AT&T is no TCI
Written: Sep 29 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good connection
Cons: Bad service
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| capnjim's Full Review: AT&T@home |
My recent change of address has been the worst customer service nightmare any customer of any company could ever hope to avoid. What should have been one simple, 10-minute phone call and one quick service appointment has turned into three weeks of constant phone calls, botched service calls and infinite frustration. After two years of TCI @Home service, my first experience with AT&T has been a continuous series of bungles and shameless excuses on the part of the company from start to finish, and the customer service representatives have done an exceptionally poor job in solving the simplest problems I faced in moving; in fact, they only served to create confusion and waste time.
Most of the operators I have dealt with over the past three weeks come from AT&T's Winnipeg, Manitoba, call center. This center appears to be a real hotbed of incompetence, complete with the disingenuous concern and faux sincerity that has come to be the hallmark of all of AT&T's high-volume call centers like this one. One would think I should have developed a special relationship with these people, since I've spent more time talking with them than even my parents and best friends over this transaction. The cast of fools who have "helped" me include Leonard, Alexander, Paul, Tom, Barry, two more unnamed operators, and a woman, operator code G93, who actually hung up on me while I was mid-sentence.
Of course, a rude and incompetent call center is no concern of anyone's unless there is a need to call. Unfortunately, with AT&T there has always seemed to be a need to call. When the technician for my first installation service call failed to show up, I phoned in to reschedule for the following day. On the following day, the technician was to come between 2:00 and 5:00. I was home all afternoon, and when, at 1:45, I opened my front door to check the mail, I found a "Sorry we missed you" card stating that the technician had come and gone at 2:00 p.m.--fifteen minutes into the future! No knock on the door, no 30-minute warning call to my cell phone as we had arranged. I phoned in again to reschedule (this time the first available appointment wasn't for 9 days), and I asked the operator to tell me whom I could call to complain about the no-show technicians. The operator (G93) decided to hang up on me. Subsequent operators offered their apologies for this woman, but apologies don't fire obnoxious representatives, and they sure don't hook up my internet service.
At the outset of my move, my sole concern with my @Home service was to ensure that no e-mails would be bounced through the transition. All of the seven or eight CSRs I spoke with seemed to understand the words I was saying, and acknowledged their general intent, nevertheless, once my service was restored at my new address, I discovered that my e-mail delivery had been interrupted for 11 days (while my billing was not interrupted). This, after each operator promised that no information would be lost in the change of location. Apparently, a simple change of address is complicated enough to completely confound even the third echelon of call center service managers. (Did you know that you have wait for 20 minutes whenever you want to speak with the next higher-level CSR?) I found that all of the AT&T call center operators I dealt with were not empowered with the tools nor the authority to make the kinds of decisions, changes and reparations needed to ensure its customers' satisfaction.
In return for this awful debacle, the company generously offered me free installation, one month of free service, and six months of half-priced service. This seemed fine until I turned on the television and found that any regular Joe can get free installation and three free months of service, and he doesn't even have to get hung up on. Again, I called up my Canadian friends in Winnipeg to tell them that three free months would suit me just fine (three months would get me through until my DSL service is installed), that I could live without the extra $40 value which my package would offer. No, the CSRs are also not empowered to recind great, apologetic offers from valuable customers.
To sum it all up, I look forward with great anticipation to the installation of my DSL service. Beyond that, and purely out of spite, I will also look forward to getting rid of my AT&T cable service. Turns out, AT&T was perfectly capable of taking the decent company, with decent customer service, that was TCI, and really screwing it up.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
capnjim
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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