The Customer View

High Speed to Nowhere

Never satisfied to let one post on poor customer service suffice, I must follow up on my previous post about doing business with Cox Communications, my cable TV and "high speed" Internet provider.

Once I was able to provide them with the last four digits of my wife's Social Security Number - at first, this seemed to be the Holy Grail, but ultimately turned out to be the key to Pandora's Box  (please forgive the mixed metaphors, but these service downfalls really upset me!), I was able to get someone to try to diagnose my cable TV and Internet outage.  Reboot this, reboot that, nothing happening, okay Mr. Dennis, we're going to have to schedule a visit for one of our field technicians.  The first available date is Saturday, between 1 and 3 PM.  Is that okay?

Ummmm, no.  That is not OK, not when I call on Wednesday, not when my cable TV and Internet were working fine when I left for work that morning, and did not work when I returned that evening.  Not to mention having to crack the DaVinci Code with my wife's SSN before the tech reps would even speak to me.  Now they tell me I have to wait three days before they can send someone out to fix my problem.  No, not "OK."  Far from it.

Now, is Cox woefully understaffed in field technicians, or do they have so many problems with their service that normal staffing just can't keep up?  Pick your poison - either scenario reeks of indifference to their customers.

Now, here's the kicker:  On Saturday, a technician finally arrives.  He looks at my cable TV box and cable modem.  Then he says he has to check something outside.  The next thing I know, he is climbing up a ladder leaning against the house across the street, so he can access the cable that goes from my house to the community cable feed.  He then makes a call on his cell phone, and comes back to my house.  He tells me that someone accidentally shut my service off, but he got them to turn it back on.

Let me repeat that.  "Someone" at Cox accidentally shut down my cable TV and Internet, and after calling them to find out what the problem was, and then having to wait three days for a field tech to diagnose the problem and request service reconnection, all I got was this lame explanation.  No apologies for the gaffe, no complementary services for a month or two for my trouble, nothing.

I was promised by the telephone rep that I would not be billed for service for the days when my service was out, and that remains to be seen.  If they do not credit me for those days on my next bill, I will be pulling a major nutty on them.  If they do credit me for those days, it is in fact the very LEAST they can do.  And that seems to be what Cox is striving for: doing the very least they can do to keep their customers. 

My lesson to you, good readers, is to strive to do more for your customers.  When loyal customers don't get what they are paying you for, you need to remedy that problem immediately, and then you need to put a "cherry on top" to ensure that your customer knows that you know that he has been inconvenienced, and that you hope that the customer will give you another chance.  It's not that difficult.  All it takes is a little common sense and a little humility.

   --- Chuck Dennis

High Speed? I Beg to Differ

*Sigh*  Here I go, whining about poor service again.  And this time, it involves my cable company.  Now there's a shocker! 

Cox Communications is our cable provider, and we get digital cable TV from them, as well as high speed Internet.  On Wednesday evening, I came home to find that neither my TV or my Internet were functioning.  So I dug out my last bill, to make certain I was paid up (I was), and found the phone number to call for support.  After navigating my way through the automated attendant, and then holding for ten minutes, I was at last connected to JC, who was my support rep.  (Before going any further, let me also say that Cox has a cute way of having their reps answer the phone.  Instead of identifying themselves and asking how they can help, they instead identify themselves and say "I can help you."  Wellllllll... it's nice to think so, but it is not always the truth.  Can you see where I'm going with this?)

So I told JC my problems with TV and Internet, but before saying anything, he needed to confirm my account.  So he asked my name, my address, the name of the person who set up the account (my wife), and then, the kicker - for security purposes, he needed to know the last four digits of my wife's Social Security number.  Well, call me an inattentive husband, but it shames me to say, I do not know off hand my wife's Social Security number.  And this turned out to be a boulder in the road which prevented me from getting any sort of response from JC.  So, after realizing that my pleas were not getting me anywhere, and that JC had a script that he was NOT going to stray from, I asked to speak to a supervisor.  Seven minutes later, JC returned, and verbally handed me off to his supervisor, who told me the same thing: No last four digits of my wife's SSN, no service.  Well, as my luck would have it, the missus was traveling on business, and not immediately available to provide me with her SSN.  I pleaded with the supervisor, appealed to his sense of judgment and fair play.  However, he wasn't getting off of his script, either.  He acknowledged that is must be frustrating, but stuck to his story that he could not help me until I came up with those last four digits.

*Sigh*  There is a lesson here for all of us.  The lesson for self-involved husbands like myself was to keep the wife's SSN handy, 'cus ya never know when you might need it.

The lesson for Cox Communications is, when setting up an account for a household, maybe something other than one spouse's SSN could be used for security purposes.  Now, don't get me wrong, I understand the need for security.  I wouldn't want an agent from the Axis of Evil to weasel his way into our cable account and cancel my HBO, thus inflicting a serious wound into my American way of life.  But maybe a pet's name, or maybe a birth date, maybe a hometown, mother's maiden name, perhaps... Something that might give another family member half a chance at unlocking the golden door of service at the cable provider.  I mean, what am I gonna do without TV and Internet?  Read a book???

   -- Chuck Dennis