Please hold...
08/03/07 18:16 Filed in: Technology
I'm in my second hour of
waiting on hold for someone at TSTT's customer service department
to pick up the phone. On the positive side, this week of outages on
the DSL line has made me much more familiar with a previously
unused feature on my cordless phone.
Now I know what the loudspeaker is for. It's for listening to a pre-recorded message drone on and on about how valuable I am as a customer and how affordable the service I'm currently not enjoying is.
This has saved me much discomfort of the neck and made me more likely to speak evenly, though with unbridled sarcasm, to the unlucky person who actually answers the phone.
I finally get a young lady on the line, explain that I've already done everything with the DSL modem I was asked to do during the last 36 hour outage four days ago and please, can we just get on with finding out what the problem is?
I'm referred to the repairs department, where the lady who answers the phone listens to my explanations for two minutes before abruptly declaring that "I'm transferring you to Internet Services."
Before I can muster an outraged "but," I'm back in the queue, where I discover that even the pre-recorded service can become exhausted by the whole experience, cutting off in mid-sentence, possibly to go outside and have a smoke.
After a cumulative one hour, 24 minutes and 32 seconds (isn't technology wonderful?) a young man answers the phone, patiently explaining that he has to go through the script in front of him.
I cheerlessly comply, ending up exactly where I expect, with a problem that has to be resolved at TSTT's end and a password that has to be reset once again.
It's always possible for technology to fail, so that's not my beef with this issue, it's the fact that nobody seems terribly interested in the idea of logging failures of service and recompensing customers for that lost access, which is supposed to be offered 24/7.
By my calculations, I've lost 52 hours of service. TSTT's Billings department would have some clear lines of action if I dared to withhold payment for 52 hours of service, so I think it would be not just fair, but forward thinking practice to have systems in place for crediting accounts for services the company has failed to provide.
And when those failures happen, they really should be supported by service that isn't so difficult to reach, is more enthusiastically followed up on and which is punctuated by clear indicators of the issue and realistic times of correction.
Now I know what the loudspeaker is for. It's for listening to a pre-recorded message drone on and on about how valuable I am as a customer and how affordable the service I'm currently not enjoying is.
This has saved me much discomfort of the neck and made me more likely to speak evenly, though with unbridled sarcasm, to the unlucky person who actually answers the phone.
I finally get a young lady on the line, explain that I've already done everything with the DSL modem I was asked to do during the last 36 hour outage four days ago and please, can we just get on with finding out what the problem is?
I'm referred to the repairs department, where the lady who answers the phone listens to my explanations for two minutes before abruptly declaring that "I'm transferring you to Internet Services."
Before I can muster an outraged "but," I'm back in the queue, where I discover that even the pre-recorded service can become exhausted by the whole experience, cutting off in mid-sentence, possibly to go outside and have a smoke.
After a cumulative one hour, 24 minutes and 32 seconds (isn't technology wonderful?) a young man answers the phone, patiently explaining that he has to go through the script in front of him.
I cheerlessly comply, ending up exactly where I expect, with a problem that has to be resolved at TSTT's end and a password that has to be reset once again.
It's always possible for technology to fail, so that's not my beef with this issue, it's the fact that nobody seems terribly interested in the idea of logging failures of service and recompensing customers for that lost access, which is supposed to be offered 24/7.
By my calculations, I've lost 52 hours of service. TSTT's Billings department would have some clear lines of action if I dared to withhold payment for 52 hours of service, so I think it would be not just fair, but forward thinking practice to have systems in place for crediting accounts for services the company has failed to provide.
And when those failures happen, they really should be supported by service that isn't so difficult to reach, is more enthusiastically followed up on and which is punctuated by clear indicators of the issue and realistic times of correction.
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