Not all that long ago, I was quite ready to give up on wireless phone service through ATT. Not only, in my opinion, had there customer service hit rock bottom but their actual wireless phone service sucked. I would be in different areas of New York City or in my home village east of the and get the message that there was no service available. That was pretty piss poor performance and it happened not only to me but several other people whom I know, who also had ATT.
Several months ago I learned about the problems with their customer service first hand. I had found it hard to believe that they had been rated, if I remember right, as the worst big wireless company for customer service. I had them for years but did not believe it, I guess because I had not had any reason to call customer service for fair while before and up until around that time. That changed. I got a new line for myself, in or around the beginning of this year, and then had lots of problems too. I had to replace my new phone at least twice, might have been three times, because it was not working right. I finally switched to another model. Thing was, it took several calls to technical and customer services to accomplish even getting the ATT reps to understand the problem, let alone get a replacement phone each time it was replaced. A couple of ATT folks to whom I spoke seemed to go out of their way to be rude, one to the point of being obnoxious. Well, they had me since I had contracted with them.
Thing seem to have changed again recently. This time for the better. I had to deal with ATT over a billing issue recently over data usage on the Internet. I called and spoke to a very professional and courteous representative. She suggested I take a monthly plan for unlimited Internet use at $10 per month for my phone. Okay, not bad, less than it had been when I first got the phone. I agreed to the offer. The next thing I knew was she told me she was taking so much of of my current bill for Internet data usage and was also going to refund the amount I had already paid on the previous month. This was about $40 in all, or 4 months worth of the new fee to which I had agreed. That was pretty decent of her and of ATT. I had not suggested or even hinted in any way that I wanted a refund, I was only trying to find out why they were charging me so much with very limited Internet use on my part. Seems they charge each type/brand of phone differently for using the web, my wife was getting charged $1 per MB and I was getting charged by KB and it equalled about $10 per MB all because the types of phones we have are different. Screwy - yes it is but that is how she explained it. without me even suggesting it, was that she was refunding me the charges I had called to inquire about. You would think that data use would be charged at a set rate but apparently not.
Anyhow, she handled the matter more than satisfactorily for me. In the long run, her suggestion will have saved me a good deal of money even though I accepted a monthly charge instead of a charge per KB. I would have been using the Internet regardless, so much the better it will cost me nowhere nearly as much now.
Then yesterday, I had to call ATT's insurance program to replace my phone. I did some wash two nights ago and the phone was my pants pocket, the pants in the washing machine. I was none too happy when I found it. I remember admonishing my son for doing the same a couple years back, so I had to bang my head against the wall for this one (not too hard though). Well, only called the insurance company after somehow getting it wrong via their website. I thought I had checked off the water damage selection, then typed in it got water damage in the wash for the explanation. I went to the next screen and saw that it kept saying I had "lost" the phone. I could not go back to change it so I gave them a call.
Yesterday, I spoke to a lady who told me her name was Amy. Amy was professional, courteous, and just over all pleasant in what seemed a truly since way. She took care of my claim quickly. I received the new phone today. Now I realize that the insurance company is not ATT but they do this for ATT. I have replaced phones before and they were not as nice or efficient as was Amy in getting the job done. In fact, the people at the insurance company seemed to worse than those at ATT to me whenever i dealt with them in the past.
It seems that ATT has changed its act for the better (much better) or that I somehow, by chance, had some excellent dealings with people who represent them on these two recent occasions. Hopefully they have straightened out how they do things. I have to say that it seems their wireless service has gotten better. I hardly ever have a dropped call lately nor do I get any messages saying there is no service available when it clearly should be available. I only hope it stays this way.
All the best,
Glenn B
No comments:
Post a Comment