We entered the 21st century last week by purchasing a HD LCD TV. Once we got it up and running, I called our satellite company to upgrade our service to high definition so we could take advantage of all that the new TV has to offer. After looking at our satellite company and what the competition had to offer, I was planning on switching companies. However, when I called our company, the man that helped me had such great customer service and was able to offer me so many things I decided to stay with our current company. I was so impressed that I e-mailed his supervisor to tell her that he should be commended on his outstanding customer service because it is very rare these days to be treated so courteously and professionally, not to mention that he had a lot of patience as I continually had to have him hold to tell Garrett to STOP IT and to try and get Brett to stop whining and crying. I never write letters or e-mails about customer service, so did I jinx myself? I think so, because I can't believe what took place after my initial order.
The appointment was set-up for Wednesday between 12-5pm, which in my opinion is ridiculous to begin with. With today's non-stop, up-to-the minute communication devices and technologies, there is no reason that a service company shouldn't be able to give you an appointment time and be within a 1/2 an hour or 1 hour time frame at the most. But, ok, I went with it. At 4:50pm on Wednesday, no call and no service man. I called the company. The representative told me that they had until 5pm, if for some reason they were late, call back and they would check dispatch. Seemed kind of a waste of time to me, but ok, I will call back. 5:15pm, no call, no service man. I called back, I was put on hold and told they were calling dispatch. The representative came back on the phone (after 10 minutes) and explained that someone was on there way to my house, they just got hung up at their last appointment, but they would be there. 7:20pm - no call, no service man and now it was dark. How were they going to crawl up on the roof to replace the satellite without the potential of serious injury? I called a 3rd time - this time I was told that she called dispatch but they did not answer. She was sending an e-mail and someone from dispatch would be calling me. I asked her if they were still open and she said Yes. I asked her if someone would be calling me that night; again, she said Yes and added that I needed to wait for their call, basically saying- Don't call us, we'll call you. 11pm - no call, I went to bed.
Fred was ready to call the whole thing off. He agreed that we would wait until I ran my morning errands and we would see if they called. 11:00am - no call. I called them back to find out what was going on. I was transferred to 3 different people and, after 1 hour on the phone, was told that it was all set-up for Friday between 12-5pm. I thought that was ridiculous, but they offered 1 month service free for my inconvenience, along with the other offers I had already received with the initial order. I also learned some additional info - that someone normally calls to confirm the appointment the day before and apparently the problem was that the satellite company showed the work order, but the dispatch did not show the order on their end. Apparently, however, the problem was solved and someone was going to be calling me that afternoon to confirm. 4:15pm - no call, so I called back again. After explaining everything to this "Account Specialist" he put me on hold to find out what was going on. He came back to tell me that the dispatch people still did not see my order, even though the "Account Specialist" from the previous call said everything was taken care of. At this point, I was told that the executive team was working on the issue and that it would be taken care of. I asked what time dispatch closed - they said 5pm, so 2 customer reps from the previous day obviously lied to me when they told me that someone was "on their way to my house" and that "someone would be calling that night" (they were already home enjoying their family dinner)! I was also told on Thursday night that an e-mail had been sent to dispatch and someone would be calling me (that was about the 3rd or 4th time that I had been told that one!), but according to him, dispatch people showed up early each morning and I would receive a call.
9:30am Friday morning - still no call, no service man. I called again....and started the process all over again. The newest "Account Specialist" to help me called the dispatch, who told him that they never received an e-mail, never heard of me, my account, or my issue. After another 60 minutes on the phone...he came back and told me that the problem stemmed from our zip code changing (it changed last July - not my decision, the post office's decision - and you would think computer systems would be updated by now - 6 months later). Once again, I was told that the problem was finally resolved and, this time, I was given the name and phone number of the local dispatch person that would be calling me. I waited an hour. No phone call. I called the dispatch. They told me they still had not received the work order. Can you believe this? Me neither!!!!! I told her that the satellite company said that they had e-mailed the work order, she told me they said they were unable to e-mail it. He said, she said!!! She told me that she would call the satellite company directly and get it straightened out (remember, I was told that had already been done - for the 3rd or 4th or 5th time). She called me back 1 1/2 hours later and told me that she had been on the phone with the supervisor there for that whole time and that the person was very rude and told her that they would not talk to her anymore that I, the customer, had to call back AGAIN!!!! I can't even believe that I am willing to call back at this point, but I'm thinking that at this point, has all of the other phone calls just going to be a total waste of my time and life? She told me to call them and tell them to cancel the original order and create a new one. I call back again, now speaking with my 5th "Account Specialist" (not to mention the other 4 customer service people before them). By this time, I had no patience left. After venting to that person, and acknowledging that I knew it was not that person's fault, I was told there was no work order - all of the other phone calls I guess no longer existed! OMG!!!! So, I went through what I had ordered 5 days before with this 5th person. After she entered it, I kept her on the line and called the dispatch lady from my cell phone to see if she could see the order and YES...FINALLY, she could see my order. We would have it installed today. Now, one other matter - how does it work since the new TV is HD and the room where the box is in is standard TV? Doesn't the HD TV need an HDMI cable and if so, what is it going to connect into? I asked the question, I was told that they would send everything that was needed. At 4:50pm (he was supposed to be here between 3:00-3:30pm, he showed up to tell me that my options were to run the telephone line from our bedroom along the baseboards into our living room (so you could see the wire running from the bedroom, into the hallway, out into the living room) or to go and purchase a cordless phone jack and have him come back tomorrow to install it. He wouldn't be able to install it today with the phone line and then come back tomorrow to install it with the cordless jack, if there was a problem, because they wouldn't let him - they would have to charge me a trip charge - which was totally out of the question.
I called Fred...he, like I, did not want a phone cord strung around the baseboards of our hallway into our living room, so he told me to go and buy the cordless jack. Now, the installer is scheduled to come back tomorrow morning at 9am to install the HDTV cable box. Still in time for the SuperBowl. Is it worth it? Don't know, haven't experienced HD in our home, but after purchasing a HDTV, we want to get to experience the whole reason we spent the money on the TV in the 1st place -which was only done because our old TV kept turning off automatically, which made watching a TV program a real drag.
I really did want to cancel the whole service and go with the competitor because of my complete and utterly ridiculous amount of inconvenience - but financially speaking, I was offered $100 for my inconvenience, all of the movie channels free for 3 months plus the other items they gave me made it cheaper for the next year to continue with their service. They will be receiving a letter from me, this time not an acknowledgement of their superior customer service staff.
As a customer I feel like I did everything I was supposed to do and then some. Their computers not speaking to each other correctly is not at all my problem. Being lied to just to satisfy me or to get me off the phone is not acceptable. Upgrading to an HD service should not have taken more than 3 1/2 hours of my life to accomplish...and when you ask questions and are given inaccurate information or if you are flat out lied to, it is completely maddening. Throughout the whole experience, I have been asking myself - what is God trying to teach me here? Are we just supposed to call off the whole thing? Am I supposed to increase my patience capacity (which, by the way, has to increase each and every day with my 2 boys). I don't know, but there has to be a lesson in here somewhere!
Yes, this entry is extremely long, but it will be very helpful when I write my letter to our satellite company telling them that their customer service follow-up needs a lot of work!
Brett loved it. I think he really loved it because his big brother wasn't around to take it away from him :) 
