22. September 2009 by admin.

There are some people who just excel at giving excellent customer service, and sometimes a good cs rep is hamstrung by policy.  I spoke with two excellent cs reps today from Sony who were trying to help me get replacement earbuds for the two sets that went bad within two months, a month apart.  They did succeed in getting me ONE set of replacement earbuds to replace TWO sets that went bad.  Okay, that’s not the fault of the reps.  That’s SONY policy.Just fyi.I try to be courteous to the cs reps I have to deal with over the phone, because they’re doing their job amid some very badly-behaved customers.  The CS Reps I work with are superlative examples of what CUSTOMER SERVICE means.  (You know who you are)  When a product is produced and doesn’t perform to expectations, the product should be replaced.  The Sony website states that without a receipt, one should expect refurbished goods.  I didn’t buy refurbished goods, and no, I didn’t keep my receipt after I found out that they did work out of the box.  A $30 item shouldn’t require a 7 year statute of limitations on proof of purchase!  I suppose that Sony would want to make sure that I didn’t buy them two years ago.  I understand all of that, and I understand that there are times when policy has to be the driving force.  But how long would you expect to hold onto a receipt for a $30 item, and what should I expect as restitution?

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4. September 2009 by admin.

The tech support rep from AT&T called again today.  They went and checked and of course, while everything is working nothing is wrong.  I finally got someone to verbalize this concept: If the problem occurs when the tech support center is closed, that is, after 6 pm on Saturday through 9 am Monday morning, there is nothign that can be done. Period.And they feel that they’re fulfilling their end of the contract.

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31. August 2009 by admin.

Today while I was at Kyle’s birthday party at the skating rink, I got a voice mail from AT&T.  If I was still having problems, I was to call the same number I called before, use the pin and reference the case number.  I got home a little after 5, and it was probably 5:30 by the time I decided to try again to connect, and to call the support number.  When I called the support number, the recording identified the center as AT&T Enterprise Technical Support Center for Wireless Services. I was asked to enter my PIN number. The call was automated-transfered.  the recording advised me that the offices were closed, that the hours of operation were 9 am to 6 pm Eastern time and they are closed on Sunday, and I should try agian during the business hours.

I thought this was going to be a number that I could call when it wasn’t working, separate from the normal course of things.

Additionally, it suddenly occurred to me:  Does AT&T really want me to believe that there is much more data traffic at 5am on Sunday morning than at 7pm on Thursday?

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31. August 2009 by admin.

Wednesday evening I got a voice mail from AT&T support to the effect that they couldn’t find anythign wrong at the tower, and if i was still having trouble I needed to contact them at the number provided, with the case ID and pin number.  thursday I did contact that number and spoke with a support rep.  He wanted to know if I was still having trouble.  I’m starting to wonder what happens to the notes that are supposed to be taken during these conversations, because the notes should indicate that I don’t have trouble connecting during the week.  That would indicate that Wednesday I wouldn’t be having trouble.  Thursday I wouldn’t hbe having trouble.  And when I was at a different location I wouldn’t be having trouble, which would be Wednesday and Thursday when they were calling me and I was calling them.  All this stuff is in teh notes they’re supposed to be adding to the case.

Saturday I hopped on the ‘net about 7 am, and before 8″30 I got kicked off.  I’m still not able to connect, and it’s 12 noon Saturday.  The rep did say on Thursday that it’s possible that there’s just too much data traffic at our tower on the weekends.  The conversation Thursday indicated that the support rep with whom I spoke on that day would be calling me on Saturday around 7 in teh evening to see if I was still having problems.

Where will that leave me?  AT&T should be able to look at the traffic at that tower, and, if the traffic load is the problem, it seems that AT&T can be compelled to do something to provide the service we’re paying for.  AT&T’s position, as stated to me so far, is that they don’t guarantee service 24/7.  At what point can it be concluded that AT&T has a responsibility to upgrade the infrastructure to provide advertised and contracted service, rather than hiding behind “not guaranteeing service 24/7?”  This is not a case of “not guaranteeing service 24/7.”  This is predictable service interruption, and once it becomes predictable, does AT&T not have a contractual obligation to take measures to remedy the situation?

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26. August 2009 by admin.

I got a call from a rep at AT&T today. He said that the network engineers tested the equipment at the tower and it’s all functioning correctly.  My reaction of course was to ask if they tested it on Saturday when I was having trouble.  Without hesitation, he assured me that they did test on Saturday.  Question from my side was how they knew to test it when it wasn’t even submitted until at least Monday.  Hmmm….good question.  So he said he was going to submit a network ticket to have them test it on Saturday.  This is really dragging out a long time, and I think that the longer it drags out the more certain it becomes that I will be cancelling the service.  Upside of that is that the early termination fee shrinks with each passing month.  Downside of THAT is that it becomes less advantageous to take them to small claims court, because the relationship between what I’d pay and what I’d gain (already a loss but we’re talking about a principle here) widens.

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24. August 2009 by admin.

