The Death of Customer Service...

[countryboy]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I would be switching providers, if possible.

[tdawg3782]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

That whole situation pisses me off man. What a joke. Really glad I got rid of at&t when I did. Hope it all works out for you man.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Operation Sports mobile app

[LowerWolf]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

With the the technical side of things resolved, I contacted them this morning about making amends. They agreed to a pretty significant rate reduction. Supposedly, I'm getting the lowest possible rate for my plan now. They also offered a partial credit for this month's bill. I suggested they make that a full month's credit, and they obliged.

I also emailed the local manager about all the no-shows. I don't expect him to do anything for me, but I hope he's able to identify the techs who ditched me so that nobody else has to go through that.

Pretty terrible experience. Glad it's over. Hopefully, I never have to go through that again. The tech who did come out was great. I've got his number now if I experience anymore technical problems.

Google Fiber is supposed to be making its way toward me. It's going to be an easy decision to switch when they get here.

[countryboy]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

With the the technical side of things resolved, I contacted them this morning about making amends. They agreed to a pretty significant rate reduction. Supposedly, I'm getting the lowest possible rate for my plan now. They also offered a partial credit for this month's bill. I suggested they make that a full month's credit, and they obliged.

I also emailed the local manager about all the no-shows. I don't expect him to do anything for me, but I hope he's able to identify the techs who ditched me so that nobody else has to go through that.

Pretty terrible experience. Glad it's over. Hopefully, I never have to go through that again. The tech who did come out was great. I've got his number now if I experience anymore technical problems.

Google Fiber is supposed to be making its way toward me. It's going to be an easy decision to switch when they get here.

Glad it is finally resolved for you.

[Brandwin]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

Holy crap, what horrible service.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

After five days of no internet/TV, it's finally fixed. Now I have to fix the pricing.

Cliff Notes version (still really long)

Spoiler

Last month, AT&T offered to upgrade my internet from 18 to 50 mbps. I asked if this was even possible since I was told a few years ago I lived too far away from the station to get anything faster than 18. Three different reps confirmed 50 would work. Two said I just needed a modem upgrade. The third said it would work with my current modem.

First upgrade appointment was scheduled for the morning of May 31. I was told a tech needed to come out to perform the upgrade, so I took the morning off work. Tech never showed. I called AT&T. They said the appointment had been canceled without explanation.

I rescheduled for June 15th. I was told this time a tech would not need to come out. A few days before the upgrade, it was pushed back to June 22 due to a facility issue. Then it was pushed back to June 30, without explanation. I asked each time it was pushed back if I needed a tech and/or modem upgrade. I was told no to both.

The morning of June 27th I lost service. Both internet and TV were down. When I got home from work, I called tech support. After troubleshooting, I was told I needed a new modem. The rep said he'd overnight me one.

I get to work on the 28th and check the status of the modem order. Can't find it anywhere. So I do a chat and ask the rep to confirm the order. He tells me there is no modem order. He sees my service is down and schedules a tech to come out on morning of the 29th to fix it. I ask to speak to his supervisor about the modem. She tells me the modem order wasn't placed because the tech coming out Friday will have a new modem. I tell her a tech isn't scheduled to come out. Strangely, after speaking with her, the "self-installation" appointment scheduled for the 30th is changed to show a tech coming out.

I stay home from work the morning of the 29th for the tech coming to fix my service. My window is from 8:30-12:30. At 9:30, I call just to confirm a tech is actually coming since the appointment is no longer showing online. I'm told the tech had already come out but nobody was home. Complete BS.

My window on the 30th to complete the upgrade was from 11-1. Again, nobody shows. I call and I'm initially told my upgrade is complete. I say my service is still down and they ask if I've installed the modem they sent. I tell them they never sent a modem because the tech who was supposed to come between 11-1 has it. They tell me the tech already came out, but I wasn't home. He called but I didn't answer. I literally sat in my living room with the front door open and my phone in my hand from 10-2. Nobody showed or called. Utter BS they would even try to claim that.

They schedule a new appointment ("for real" I was told) today (July 1) with a window from 4-8. At 9:45 a.m., I get a text that asking if I'm available. I reply yes and they say they'll send the next available tech my way.

At 7 p.m., a tech finally shows up. He says looking at the log, my case is very strange. "What's happened?" I tell him he has no idea and I'll start at the beginning. "They're upgrading me to the Internet 50 ..." "Stop", he says. That's your problem. You can't get that speed. You live too far away from the station."

