Just when I thought my life indoors, sheltered from the bitter cold outside lacked the drama needed to fuel my blog, the phone lines went dead.
Just before the Christmas holiday, I spoke to a customer service representative (CSR) at our phone/internet/TV service company about lowering our monthly bill by signing a one-year contract. Simple. Helpful. Awesome. We’d already had their service for 18 months so it sounded like a plan. What wasn’t so awesome was the chain of events that were sparked when that CSR pressed the wrong button to disconnect our line. It took five days on the phone with their technical department to restore our service. It was brutal. False promises, confused employees, having to explain the situation from beginning to end over and over when I didn’t really know what the issue was. I had no idea that woman clicked the wrong button.
So, whatever. Christmas was coming. Who cared about giving the phone company a piece of my mind? We had our phone back and if I had the energy later, I would try to get a refund on the days without service.
Then on January 4, history repeated itself. I had a dial tone, but no one from an area code outside the state (including Papa from Manhattan) could call me. Wireless numbers could get through, but no land line calls. I didn’t have the heart. I didn’t have the fight. I couldn’t spend another five days talking with bewildered utility employees. I needed someone to actually see the issue as a whole and reach out themselves to the most powerful people they could find to fix it for me without me spending countless wireless minutes waiting on hold.
So, I set about to reach the highest up person I could, the CEO of this huge utility company.
I simply wrote the man an email. Apparently he read it. (At least I fantasized that he did. In reality I knew it was either an executive assistant or some drone assigned to read the incoming complaints.) Within 45 minutes, I received a call from a local manager who was on the case and assured me that he would take care of it. I also received a call from a regional manager and an email from the Mid-Atlantic President.
When I scrolled below the email from the Mid-Atlantic President, I saw my message forwarded by Mr. CEO himself. The head of the company read it. He heard my deflated tone and desperate cries and sought help. Boo-ya.
Here is my email to Mr. CEO.
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Dear Mr. CEO at huge phone company-
I live in My City, My State, and have been a customer for over a year and a half. Inexplicably on December 13, your company disconnected my phone service. It was an accident on the company’s part and it took me five days to get a serviceable phone line restored. I spent a minimum of 2 hours each day speaking with technicians and customer service people each of those five days to push the issue through the horribly concocted phone company systems.
I was so frustrated and worn down from fighting to get the phone back that I didn’t have the energy to follow up with customer service to tell them how disappointing the situtation had been. I wasted countless wireless minutes because I didn’t have a land line, and really the only reason the issue was fixed was due to my persistence.
No one at the phone company seems to be connected to see issues from a global perspective. The CSRs read a script that boasts that they strive to provide the highest customer service but no one along the line looked at my account and said, this is out of control and I want to follow through until it’s resolved. As soon as someone saw that there was a repair order pending or that a department that could fix it was closed, they washed their hands of it. No one really wanted to deal with it. Furthermore, I could never follow up with the same technician for the sake of continuity. They don’t have incoming numbers for customers to call or employee identification numbers. I had to re-explain the giant mess each and every time I called.
Even more impressive is that I had to fight to get a refund on my phone bill for December. I was offered a refund of five days of phone service but explained to the CSR that 5 days doesn’t explain the wasted time and frustration I had to go through because of a mistake the phone company made and couldn’t seem to repair.
On January 4, our line was disconnected again. Again, I have been on the phone for a minimum of two hours each day and each time I hear of a new department it has to go through or a new acronym explaining the process.
I spoke with a man today, an escalation specialist in Technical Services, and he told me that my trouble ticket now has to go to the another technical department. I asked if I could speak with them directly and he told me that he can’t even call them by phone. Seriously? I’m a responsible, paying customer who would like to have a land line, who wants your services, and I am told there is some elusive department that you can’t reach by phone, even internally?
I’m lost and confused and incredibly defeated. I can’t rely on hope that I will have phone service. I have to be able to have a phone for babysitters to call in an emergency. It’s the contact that everyone has to reach me and it’s a dead phone line.
I don’t know what you can do personally to fix this but I wanted you to know that your systems, mistakes and inefficiencies may force me to find other options.
Sincerely,
My Real Name
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This morning, the phone line was actually fixed. I sighed with relief and wrote an email to the Mid-Atlantic President thanking him for the prompt action. However, ten minutes later, I received four calls from the phone company’s “888” customer service number only to hear a high pitched mechanical screech. Interference so loud, I couldn’t speak over it.
The story goes on for the rest of the day, but it will have “to be continued” in my next post.
stinkerbean 
