Little Bird Goes on a Qwest
Another Twitter Success Story
I ordered Qwest internet service on Monday, 1/11. I was told at that time that it would take 3 business days for the order to be completed. 3 days in itself is too long to wait for new service. I have had the internet regularly for the past 10 years and never have I had to wait so long for new service. Cox Communications, Verizon, Comcast, AllTel, and Cavalier Telecom all were able to set up service the next day. As anyone who uses the internet on the verge of excess will tell you, 3 days is a LONG time to wait.
But fine. The tech was scheduled to arrive between 8am and 12pm. He called around 8:30 to let us know that he would arrive between 10 and 12. Come 12:15 we haven’t heard anything, so we call him back and he tells us that the work was already done and that he forgot to call us back to inform us. Minor mistake, it seemed.
Except that we had no modem. And the internet does not work without a modem. We call Qwest again and are told that the order for the modem was supposed to have gone through but due to some computer error, it was not. They said they would mail us out a modem and it would arrive the next day. So, that means waiting again, beyond the 3 business days. We didn’t want to wait, so we went to a Qwest kiosk in a nearby mall and picked up the modem ourselves.
We bring the modem home, follow the installation guide, and the internet is still not working. So, we call Qwest again. At this point we have already spent at least two hours on the phone with one representative or another, using up our cell phone minutes for something that should’ve been straightforward. During this call, a tech support rep runs diagnostics, troubleshoots, the works, and is still unable to get our internet working. He says that there must be something wrong inside the apartment – perhaps some faulty wires or some other problem. So he tells us that he’ll schedule a tech for an internal installation, between 8am and 11am on Friday 1/15.
So, 11am rolls around on Friday morning and guess what? No tech. We call Qwest again and they tell us that they can see no record of a tech being schedule for Friday morning. Well that’s just wonderful. They also tell us that another tech will take 3 more business days, but also because of the MLK holiday that it would take until at least Tuesday 1/19. The representative tells us that the tech would not have to come into the apartment, that he’d only have to “flick a switch” somewhere on the outside, something that should only take 10-15 minutes.
My question then was, what did the tech who came (if he came) on 1/14 do? Didn’t he already “flip the switch”? What we needed – as discussed with tech support already – was a look on the inside to diagnose the problem. Had I not caught her mistake, conceivably a tech wold have come out to see that the switch was already flipped, wasting our time and his, and requiring us to call Quest again once the internet – inevitably – continued to not work. After another hour and 10 minutes of talking and mostly waiting on hold, we are put in contact with someone else in tech support.
This tech told us that he could schedule a tech within a broader window for Saturday 1/16, between 8am and 5pm. I even got a confirmation email to that effect. But of course I remained skeptical. So, enter the little bird…
Within minutes of tweeting about the problem, I received a response from Qwest, telling me to e-mail them about the problem. I explained how I felt that at this point it seemed like antagonism as much as a mere string of blunders from everyone involved. I mean, what does it say about a company if on every level of the organization – from the field techs to the customer service reps, to the tech support reps, keep making mistakes and providing terrible customer service?
About two hours later I received an email from the management team, apologizing for all of the mishaps and confirming my appointment for Saturday. He also narrowed the 8am to 5pm window to 10am to 2pm, offered me a credit for the modem (which, strangely, you have to purchase for Qwest), and a free month of service.
Sure enough, the tech did show up on Saturday within the scheduled time window and got the internet up and running. Best of all, after so much of a hassle, it turns out that Qwest’s internet (I have the 20 MB download/5 MB upload plan) is the fastest I’ve ever experienced at home. According to the tech, our connection is dedicated, meaning that we don’t share it with everyone else in the general area. When you actually download a song in seconds and movies in minutes, as advertised, well…it’s kind of a big deal. So while I certainly am not fully on board the Qwest bandwagon due to the installation nightmare, I am at least willing to give them a second – or is it third or fourth now? – chance at providing me with good service.
And once again I have the little bird to thank for getting the right people’s attention…