This it the yacht I helped Paul Allen buy. I bet it's got satellite!
After a frustrating 20 minute call to the Asian sub-continent, it was determined that an on-site service call would be required to remedy my problem. The call was peppered with scripted questions that any 5 year old would have tried before calling, so needless to say, I was pissed by the end of out conversation. I told the customer service rep (and I use that term generously) that I didn't want to schedule the service call because I would have to decide whether I wanted to keep their service. Additionally, I really didn't think that I should have to take a minimum of half a day off work to diagnose what was clearly their problem. The rep then said politely "OK" and "Thank You" and hung up. That was the final straw. If they aren't going to do anything special to accommodate a 13 year, always paid on time and in full, customer... They could take their cable and shove into their unmentionable places...
The coup de grace happened when I returned my equipment. The representative at their office mentioned in front of about 10 people, in a loud voice, that I owed them $120. I said that I had paid my final bill about a week ago, and had just looked at my statement that morning on the Internet. Their system online indicated that everything was paid in full. I assume that from the look on my face she realized how angry I was, and decided not to pursue the issue. About two days later a credit of $36 showed up on my bill for the unused portion of the month.
So... that's my experience with the folks at Charter Communications. Feel free to comment on your experiences if you like. I'm sure that among their millions of subscribers, there must be a few satisfied people out there. As for me... it looks like the people over at Dish Network have earned yet another customer through the utter incompetence of their competition. I guess that's the great part of monopolies... You don't have to be good at anything, just keep the competition out.
4 comments:
I like to watch. That's why I have DirecTV. Other than the occasional phone call from Rosa Lopez asking if I'm satisfied with the service and the "special" packages being offered to long time customers, I am most satisfied with my television services. DirecTV and NetFlix are God sends.
Well, sausage, beer and porn aren't too bad, either.
Instead of switching to DirecTV, you should have switched to smoke signals. THAT would teach them cable people a lesson.
I know you're a busy guy, especially since I sucked all the time out of a weekend of yours not long ago. But it's been a long time since your last post, so I thought I would suggest some mild topics for conversation:
Abortion - only legal in cases of rape, incest, life of mother, or people who dump their car ashtrays in the parking lot (do we really want them in the gene pool?)
Immigration - a guest worker program for people who pick food I like, and change the constitution so that babies born here are only citizens if the parents entered legally
The end of the Internet - it exists and I found it: http://www.janbrunvand.com/end.htmlIf you don't like these, not to worry, I don't have a blog of my own.
You are not alone...
A former cable company call center rep says: "We lie" to customers who ask when installer will arrive
Chris Gates says she knows exactly why so many of Charter Communications' customers are complaining of poor service.
Gates was a call center representative in Cape Girardeau handling 100 to 125 calls a day from Charter customers. Executives at Charter talk about how service is improving, but Gates was on the front lines dealing with unhappy customers.
"The No. 1 complaint," she says, "was why didn't the technician show up for my appointment?" RELATED LINK
The cable company St. Louis loves to hate
A simple question, you'd think. But one Gates says call center employees can't answer. Advertisement
She says call center reps have no idea when installers are supposed to show up, where they are at the time, or when — or if — they might arrive.
"We had nothing in our system that told us anything about where Charter's technicians were," Gates says.
So what do call center reps tell callers?
"We lie to them," Gates says. "We tell them, 'Absolutely, the technician will be there.' "
Customers who persist are given another Charter phone number to call, Gates says.
Many of those customers call back to say that second number didn't work.
Gates says reps at the call center know that might happen. "The number doesn't work half the time," she says.
If the call center can't answer these questions, why not just transfer customers to someone who can?
"We were not allowed to transfer calls," Gates says. "Even though we had no training in technical support, we were supposed to answer the customers' questions and sell them new services."
Selling new services was the highest priority, she says.
Call center reps were allowed to transfer only 7 percent of their calls. More than that and they were written up and disciplined, Gates says.
Reps also could be disciplined for reporting to work 30 seconds late or returning from lunch or a break 30 seconds late. Those counted as an "absence" and 12 "absences" got a rep fired.
Gates earned about $720 every two weeks, before taxes and deductions. She has three children and says she quit after four months.
Through a spokeswoman, Stephen Trippe, the Charter vice president and general manager for the St. Louis area, said he was "not in a position to comment directly on the claims of a former (call center) employee."
Trippe repeated a statement he gave for last week's column: Over the past few months Charter has added technicians, dispatchers and call center agents to its local workforce and has enhanced the training for those employees. The company says it now offers "two-hour service windows for appointments."
So many Charter customers complain of poor service that officials at the Better Business Bureau issued a consumer warning last week.
Sue Schellin, a legal secretary from south St. Louis, said Thursday that she waited two weeks for an appointment for Charter to install a high-definition receiver for her new hi-def TV.
The next day, the box didn't work.
She complained to a call center in the Philippines and was told she had to wait another two weeks for an appointment.
She called again, posing as a new customer, and waited only two days.
Charter came and installed a new box, but it didn't work either.
Schellin called, got the Philippines again, and was told she must wait another two weeks.
She asked for a supervisor, who said she had a service technician on the other line, but was unable to transfer the call. The technician will call right away, the supervisor promised.
"I wait. And wait. And wait. No call back," Schellin said.
As for Gates, how did she handle customer questions she couldn't answer?
"You want the honest answer?" Gates says. "I hung up on them. That's why I left. I hated what I was forced to do."
To contact the BBB, call 314-645-3300 or log onto www.stlouisbbb.org.
msorkin@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8347
Anon.
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