heh.  This past week has not gone well for Verizon apparently.

I'm working on (will blog soon about it...) getting the triple play service from Verizon.  Their stupid VoiceWing service (their red-headed bastard step-child) is crap, pure and simple.  I saw the offer I wanted on TV again, jotted down the phone number and attempted to call it from Friday night through out the weekend and it was a no-go.  Apparently their sales offices, which had been running 24x7, were closed.  Now, you'd think that they'd have a message saying call back between the hours of ... and ... but nope.

Anyway, I tried their website -- apparently it was partially shutdown for the weekend as well.

When I was able to connect to it and try to configure the service I wanted, well, I couldn't.  Apparently they don't recognize some equipment as being, well, some equipment, so it kept telling me that I needed to add some equipment to the order and wouldn't let me exit that part of the configuration even though I had another piece of some equipment in the order.  St00pid.

I gave up finally and just waited through the weekend and then called back on Christmas eve.  I actually called at about 2:30 in the afternoon and figured by then no one would be there but was taken aback when I got an answer at their regional sales offices and then was told I needed to call the local office to get the configuration I really wanted.

Called there, got a person right away, and got configured.  I think the sales guy was happy that I knew what I wanted and didn't have to do the hardsell or instruct me on what the various options were.  All he had to do was take the order, give me the right package and equipment that I had already researched and set up the install time to have the tech bring out the equipment and help me hook up the phone line.

Anyway, for now I hope things go well and I get installed when promised.  After that I hope to never need to contact tech support.  When I had to contact their VoiceWing tech support I learned quick they weren't employing 'gifted' people (see Draginol's article for more on that word and why it wouldn't apply to the Verizon techs).

Hopefully things came back to normal for you.  I haven't had problems tonite, thankfully, but probably because I didn't really get online until later in the day.

Terp, it all sounds pretty typical for that pack of bastards.

The drop outs have calmed down some for now. That just reinforces the fact that it's human work that is causing the problem as you know they aren't working all night on it.

Why can't these people just give a simple, honest answer to a simple, honest question?

When I worked in the business we always planned things in advance and actually INFORMED our customers of service interruptions and gave them an idea of how long we expected them to last.

Of course that was a number of years ago and I guess things have changed since then. Somewhere along the way it changed from "service the customer" to "fuck the customer".

What's up with AT&T and Verizon?  I guess I have not been following the news as I have not heard a thing about them going into partnership or whatever.

As for Tech Support - I have my own idiots to deal with and they are called a partnership in state government.  They don't know how to read a route or trace a path, and cant understand why they should be involved with a problem (Hey idiot!  The circuit terminates in your location!).

It is all I can do to list the facts without getting into condescension and sarcasm at their ineptness.

The new business model is "fault free" technical support, meaning you neither accept nor assign blame. Meaning, of course, if the network is down you don't admit it.

I don't like it, frankly, but you gotta keep your job!

AT&T took over Verizon's wireless and data services.




Yeah I've dealt with my share of idiots on both sides of the fence. Let's face it, the world is over run with morons these days.

Yeah it's a pretty damn stupid policy and only serves to frustrate the customer.

Shit!

Not to mention insulting their intelligence.

I feel pretty sheepish when someone calls in who has checked their connection, their neighbour's connection, the connection at the library and the bank, and every other connection in town that there's nothing wrong with the network.

Yeah that was pretty much my reaction as well

Yeah, they know you're not being honest with them. Such was my case. I already knew it is an area-wide problem as I had already taken the time to check that out. Having this dimwit try to go through all the usual idiot troubleshooting flow chart after I had already told him that I knew it was an area-wide problem was very annoying to say the least.

Tech support is good for one thing, though. I had trouble with my DSL when I first got it. They said it was hooked up early, but it wasn't actually hooked up yet, so I tried calling tech support. They went through their script. This happened a couple times. So, I know the script of basic problems pretty well. (When it was actually turned on it worked fine, btw)

So my wife decides while I was at work to move the computer from the living room to the bedroom, and hooks everything back up. But the DSL doesn't work. So I go through the checklist - and yes, she had put the DSL filter on the DSL line. I probably wouldn't have thought of that if I hadn't spent all that time going through the checklist (twice) with tech support.

There are common mistakes that people do make and that's pretty much all their little routine is designed to spot, and the average person isn't trained in troubleshooting techniques. It's when they either simply do not listen, or treat you like an idiot even after you've demonstrated a higher level of knowledge than themselves that they get frustrating.

I truly believe that listening is a lost art these days.

I agree.

As a techie I can usually discern the technical level of my callers within the first 30-45 seconds of the call. Before they started recording every call when someone called in who had obviously attempted all the troubleshooting steps prior to calling, I would mention that I had to ask these questions to fill in the ticket, so even though I knew they had done it, I'd like them to bear with me for a moment.

That is the difference between an intelligent tech and a robot. I would do the same thing back in my days. Once I knew their level, I could gear the call to them.

Oh, and Mason, I just ran the AT&T thing by a couple of others. Apparently we are all in the dark about this. No one up here had a clue about the buyout. I guess I should double my previous comment.

Now see that approach would be acceptable to me. At least that way you're acknowledging the fact that the caller isn't a moron and also making sure they didn't miss something simple along the way.