wireless service, I can assure you that we would not have given AT&T/Cingular any consideration.
Do I expect anything to come of this letter? After our rough start with AT&T Wireless, not much actually. If the termination fees were not so steep, we would have already left. All we can do from here is hope that your customer service and your wireless product will be satisfactory. It seems very unfair that we have no stand when it comes to customer service expectations. We’re expected to pay for our service, regardless of your level of service, or you can take legal action against us – all because we signed a contract for your service. Seems to me that we should be able to expect better than what we signed on for. If you were in our shoes, I think you would agree.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 69.99
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Epinions.com ID:
wstaple
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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