dlq04

I wish I had a dollar for every mailer I’ve received over the past year or more from AT&T wanting my business (phone, internet, etc.). They have even come to door a couple times. When I did compared rates with Comcast, they provide less for more so I never switched.

We have underground AT&T lines in our subdivision with 3-foot posts that hold gobs of copper wire connections. There’s one between my house and our next-door neighbor. The kid who cut’s their yard wacked the post really good with his zero-turn mower and knocked off the access door breaking some attachments. Since the house is For Sale and empty I called AT&T to let them know all the wiring is exposed.

Every number I tried answered with a robot that wanted my AT&T account number or AT&T phone number. After about 20 minutes of frustration, I finally was able to connect to a live person on the fourth or fifth number I tried. He said someone would take care of it within 24 hours. That was 5 days ago. I told him at the time I didn’t need a ticket number since it wasn’t going to be my service that fails if it is not repaired. As of now, nothing is fixed.

Here's my question: Why do companies spend tons of money trying to acquire new customers and hardly any towards retention with live operators and trained customer service employees?

We all see it and there are lots of them. As I was getting more and more upset with their robot routing that never gave me an option to report a problem live I kept thinking why would I ever consider using this company?

Kyras

Yep, sounds about right. I have at&t for everything: landline, cell phone, TV, internet. They work fine but are a total PITA when you need to talk to them. I hate them for that reason even though I'm happy with the service. I pay just under $200 a month for it all.

boltonblue

i had a go round with verizon this afternoon.
after the call which the guy coiuldn;t help me i got a stupid robot call trying to do a survey.... Pffftt go F off.

ralper

Dave,

We had a similar problem a few years ago. The cable provider in our neighborhood was replacing the boxes but ran out when they reached the box between my house and my neighbor's. They left the wires exposed. I called twice and got no results so I sent a letter to the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs explaining the situation. In the letter I just happened to mention that the school bus stop was directly across the street and the kids could get hurt. (Of course they couldn't but it was great dramatic effect). What I couldn't accomplish on the phone for two or three weeks got done in three days. I sent a copy to my township and a copy to the company.

As far as robotic phone answering, it is the single worst invention of the 21st century.

Lovetodrive2000

Tried to get a hold of the US Postal Service the other day to try and track a package....

Ont the tracking page website, I could not contact a human being.... just the computer prompts, none of which could help me.

After spending 5-10 minutes going thru every prompt... finally gave up and called the local branch.... and the number they have listed just beeped, never rang....

Next branch finally got a human being, that told me to call a different branch, which finally helped me.

Customer service using the phone really sux these days.

Chuck S

My company insists on a live operator. No "press 1 for English" nonsense. Yeah, we pay someone to sit there all day.

-- Chuck

MsPerky

I have AT&T for my landline. Yep, still have a landline. Haven't needed to reach them for any reason. I spread my utilities around different companies. I like diversity.

Scooterboy

Our company was the same. All incoming call had to be answered within three rings. If the receptionist could get it there were 6 other people that could get it.

Plus answering time was tracked and a daily report generated.

The owner's thought was that he didn't like to be run through an automated system so there was no way he was going to put any of his customers through one!

BTW, we have AT&T for land line, TV & internet and we are reasonably happy (except price) but I have never had to contact them.

tof

I thought I would switch to AT&T DSL for broadband a few years ago. Of course they just sent me a kit (DSL modem, etc) to hook up to one of my land line jacks. Never could get it to work even after several very frustrating sessions with their tech support. So I kept my cable broadband service. Tried to find out where I could return the AT&T hardware but of course that went nowhere. When they billed me I refused to pay.

So the account got turned over to a collection agency. Whey I wrote them (certified, etc) that I had a dispute over the service I never heard from them. I wrote them again indicating that under the fair credit act they were not allowed to ding my credit or force me to pay until I received a response to my dispute with the original creditor (AT&T).

Never heard from that collection agency again...because they sold the account to a DIFFERENT collection agency. I went through the entire correspondence process once again and never got a response because they sold my account YET AGAIN to YET ANOTHER agency. This happened two more times until I finally quit responding. Finally got an offer from the last agency to settle for 20 cents on the dollar. So I never responded to what at this point had become a matter of principle. I took a small hit to my credit score but it never affected my actual ability to borrow. My Credit Union MasterCard still only charges 4% or so and I don't even pay that because I never let a balance go from month to month. So THERE, AT&T.

I SWORE I would NEVER do business with AT&T again. Well, soon after switching from CableONE to DirecTV for programming, DirecTV was bought by...AT&T.

Now I get mailings at least twice a week offering to replace that expensive cable broadband service with AT&T DSL.

tof

And...

just went to check my email. New one from...AT&T telling me I should "say goodbye to roaming charges in Mexico and Canada".


Spam filter now has a new entry.