I tell him about the no-shows and he says that's a common problem. He says they've got some new techs who when they get a job they don't want, simply lie and say nobody was home/answered. He checks the first appointment on May 31 and says the tech claimed I canceled the order. He gave me his boss's email and asked me to "raise some hell" about the no-shows.

With my speed back to 18, everything is running again. But AT&T emailed me tonight and jacked my rate up $40 since I went from 50 to 18. So yeah, this isn't over.

Let us know if you need anyone to testify, lol. Should sue them for emotional distress. I wouldn't even consider that "ambulance chasing" in this case because they clearly ****ed you over a ton.

[woodjer]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

Just been dealing with a situation that kept me thinking back to this thread.

We are on AT&T Uverse. Don't have a problem with the service and, other than a couple fried boxes due to lightning strikes, haven't really had any issues that required calls or techs. BUT we noticed that our bill had jumped up significantly (probably end of promotion thing) and, shortly after, a Comcast rep shows up at the door with an offer to essentially match the TV, upgrade to faster internet, waive installation fees, no HD fees or DVR fees, and cut about $100/month so we jumped at it. We had them a long time ago and hated their customer service so left. At that amount of savings and the promise that he was our single point of contact, we figured it was worth another shot though.

Rep comes in and tries a few times to port over our phone number only to have his system crash. Eventually, he gets it working but says that it locked our phone number because of the repeated attempts. He'll get it taken care of tomorrow morning, he says. Sets everything up under my wife's name and then tells us that he'll make sure I'm an authorized user in case I need to make changes. We schedule for install and he goes on his merry way.

Install day comes around and the tech shows up. Reads the phone number off to my wife and it's not even close. So that never got corrected as promised. No problem, he says and tells her he'll get it fixed before he leaves. A little while later, he tells her that it's been so long that they need to re-install the cables and he'll put in an order to have someone come bury them in the next few weeks. Everything is working but will have lines going through the yard until then. Shortly after he leaves, I get home with the kids and go to test everything out. Some of our big channels tell us that we need to subscribe. Weird. I go log into the account and we got a TV package that was a tier lower than what we wanted. To add it online, it's going to bump everything up to what we were paying through AT&T. Not cool.

I call the rep (my single contact...) and leave him a voicemail. He texts back that it sounds like a coding issue and he'll take care of it once he's back from his kid's soccer tourney. No big deal, I can be patient and, as a father, I don't want to intrude on family time. I let a couple days go by and still not getting those channels so text him back for an update. No response. A couple days later, I call him and he says that he completely forgot and was dealing with a family emergency. I tell him that I want to respect that and offer to call someone else if he needs me to. Nope, family stuff is all taken care of and he'll get things squared away first thing tomorrow morning. Two more days...nothing. Send another text. Says they should be added and working. A few hours later, I come home and check. Nope. Text back asking for a timeframe for resolution. No response. Text back a couple days later. Nada. Finally text him to say that I'll be cancelling if I can't get resolution in 24 hours. Still nothing.

Call main customer service and super nice lady tells me that she's so sorry I've had to deal with that and that she'll take care of me and email the rep to let him know about my frustration. BUT...I'm not authorized to make changes to the account. What?! Gets everything taken care of and says that she's emailed the rep and told him to reach out to me. Still waiting on that call.

So we're looking at some snow arriving in the next week or two and the lines still haven't been buried. My wife decides to call them to see if there is a timeframe for when that will happen. No ticket for that has been submitted! They'll get someone on it ASAP and "could be done as early as today (Saturday)" Yep...still waiting on that.

Then my mother-in-law calls and says that she's been trying the landline and it just goes to voicemail. So...the phone isn't working either. Oh...and as we looked more closely at our first bill last night, we notice that they charged us for installation.

My wife then points out that we've reached out to them more in 2 weeks than in 6 years with Uverse. That is no exaggeration, either.

Of course, Comcast chat guy (still no word from our "rep") apologizes and says that he sees a ticket to bury the lines and that will take care of our service issues. I explain that the service is fine (although underwhelming) but that the customer service has been well below par. He asks for one chance to make it right so I told him that we left for similar reasons many years ago and this WAS the one chance. Surprisingly, that was pretty much the end of his fight. Although I had to laugh at the canned procedural chats that followed talking about our last bill (which he had already told me that the current one didn't need to be paid) and how customer service is their biggest commitment and all.

