Worst Experience with a ISP to date... used to trust AT&T

[jd92037]

My wife and I moved on the first just a couple unites down from our old place.  We were very busy at the time and had many tasks to get done as one can imagine.  We also had our trip we had planned for a year coming up but the scheduler from ATT to have our internet moved to the new home gave us a day and window of 3 hours I believe a couple days before we were to leave.

My wife had to take the 3 hours off of her busy day to come home which is very hard for us as we work a lot and have many meetings to attend to etc.  The day the tech Michael was to show up he did not show up within the first time period that they had called and verified three times to "insure' we were there.  When my wife had enought and left she was driving away and noticed there was an ATT installer at a box by the park a block away and just thought she would stop and ask what was going on and if there was another tech around.  He said... oh man are you the "@@@@@@@"'s

Yes we are.

Oh man IM sorry I a don't think Im gonna make it I have customers ahead of you.

Ok first of all the guy should have got a clue and called so my wife did not miss an extra hour of work which is very expensive for us.  It also caused us to lose internet for a day which means we could not condut business from our homes.  All in all we lost more than a year subscription to ATT on this day.  The guy was incompetent and should have had the professionalism to call us.

I was really mad to say the least so after sitting on the phone for a half hour because att uverse has terrible phone service coverage they need to double their employees.  I decided to get on chat and find out how this was going to be fixed.  The people from INDIA really wasted my time for about an hour and got nowhere essentially telling me they could not do anything... .why are they even there they can't do anything. 

I told them I wanted to cancel and to forget about bringing the installer back.  Then I planned on writing a formal letter to say goodbye to my long time patrionage because that was handled very poorly and I don't like outsourcing which topped my day.  So the next day dumb dumb shows up and installs the cable my wife had to come home to meet him.

She did most of the installation and I find out when I get home.. not happy I said I wanted to cancel.  A couple weeks go by we get back from our vacation and I see a bill for a 150 on my bill for installation.. bad bab bad ATT you are going to lose more than my uverse account now out of principle I am going to cancel my cell phones and transfer them to another carrier I don't care about the money.  By the way the sad excuse for a mangager called me while I was at work the next day to say it was our fault or apologies I mean.  He says I heard our tech arrived last minute..... are you kidding me he didn't arrive at all he would have been hours late and no call and the manager has the gull to say this.  Better get it together att or you going down.

Angry customer.

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

If you still have some unresolved issues, send a PM to Alex who is an AT&T Community Manager on this forum.

By the way, U-verse has no customer support in India.  They do have a call center in the Phillipines.

[jd92037]

Thanks Texas but I could swear that was India but then again how am I going to be able to tell on a chat session.  I thought I could decipher.  Regardless of what country it was It makes a huge difference for me if customer service is outsources.  The American customer support rep must cost a ton more because when dealing with customer cummincation is everything and I felt like I was talking to a robot.

It is clear that Uverse has a organizational structure that is not all there yet.  Maybe because it is a lack of resources with the newer section of the company but their hours are terrible.  I asked them to get someone out to my house and they were like we can't do that sort of thing.  I said cancel my account and they were like we cannot do that.  I asked what can you do?  well, we are very sorry you are experiencing trouble...

I suggest you get it together Uverse.  I know you have this forum so you can assist your customers but it is also a means to control damage.  Being in SEO and Web Development I understand how important it is to know where comments are posted about your business.

Jesse

[oufanindallas]

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jd92037 wrote:

Thanks Texas but I could swear that was India but then again how am I going to be able to tell on a chat session.  I thought I could decipher.  Regardless of what country it was It makes a huge difference for me if customer service is outsources.  The American customer support rep must cost a ton more because when dealing with customer cummincation is everything and I felt like I was talking to a robot.

Jesse

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You must not do business with too many companies then.  I work for a Fortune 500 company who has customer service in Manilla.  In the same building that our customer service is in, Visa, MasterCard, HP, Sprint and several other companies have their customer service call center.   As for cost, yes it does cost a whole lot more when you start factoring in taxes, FICA, insurance.  We outsourse (in the US) a majority of our support and we can get 3 agents for the price of 1 regular full time agent.  For customer service it's closer to 4:1 ratio by outsourcing overseas. 

[jd92037]

Valid point.  I am curious, if your customer assuming U.S based is satisified with the support provided when outsourced.  I find it takes me 8 times the communication efforts to accomplish the same task when I'm dealing with outsourced support.  For example I was on a chat session with a AT&T representative for about an hour the other day and we accomplished nothing.  I had a simple request , nothing outside of the ordinary.  I just wanted to have the AT&T technician arrive at my house during the same day, even if it were outside of the 3 hour window they game me.  I mean they did text me, call me and email me leading up to the day to confirm the appointment. I guess they forgot to remind themselves.  But going back to the outsourced support, there is a difference in how we communicate.   Customer service requires sympathy to ones situation and not just a scripted "We are soo sorry mr... followed by a I see your credit is important to you mr. ..., how would you like to sign up for our protection plan?"  (an example that I have seen too many times)

Considering the situation and the strain it put on my Wife and I before going on our vacation that was a day after moving into our new home, the blunder was not appreciated.

