Aug 10
19
So – we’ve been subscribers of that beautifully marketed communications giant for a long time. Well over a dozen years. Internet, and phone.
Now – to suggest it’s been a rosy relationship would be silly. Why just last christmas, we had an outage of a few days, which required a call for support. During that call, we found out that we were paying 45$ a month for service they were selling for 14$. After a retro credit, new hardware and a few support issues, we got back online and the world was good.
A few weeks ago, we looked at our satellite bills, phone / internet etc. and decided now was the time to combine. I’ve been unhappy with Shaw Direct satellite for some time, particularly with respect to their programming changes on paid premium stuff. No more. We dumped it because Telus had an offer for us to add TV to our communications package and save us a few bucks (30+) a month, and get us a multi-tv PVR. Great thing if you have kids… seriously.
We called Monday, but it was going to take 4 days to get someone in. Ok… fair enough. Thursday AM they’d call with an ETA.
It was a rough ETA. Sometime between 8am and 4pm. At 3:30 after waiting around ALL day, the Mrs. called Telus. Unimpressed, she threatened to cancel, as the installer called. He arrived at 20 after 4. She grilled him hard. He only got the work order at 2pm though – so hardly his fault, but he wasn’t impressed with a 2pm callout for a 3-5 hour install.
We muddled through, got things installed, and he was out by 6:30.
Now the service, picture, etc. is pretty par for the course. Everything was installed, PVR working, recording – doing what we paid for.
At 8pm – the screen of all of our TV’s went black. Still had the program guide, but no picture. Couldn’t even play back PVR’d stuff – local to the box! What the hell… Browser refresh… nope. No internet.
Ok. I’ve been through this, downstairs, reboot modem. Nada.
Hello Telus support.
For 55 minutes, I worked with “Andy” to switch on / switch off, read back lights, refresh browser pages, dance in voodoo circles, talk to NOC techs, and generally praise Gaia. Nothing. (It was during this period that cycling the power on our ‘new’ modem caused our Alarm system to freak out and go into trouble mode with a failed telco-connection.)
We can get a tech to you on the 23rd he says.
Whuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuaat?
I’ve had the service for 2 hours, and you’re telling me I can now not have TV/Network/Web for the weekend?
Do YOU have a 4 year old ‘Andy’?
I escalated, and there was no manager on duty to assist. I was offered an escalation call next day…. that would be tomorrow. So I’m now screwed for at LEAST a day because I upgraded from the competition? Doesn’t that rub ya the wrong way? Sure did me.
Ok. I can live a NIGHT without web (yikes!) but it can be done.
After an hour I hung up the phone pissed off.
At this point, I called @lancetay to tell him what happened. Livid doesn’t even begin to describe my mood…
Still chatting with Lance, and telling him to send a few pointed tweets on my behalf, I refreshed the page on my browser again. I got an error dialog regarding gmail ssl certificates. I’m like – huh? The browser is getting a router screen screaming about bypass due to lack of internet, but I’m getting an SSL dialog?
OK, Cancel, OK, Cancel…. and out of the blue, a page loads on my screen. Power off and power on the PVR again… guess what. Yep. It worked.
So I ask this question: If you sell a product like Telus TV – wouldn’t it make sense to A) Admit to network issues when they exist. and
B) Have processes to test up and downstream instead of a 30 minute ‘which lights are blinking?’ assessment.
Lastly, If I find out that the SSL dialog actually HAD something to do with this – I’m gonna get some black hat boys to hammer telus a new one….
Sadly, takes no skill or experience with a product to sell it. To support it is a whole other story. No matter what you are selling, make sure your customers have an out if there is a problem. THAT will keep them coming back.