[AUChase]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

We had AT&T DSL when we couldn't get anything else and for years they were awful. Awful customer service and automated phone system. The internet was going down every week and got as slow as 1.5 mb/s.

When I found out Charter would actually run a new line down my road/driveway if we signed up I jumped on it instantly.

We have been getting 100mb/s for a while opposed to 60 because we were the first to get the new line upgrade.

**** AT&T.

[PVarck31]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I just got Directv about two months ago, and I am getting Sunday Ticket, and three free months of the premium channels. So I get my first bill and they charged me the non-promotional price for the channel package I have, they charged me for the premiums, and for insurance which I declined when I placed the order.

It took three chat sessions, and two phone calls to get this resolved. Everytime I talked to them they said they would fix it and they never did. Finally I tried the chat one more time and the girl fixed everything in like five minutes. Unreal.

But to say something good for once about these big companies, I got a text from Cricket saying they upped our data to from 4GB per line to 5GB.

Then about an hour later, I got an email from Spectrum that they increased my internet speed from 60mbps to 100.

So I guess it all comes out in the wash.

[TheMatrix31]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

DirecTV customer service has turned into an incoherent mess since the ATT merger.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

They were a mess even before the merger for me.

[TheMatrix31]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

They're always good to me in terms of credits and stuff but last time I called I had to talk to like 4 people, one of them even lied about being a retention agent, etc. Lots of confusion now. It was a bit more streamlined from my experience before.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I called them in June for the annual haggling/I'm going to cancel call. I was optimistic and even sang their praises around OS because the previous year I was able to get them down to $40/mo for my package. I tell the customer service rep that I would like to cancel and give her the boilerplate "it costs too much" response thinking she would try to work with me and retain me in some capacity.

Nope. Phone call lasted all of 5 minutes and she was more than happy to cancel my service after 3-4 years. I reached out to them via social media about a week later to try and remediate the problem (as I actually like their service, but the prices compared to other services are ridiculous). I was actually making headway as the customer service rep seem receptive to my "demands." That quickly died about a week later as they simply stopped responding without cause or warning.

There's still a small balance on the account, but whomever canceled me apparently deleted my online login which was how I paid every bill.

Honestly that was my first poor experience with them. Haggling over prices is just part of their game, but their previous customer service was always receptive and seemed more than pleased to try and satisfy me. I reached out to them in the hopes that the girl I talked to on the phone was just one bad apple, but from my experience this Summer and what others have been saying it seems a good time to switch to other, cheaper services.

[ProfessaPackMan]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

I called them in June for the annual haggling/I'm going to cancel call. I was optimistic and even sang their praises around OS because the previous year I was able to get them down to $40/mo for my package. I tell the customer service rep that I would like to cancel and give her the boilerplate "it costs too much" response thinking she would try to work with me and retain me in some capacity.

Nope. Phone call lasted all of 5 minutes and she was more than happy to cancel my service after 3-4 years. I reached out to them via social media about a week later to try and remediate the problem (as I actually like their service, but the prices compared to other services are ridiculous). I was actually making headway as the customer service rep seem receptive to my "demands." That quickly died about a week later as they simply stopped responding without cause or warning.

There's still a small balance on the account, but whomever canceled me apparently deleted my online login which was how I paid every bill.

Honestly that was my first poor experience with them. Haggling over prices is just part of their game, but their previous customer service was always receptive and seemed more than pleased to try and satisfy me. I reached out to them in the hopes that the girl I talked to on the phone was just one bad apple, but from my experience this Summer and what others have been saying it seems a good time to switch to other, cheaper services.

My Uncle was recently talking to me about switching over from Verizon FIOS to DirecTV since it would be "cheaper". They had it originally back in the mid 00s when I'm assuming their Customer Service was pretty good and were willing to work with you. But if it's gotten worse since then, I might warn them to keep doing their research and look around at other options.

[AUChase]

Re: The Death of Customer Service...

It's not as streamlined and quick to browse channels, but the locked in $30/mo. for DirecTV now has been amazing. We are up above 100 channels including most everything sports related we need except for the PAC 12 Network...

I can't go back to dealing with anything else. It's bad enough I'll have to call and threaten to cancel charter spectrum when they try to go up on me. I just hope they don't call my bluff.. they know nothing else in the area is good enough for the money.