The I.R.S. is more fun to deal with...
Written: Dec 04 '06
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Pros: Cable, Internet & Phone in one place.
Cons: Soviet-era customer service
The Bottom Line: "Switch to RCN - we reach new lows in customer service." Don't make the same mistake I did by becoming customer of this company. Run away now.
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| teamw23's Full Review: RCN Cable |
RCN came to my area, the suburbs of D.C. a few years ago. They came in promoting lower prices, higher quality service and savings obtained by the vaunted "triple-play" of cable, phone and internet on one convenient bill at lower prices.
Let's just say I don't believe the hype any more. Today, I am shifting my phone service back to Verizon, along with my internet. I'm probably shifting my cable over to satellite shortly too, so I can be rid of this vexing company forever.
Their customer service is, far and away, the worst I have ever experienced from any company. My internet connection kept dropping out. The cable modem had a problem and it kept resetting itself.
I called customer service. RCN's first line of defense against its own customers is a voice-prompt system that requires a dozen button pushes to reach a human being. "Press 1 to be frustrated in Spanish, Press 2 to be frustrated in English"
At the end of all this button pushing, call volume is always "unexpectedly high" no matter when you call, resulting in "higher wait times than normal." If the wait time is always that long, then it's not higher than normal, is it?
You don't get music on hold, you get ads for additional services. RCN apparently sees their frustrating call center wait times as a marketing opportunity. Anyhow, after 15-20 minutes of holding and button pushing, I am finally talking to a human being. Oh Joy!
Unfortunately, once you reach the live human beings, things don't improve. Having talked to probably half a dozen of their customer service reps, and their supervisors in several instances, I found them to be uniformly rude, uninformed and unhelpful.
I had to threaten to cancel my service just to get a service appointment. Why was that necessary? They make you go through a script testing problems with your internet connection before they will schedule anybody to come out. "Sir, you need to disconnect your router and see if the problem persists."
"Me. Yes it does, I already checked that before calling you, we can move on to the next step."
"Sir you have to do it now before we move on."
"No. I already pulled it all apart before and I'm not taking it apart and redoing it again. Let's just go on to the next step because I can assure you that I already thought of that and checked it myself. That's not the problem."
"I will not schedule you an appointment unless you undo your router."
"Let me speak to your Supervisor"
"She won't help you either."
"Ok. Cancel my service, effective immediately."
That got me transferred to somebody who would schedule a service appointment.
So I spent all Saturday afternoon waiting around for a service call between 2-5pm. Nobody showed up. I called them repeatedly, hearing things like "we will have a manager call you." No calls back. Then I heard things like "we can't get in touch with the technician directly. We don't know where he is."
Eventually a supervisor tells me. Sir we will get somebody out to your house first thing Monday morning. They will be there at 8am.
Nobody comes and nobody comes. I call at 8:45am. "Where is the technician?"
"It's an 8-11AM appointment sir, we can't specify an earlier time."
I explain what has happened and that this was to correct a call that should have taken place on Saturday and was supposed to be specifically set up for first thing in the morning so I could get to work on time.
"This is your fault for threatening to cancel your service, you need to schedule through us and not that other department."
"Can I just leave the modem outside and have you drop off another one?"
"No. We absolutely won't do that. Somebody might steal it." (I live in a very quiet safe neighborhood, I get packages from Amazon etc. that are far more valuable than a 2 year-old, crappy broken cable modem.)
"Why don't you drive to our offices to drop off an exchange the modem? (10 miles away)"
"Enough of this. Cancel my service."
"I can't help you with that."
[expletives deleted]. click.
So, as their ad says, you have a choice in cable tv. I might suggest that if you are smart, that choice shouldn't be RCN. You better pray for God to help you if you become a customer of RCN, as the company certainly won't.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 210
Version Number or Year: 2006
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Epinions.com ID:
teamw23
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Reviews written: 47
Trusted by: 4 members
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