Service Through Attrition

Let’s take a trip back through time to recent history, about 2 years ago…

M and I are preparing to move into a new apartment. Two weeks before our move we call AT&T to get everything set for moving our phone and DSL service to the new apartment. They point out that they have a new service, UVerse, that will give us faster speeds, phone, and cable TV for about the same as we were paying for just phone and DSL. Sounded good to us. Our move in date arrives. The AT&T tech arrives, 3 hours late, spends the next 4 hours trying to get UVerse working. She, who is actually very nice and courteous, is unable to get a clean enough signal to support UVerse. I ask if we can get our old service then, since we obviously can’t get UVerse. She calls customer support and, sure! we can get our old package… in two weeks. Two weeks! (but would we like to sign up for AT&T cell phone service?)

Two weeks rolls around, our phone service is finally reinstated, but no DSL. So we call AT&T customer support, apparently connecting DSL wasn’t on the service ticket. Why wasn’t it? I asked for it at the same time. Oh, that will take two weeks before they can send someone out to get that hooked up. Two weeks! Again!? So now it has taken AT&T a month to get phone and DSL working in our apartment.

Fast forward to two months ago. Our DSL has been working reasonably well since moving in and we’ve had no reason to call AT&T for anything. However, about two months ago our connection speeds start falling off. When the speed tests stopped going above 3Mbps (on a 6Mbps package) we called AT&T to report the problem. They called back twice while we were out (but left no callback number or other instructions). The third time they called I was home, did pick up the phone (on the second ring), but as soon as I answered they hung up. We heard nothing more from them.

We waited a couple weeks to see if they were going to fix the problem on their own. We did explain quite clearly what our issue was. No such luck. Proactive is apparently not on their to-do list. Our internet connection has now degraded to speeds no faster than 1.5Mbps, but only in very short bursts and the average sustained speeds are only .25Mbps. So M calls AT&T again. This time the CSR is rude, condescending, interrupts her constantly while she is explaining the problem and what steps we have taken to diagnose, and when she is done he acts like he hasn’t heard a thing she’s said. He accuses her of having a virus and to make sure she has anti-virus installed (even though she has explained that the problem is affecting all machines on the network, that antivirus in installed on all machines, and that no viruses are found), then he suggests that someone is probably hijacking our wireless network and using up all our bandwidth and that we should probably secure our wireless router (even though she has already explained that our router is locked down and that there is no traffic at all on the wireless network since all our wireless devices are powered down and not on the network), then he suggests that he can send a tech out, but since it is probably our fault we WILL be charged for the service call.

I would like to point out two things here: one, I work in IT, know how to secure a network and maintain my computers, and that I instructed M on all the information she needed to give the CSR to resolve the issue and two, the CSR has not at any point offered to check to actually check the line, to deign to suggest that the problem might actually be as M described and be on their end.

So M is now fuming. The CSR has been badgering her for a half hour, ignoring everything she has told him, and even threatened her with being charged for a service call. M finally demands that the CSR check the line. He does and (holy shit!) there is obviously something very wrong with our line. He’ll schedule a tech to come out, when would be a good time. M tells him that she works the rest of the week and can’t take any time off on such short notice so a time next week would be better. Would Thursday of this week work? No, she has to work the rest of this week. Would Wednesday morning or Friday work? No, she has to work the rest of the week, how about Monday of next week? Oh! Yes, they can send someone out next week.

M was so frustrated after the call she asked if I could be home to deal with the technician. So I stayed home. Andrew, the technician, arrived promptly when he said he would, called beforehand to let me know he was on his way, and was in every respect very pleasant. Not only that but he was able to find the trouble with our line (the line coming from the building into our apartment was corroded). He fixed the line, which cleaned up the connection completely and he informed us that our line was so clean now that if we wanted to upgrade to UVerse we could since the issue he just fixed was probably the reason we couldn’t get UVerse working 2 years ago. He explained everything he was doing the whole time and showed me the numbers on his line meter before and after so I could see and understand what was going on. He was great.

Our internet connection speeds shot up to 5.3Mbps and stayed there.

M pays the phone bill, but I was curious how much we were paying for the land line. I’d been contemplating getting a cell phone for a while (I work in front of a computer all day so have very little need of a phone) and figured that if I got a cell phone then we could get rid of the land line and M would save some money each month. Turns out she was paying more for the landline than a monthly cell plan would cost me (she has a cell phone so doesn’t really need the land line). We decided then to drop the land line and keep the internet. This leads us to our current imbroglio.

M calls AT&T again to have the phone disconnected and to switch our plan to an internet only option. This should be pretty straight forward: turn phone off, leave internet on. Everything there is fine and they will send someone out on Tuesday. Great! Tuesday comes around and we still have phone. Wednesday, still have phone, Thursday, still have phone, Friday phone is gone (yay!) and so is the internet (boo!). M calls AT&T to inform them that they have disconnected our internet. She spends the next 63 minutes on the phone, gets bounced between 6 different people, 5 of whom made no effort to actually help her and chose instead to put her on hold while they bounced her to the next person. The last person told her that everything was fine, they showed everything was fine, but that we were currently showing as having two lines and would probably be charged for that. Then M, now incandescent with rage, explained that as of yesterday we had a perfectly functional internet service. Then he gave her some BS metaphor about how the internet is like a tree, and that the wiring in our building was probably bad and that we’d have to contact the complex owners and get the building rewired (seriously, WTF?). But if they had to send a tech out we would be charged for the service call (because it was so obviously our fault that our internet service wasn’t working). Then the CSR changed his story, saying that there are two parallel lines coming into the building and now that they’ve turned off our service on the one line, they might not be able to reconnect our internet service at all (but would we like to upgrade to UVerse?), however he’d look into it and call us back before 5 to let us know.

Five o’clock comes and goes and we’ve had no call and have no internet still. Saturday arrives and we still have no internet. Now M is livid. She’s had enough. As a person who works in customer service and has worked in customer service for 15 years, nobody treats her that discourteously and retains her business. She calls Comcast. The CSR from Comcast is incredibly nice, very helpful, listens to her story about dealing with AT&T, sympathizes and waives the usual installation fee, gives her his full name, telephone number and extension, and has scheduled a tech to come out to our apartment on Monday afternoon, and that if for any reason over the weekend we decide to change our minds we can call and cancel the service ticket. Sunday M receives three calls from Comcast (only one message) just calling to confirm that we still want them to come out on Monday. M is jubilant.

This morning I walk into the office and the router shows we have internet service again. AT&T calls a couple hours later. Is our problem with the internet resolved? M informs them that she was waiting for the CSR to call her on Friday and that since they left us without internet all weekend and gave us no indication that they were going to fix it we were dropping our service with AT&T completely. The CSR who called gave her the number to cancel our service and hung up. That’s it. No apology for our difficulties, no offer to make right, no concern at all. Just an invitation to the exit and a dial tone.

Does AT&T have so many customers that they feel it necessary to divest themselves? Have they become so big and important that customers no longer matter? I have never encountered a company that demonstrated such a brash neglect and disregard for their customers. The only way AT&T could have possibly been worse would have been to yell at M, call her stupid, tell her to fuck off, and then charge us triple for having had the nerve to contact them at all.

Really, we don’t ask for much. From the phone company we ask only to turn phone on or turn phone off. AT&T has been doing the phone thing since 1875, one might reasonably expect them to be pretty damn good at it by now, but from what I’ve seen they are completely flummoxed each and every time they have to deal with it. I really do not understand our treatment by them. It will probably be a very long time until we willingly put ourselves back into a relationship with them. Starting this afternoon we will be AT&T free and most likely will be as long as they have competitors.