Jesse

[jd92037]

I tried sending a message however I checked today and no reply and it is not in my sent messages.

[RCSMG ACE - Master]

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jd92037 wrote:
I tried sending a message however I checked today and no reply and it is not in my sent messages.

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If you are referring to sendiing a PM as TG suggested.  You have to go to Alex's profile page and click on "Send a message" or something to that effect.  You will be able to send Alex a Private Message.  Let him know what is going on and he will be in touch with you via a Personal Message.  You will know you have a PM when the little blue envelope at the upper right hand of your screen will indicate it.  Here is another link to Alex's profile.

http://forums.att.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/318276

[ever4444]

hOW CAN THIS COMPANY be allowed to stay in business, seriously?

[texasguy37 ACE - Champion]

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ever4444 wrote:

hOW CAN THIS COMPANY be allowed to stay in business, seriously?

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What is the alternative?

[oufanindallas]

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ever4444 wrote:
hOW CAN THIS COMPANY be allowed to stay in business, seriously?

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That's all you have written in 3 other threads,  If you have an issue send Alex a PM as others have been told to do,instead of just saying AT&T shouldn't be in business without explaining what your problem is.

Better than 95% of all UVerse customers have no issues with their service and they are ranked as the #1 or #2 Television provider.

[oufanindallas]

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jd92037 wrote:

Valid point.  I am curious, if your customer assuming U.S based is satisified with the support provided when outsourced.  I find it takes me 8 times the communication efforts to accomplish the same task when I'm dealing with outsourced support.  For example I was on a chat session with a AT&T representative for about an hour the other day and we accomplished nothing.  I had a simple request , nothing outside of the ordinary.  I just wanted to have the AT&T technician arrive at my house during the same day, even if it were outside of the 3 hour window they game me.  I mean they did text me, call me and email me leading up to the day to confirm the appointment. I guess they forgot to remind themselves.  But going back to the outsourced support, there is a difference in how we communicate.   Customer service requires sympathy to ones situation and not just a scripted "We are soo sorry mr... followed by a I see your credit is important to you mr. ..., how would you like to sign up for our protection plan?"  (an example that I have seen too many times)

Considering the situation and the strain it put on my Wife and I before going on our vacation that was a day after moving into our new home, the blunder was not appreciated.

Jesse

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95% of our customers don't care that customer service is in Manilla,  the remaining 5% are old school and don't believe that any job should be sent over seas without realizing the cost of hiring an American.  Our technical support will always be US based as our customers drew the line there and my company listened.  As for service levels, our ratings are typically 4 1/2 or 4 3/4 stars out of 5.  Are all of our customer service reps shining stars, no and when I have to deal with them I too get frustrated when they won't do their job properly, but the majority of them are just fine.

[mibrnsurg ACE - Geek]

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jd92037 wrote:
I tried sending a message however I checked today and no reply and it is not in my sent messages.

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Alex has been out all week and he'll probably get it Monday and respond,

Chris

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Please NO SD stretch-o-vision or 480 SD HD Channels
1-800-288-2020, After he gets acct info, press # a bunch of times, get a menu from Mr. Voice recognition
Your Results May Vary, In My Humble Opinion
I Call It Like I See It, Simply a U-verse user, nothing more

[jd92037]

Well then we can agree to disagree. No disrespect to you I just have a different opinion of outsources customer support. By the way none of the information from my chat was communicated to ATT. I called in and cancelled and am going with my only other option in town out of principle. They didn't offer anything for the missed appointment and billed my account $150 dollars for the installation. They never mentioned the charge prior to me getting the bill. It is obvious this company needs major work on it's infrastructure. I wish there was more competition so better service was provided.

[jd92037]

This situation was not resolved properly so I had to cancel.  I finally got ahold of customer service and neither the missed appointment, the chat session or the forum brought any attention to the issue.  They had no idea anything was wrong.  This is a sign of a poorly structured company.  It is a sad thing when there is only two options for internet and you have to fire one.

[jd92037]

I have to say thank you to Tina L. for treating me as a loal customer that I have been.  I was not happy with the situation that occured as it was taxing and part of it was the timing but Tina resolved the situation.  She took the time to read this before calling me and treated me like a person that the company wants to retain.  I ended up cancelling my new service from the competitor to stick with ATT.  I am glad that I will remain an ATT Uverse customer because the quality of the internet is great.  I hope they get more people like Tina so the service matches the product.

Thank you Tina