My win does not have to equal a loss for AT&T, not that they care.  But our internet bombed on us early enough Saturday that I was able to demonstrate to a technician for AT&T that what I said was happening was in fact happening.  The aircard is not programmed to drop on Saturday, the tower, to her knowledge, is not programmed to “manage” network traffic such that our throughput would drop completely.  Here’s what’s bizarre:  She could see us hitting the tower; I could see that data packets were being sent and received.  The problem is not signal strength, we had a powerful signal.  We made all kinds of adjustments to the aircard control program, to the wireless device configuration, etc., and then I asked her, “Okay, if these work, then we’ll have to see what we need to do to make it happen on the mac.” She kept forgetting that this issue was not isolated to a Windows Vista machine. (I think people have become accustomed to blaming Vista for everything that doesn’t work; the fact that it also doesn’t work on a Mac should cut Vista a bit of slack.) Bottom line Saturday was that it just plain didn’t work; we showed “connected to the internet” for a brief period of time, then “connected to the network local only” for a period of time.No, it’s not solved.  But someone at AT&T finally believes me.Oh, and I am going to get a credit on my bill for every Saturday and Sunday since the time when I can say I noticed a pattern of non-connectivity, which was sometime in May.

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19. August 2009 by admin.

So back in February, we decided to ditch the landline and get an air card for our internet connection.  Dollars are about the same, speed is marginally faster (a snail on steroids is still a snail).  AT&T offers a Sierra Wireless laptop connect, so we signed on.  For the whole first month we played with settings with tech support and finally got the thing where it would work most of the time.  I was still using the XP machine at that time, and the card also worked with the mac.  I didn’t even try using it on a Linux machine, I’ve never been enthusiastic about exercises in futility with predictable outcomes.  We even swapped the device out for a different one, I’m on my second aircard.I don’t know at this point if this was always the case, but at some point I noticed a pattern of accessibility.  Sometime on Saturday afternoon, I lose my connection to the internet.  The laptop shows that it’s connected; I just can’t GO anywhere.  Or sometimes I can’t even connect.  Or sometimes the computer can’t recognize the device.  It’s not a consistent sort of situation, which makes it really difficult to troubleshoot.   Additionally, support for the laptop connect devices goes away Saturday at 6pm and doesn’t reappear till Monday morning sometime.  I rarely spend all day Saturday in my house, and if I AM in my house, I’m probably not spending a lot of time on the web.  But when I want to surf, I want to surf.  Is that too much to ask?Evidently it is.I  have gotten fed up with it.  I called Wild Blue Satellite Internet, and got a quote on service; I’m now signed up for installation with them, but it’s on hold right now, because of what I’m about to tell you.I called AT&T and explained the situation to the customer service rep.   All of the service reps have been very, very nice.  They all “appreciate” my frustration over the situation.  As wonderful as that is, their appreciation of my frustration has not solved the problem.  So I explained that I wanted to terminate my service and I wanted the early termination fee waived and I would like my bill to be adjusted to reflect the time that the service has been unavailable to me.Of course, they don’t want to do that.  See, the service has been used; AT&T makes no guarantee that the service will be available 24/7, so as long as it’s available at some point during the billing cycle, it’s “available.”  The rep wanted to know why I don’t call when I’m having problems–even though there is nobody to call when I’m having problems.So here’s where we are now:  AT&T wants to troubleshoot the device, and after they can determine that the device is functioning properly, somehow they’ll come up with a way for me to contact SOMEONE when it doesn’t work when there’s nobody to contact.The worst part of this from a business point of view is that AT&T feels that they have no obligation to provide consistent service as long as they are providing SOME service.  And I’m not a huge customer. Can we go viral with this?  Let’s make the world aware that AT&T feels no obligation for consistency of service.  They feel that as long as the account has activity, they’re fulfilling the terms of their contract.  What do you think?I think occasional outages are to be expected.  Every Saturday afternoon, all day every Sunday, and even up till every Monday morning sometime after 7 am–THAT’S not “occasional outages.” Something’s happening on a planned, regular, scheduled basis.I will terminate the account after we get through the hoops they want me to jump through.  And if they still make me pay the termination fee, it’ll be worth spending more than that to take them to small claims court. They won’t show up, I’ll win, and we’ll take it viral again.  And when Apple puts the iPhone on Verizon, they’ll lose hundreds of thousands of customers.

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10. July 2009 by admin.

Have you used a piece of technology and felt it was “not quite ready for prime time?”  It seems like I encounter my fair share of stuff that falls in that category, working as I do in Tech Support.  A lot of people–a LOT–felt that Windows Vista was one of them.  For the most part that’s a fair assessment, but what’s not entirely fair is that a lot of people wrote Vista off completely.  Vista has become remarkably useable, secure, and stable.  No, I’m not a mouthpiece for Microsoft, and no, Windows is not the only machine I’m familiar with.  Vista has become what it should have been from the start.  Who remembers the introduction of Windows XP?  Only geeks like me actually liked it, but it was not what it should have been when it hit the streets.Our Personal Information Manager program (similar to Outlook–uses email, calendar, contacts, tasks) which I won’t mention by name requires a third party program to pull in all the non-email stuff to a PDA–smartphone device, palm device, iPaq, etc. Some functions of this program work flawlessly for most users; for some users, nothing works well, for other users some functions work well but others never work.  The software provider told us repeatedly that it was our server.  We moved all our accounts to be hosted on their servers.  Guess what–now EVERYONE is experiencing some sort of issues.  This software is not new.  The port to iPhone is new, and iPhone users are experiencing an inordinate amount of issues.  But this software for BlackBerry should have been ready for prime time by now.

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9. July 2009 by admin.

just like me.  And, pretty much like everything else I do, it’s probably going take a while to get from start to finish on any phase of it.  I love reading blogs but this is my first attempt at writing one.  I generally have a lot to say about nearly everything, and I bite my tongue a lot.  This is MY blog.  I don’t intend to offend, but if I do, just return to that part about it being MY blog.  The opinions expressed here are MINE.  I respect a different point of view, but unless there’s a compelling argument in favor of that point of view, I’ll probably stick with my own.  Don’t let that discourage you.

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