Many of you have read my consumer posts on ATT, Sprint, BWP, and other customer service examples of poor service and general ineptitude. Well folks, it seems as if there is a new winner in WORST customer service that I have experienced.... Century Link
click on "read more" to continue
Below is the experience of my boys.
On Friday I spoke to an employee who helped sign us up but did not give a date for turn on stating their calandra system was down and they would call back. He said by waiting we would be able to have service turned in this week, not next week. No employee number but an order confirmation #: Nxxxxxxx. They never called back. (Confirmation number omitted for security reasons but it is on record).
Today I first spoke with Lorenzo (employee id: ischirr) who told me fires in Sedona caused our date to be pushed back. He transferred me to Omar (employee id: 0194801) in customer escalations who told me nothing could be done and he said he did not have a boss. After asking many times he transferred me to his boss Denise (no employee id). She told me a note would be sent to dispatch to move us up if a slot opened. When I tried to confirm this with Shane (employee id: aa88550) it was not confirmed. Shane transferred me to Matt who transferred me right away to his manager Morris who said he refused to transfer me to anyone higher up and refused to let me speak to anyone in dispatch. He then hung up on me when I clearly said not to. Morris was particularly rude.
Small extra thing: on hold it clearly advertises speeds up to 40 MBps as in bytes but they actually only offer speeds up to 40 Mbps as in bit. Not very professional for an ISP
Back to my own experience ...
I called their 1-800-244-1111 number. After being on hold for over ten minutes I was talking to Katrina. She did not give me her employee number. She was no help. Repeat .... NO HELP. I asked for a supervisor and was sent to Jennifer who said she was the floor supervisor. No help once again. She said she had no information and refused to escalate my call to somebody who could help. Bad attitude I might add.
I am now on a call with Jaime. She has a good attitude and is trying to fix things. She called my son to get authorization for me to speak on his behalf. Jaime said an order was placed Monday. I said, no, the order was placed last week and gave her the confirmation number. I also pointed out that the person who was supposed to call them back never did. Jaime said they had a computer issue. I explained a bit about my background in the data comm industry both from a technical and customer service aspect and I did not care what happened as we are now in a mode of problem resolution not finger pointing. She agreed and is currently looking to see if they can accommodate a request for compensation for a faster service establishment.
Jaime came back on the line. She tried but the turn on date is going to stay at 6/3 with turn on at 8pm. We will see if that happens.
Meanwhile .... When I was at Infonet and my folks handled engineering and customer service, if I ever saw a report like this I would bring each named employee into my office. I would send them home for one week and put a letter in their file for VERY poor customer service and for being a very poor representative of the company. In the case of Jaime, I would put a letter of commendation in her file and either demote Morris, Jennifer or both and promote Jaime to their position. Technical issues are one thing. A bad attitude and misleading the customer is something else.
I will be keeping an eye on Century Link. My confidence level in them is very low. I also think the government business folks need to look into why they are the only service provider in the area.
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| Corey. Is that great customer service or what? When one can't get through on the phone you tell them to send an email. You are kidding right? If not it seems you really have no clue in regard to customer service. |
If something is done in a professional way I will update this post and mention the action. So far the only one who has shown any level of service and a good attitude has been Jaime.
The joker on twitter customer service for CenturyLink, Corey, was sadly amusing when he suggested I contact them via email when I was on hold waiting for customer service to answer. As a side note, ATT and Sprint have been very good in regard to their twitter customer service presence. They each use DM and work the issue unlike these CenturyLinkHelp jokers.
A bit of an update .... facebook dialogue ...
Looks as if these folks are worse than I would have guessed but after talking to a number of them I am not surprised.
From the http://www.consumeraffairs.com/cell_phones/centurylink.html website:
And from - http://centurylink.pissedconsumer.com/
It is now 5:10pm PST. This piece was published at 3:28pm PST. It has already risen to 3rd most read piece for the running week with 4,015 reads.
The link is http://www.att.com/shop/availability.html?filterId=200002&success_token=UR_Shop&product_suite=uverse&saveme=True&partner=LinkShare&siteId=je6NUbpObpQ-p1aEFWz6Os_rTPo_eCuytw
5/28/14 1630pst update:
I just received an email from Centurylink in response to an email I sent yesterday:
My response:
The account number is xxxxxxxxxx. My son is in Flagstaff AZ. I am here in Los Angeles. I can be reached at 1-818-yyy-zzzz. I do not answer my phone when I drive so if you leave a message be sure to leave a direct call back number as I am fed up with being on hold at your 800 number.
As a side note, the piece I created on you folks just over 24 hours ago is now in first place for the week. 11,416 folks have read the post and I have received comments from one Arizona Senator. The business folks in AZ are also now aware of the story at http://la-economy.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-worst-in-customer-service.html
One of your employees has tried to help, the only one I might add. At this point, if you do anything to assist I will be happy to update the blog piece. If you do not respond in a timely manner that may also be mentioned.
We will see what happens.
5/29/14 Update
I received a letter from
Corey R Tidwell
Social Media Manager
Customer Advocacy Group
The letter and my reply are posted below. Hopefully this is not a breakdown in the company passing information from one department to another and this will be done as described in the letter.
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| You may click on the image for the full size |
Corey,
Can you please call my son Jack (the owner of the account) at xxx-yyy-zzzz as he is not aware of this and the date he was last told was in June. I am hoping there is no mistake on your part here in telling me something that is not true.
Thank you if this is indeed the case.
I will update this piece as things progress.
I have now found two good people it seems at Centurylink. Jaime (mentioned above earlier in this piece) and Corey Tidwell. I will include the latest interactions from Corey below. My confidence level is moving higher ;)
5/30/14 Update
As of last evening service has been established. It is working properly.
Thank you Corey Tidwell for your involvement in these issues and restoring my hope that the ongoing relationship we now have with Centurylink will be a good one.
- end for the moment -
Posts
This comment was sent to me via a phone text in response to this blog piece.
ReplyDeleteAfter calling I was particularly annoyed by 3 things.
1. If they need extra help because they are falling behind, they should hire more people rather than allow their service to become lackluster, or in this case, outright bad.
2. Every employee I talked to clearly had no background in computers or networking. One employee (Morris) did not know if the routers plug in via a RJ45 jack. Seems like if you work for an ISP you should have a basic idea of how the internet works, even on a cursory level.
3. Seriously, what kind of ISP doesn't understand the difference between a bit and a byte. Very laughable that they would let that slip though.
Please forgive any typos, my lack of internet has left me stuck typing on my phone.
I am mobile. The reason for this short reply.
.... and ....
Worth mentioning that at least once they told us to contact them online for further help, which is a great thing to say to someone complaining about lack of internet.
I was with century link years ago for phone.hated them. Moved. Had to use them as they were the ONLY provider. Yeats later had them again. Because they are the ONLY provider. They overcharge. IThey now merged with century link. I still call themcenturyhell as I have for years. Tech support always rocks.the rest....not so much. Sometimes I'll get a really nice lady....but if I could go with another company ....I would! They know this...therefore don't care.
ReplyDeleteYup my nickname for them is CenturyStink!! Worst company ever!!
ReplyDelete