Rant ahead.
Grrrrr.

It took about 6 months get a new modem with my ISP. I limped along with the old one until I lost the connection and the modem was in it’s final wheezes. For some reason that is only sinking in. and that occurred a couple of months ago. 

That’s not very good service, is it?

I have an account the largest internet/phone provider in Canada. They have outsourced their tech and billing services, and I’m not going to yell at someone in another country who has worked really hard to get their job.
I’ve wanted to yell for one simple reason.

The company’s employees have little to no authority to correct errors at the company end.
Infrastructure to consumer to company kinds of mistakes.
Or company to customer kinds of mistakes.

They say they do, tech staff are polite, go out of their way to try to help, are patient, and are just trying to do the job they are paid to do. I can hear the pride in their voices when a problem is solved.  I get that. I’m on cloud nine when I can help a friend fix a small computer problem. Shoot, I do a dance of joy when I can fix mine.
It has dawned on me that I’m fed up with the company’s problems being my problems and the cost of doing business is nuts.
I’m fed up with myself for allowing myself to be treated this poorly.

I’ve been a customer with this company for years, there are not many choices where I live, and unfortunately just outside my door they own all the infrastructure. Disconnecting with them and going with another company is a logistical nightmare in itself.
I’ve told myself I don’t have the money, the energy or the skills to go through what people have to go through to switch providers.
Today I really wish I did, and I might just dig deep enough to find what I need.
Thinking back on this, it is nuts, and I’m nuts, stubbornness and tenacity don’t pay off.

The night I finally got a tech that understood I needed a new modem, we went through all the steps, including the company’s need to check the infrastructure that I do not own outside my door, and that I am not permitted to access.

Even if I did crack open their equipment I’m not qualified to figure out if it works, and I could face a hefty fine.
Okay, no problem, once I told the tech that, he made it very clear I would not be charged for the company checking it’s own equipment and he finally put the wheels in motion for a new modem to be shipped.
I was so stunned at what he suggested I was supposed to do, I asked more than once if the call was being recorded for ‘quality assurance’ purposes. He assured me it was. Good.
Because if I’m being unreasonable or spectacularly stupid, I want it on tape. I can accept responsibility for my mistakes, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to accept responsibility for a company mistake.

My mistake was believing the tech.
The good part was the modem arrived when he said it would.  
I  went through an odd ID hassle with Canada Post, picking up the modem, but since the branch knows me, they handed over the package. 
God bless them. 
I hooked up.
No problem at all, the modem worked.
Problem solved, it was what I had been trying to tell the company for six months.

A secondary problem that night had finally pushed me into insisting I get what I needed.
I knew the night I finally demanded a modem upgrade, that off all the thousands of miles this company services, my home region had been knocked off line. The tech I talked to did not know that. I double checked the next morning. Sure enough, the region I’m in had been knocked offline. 
Why didn’t the tech know that?
Why aren’t their techs told these things?
  
I rationalized it was an opportunity to get what I needed to get replaced replaced.  
Period. End of my problem.
I didn’t need to be a tech to understand two things were going on and I could deal with one.  I also didn’t need six months of attempting to get someone at their end to understand that, but so rolls that ball.
It got done.

Then the bill came.
Between technical services and billing, communication had broken down.
Not the first time.

I had not gotten the tech’s ID who told me to go into the company infrastructure. I wish I had. He was wrong, I knew he was wrong, and more wrongs don’t make things right. 
I got charged for the lineman checking their equipment.
I never saw the guy, the way it works here is I’m charged if he comes into the building.
I get that. 
Depending on what is wrong I can pay for the company lineman or use a private tech or fix it myself. Those are reasonable choices. I had the local piece of paper saying their infrastructure was working, and  I could move to step B.
I did.

That’s when the circular became a vortex.

When the bill arrived I’d been charged. 
You know that sick feeling you get when you open a bill and it has a lot more numbers in the total line that you’d expect?  
I dutifully did my part as a responsible customer and called. 
Went through the menu and all the steps and the waits and the transfers and cut offs.
This time I knew to get a reference number and a name and was told I would receive a call from the billing department within three weeks.

Hold on right there.
These employees I got tossed around to work in the billing department, and they are given no authority to take a charge off my bill.
Why would it take three weeks for someone with the supposed authority to call me back? 
Is that supposed to make sense?
 
I don’t need a PhD to realize my communications company has a communications problem.

I’ve had billing and ISP problems with this company before, I’ve never had to jump through so many crazy hoops to get things solved.
Meantime I paid my part of the bill, and made the mistake of going online and seeing how many other people are going through the same sorts of problems. There are thousands of us.

Funny isn’t it?
You mention you have a problem with a company in real life and all of a sudden people start sharing their horror stories.
The teller at the bank.
Friends.
People at Tim Horton’s.
Clerks. 
Sharing woes about a big company doesn’t fix things. Knowing most of us are in the same boat didn’t make me feel better. It’s at the stage I’m not going to be able to afford to be online if employees can’t do their jobs and if a company holds it’s customers hostage this way.

I got another bill today. 
The charge had not been removed.
The total line is scary.  
So I got back on the phone and went through all the menus.
I’ve lost track of the number of people I’ve talked to, the number of times I’ve been transferred, been put on hold and I was starting to get irritated.
How many times can you tell your story to people who work for a company that won’t give them the authority to fix it?
It wasn’t until I suggested this wasn’t worth it that I finally got someone who said the company had made an error and the charge had been removed. Asking for a supervisor doesn’t work, I’d tried that.

I got the employee agent number and I’ll believe what I was told when I see the next bill. The agent did all the right customer reassurance stuff. Agreed with me, blah, blah, blah, apologized, empathized etc.

I’ve had it.
While my options may be very limited, I think it’s time I weighed them.

I helped someone set up a computer last week.
Piece of cake.
I like doing that sort of thing, it’s a big deal to friends that need a wee bit of extra assistance and it’s a pleasure to be asked to help.
The store had been helpful to their customer, things were fine until I went to connect their new computer to the ISP.

Same ISP as mine.
I do not want to have to ever, ever go through this again. 

I read manuals.
I get hardware.
It’s logical. 
We’d started at nine in the morning.
Hey it’s a new computer, that’s fun and exciting stuff.  I’d been up all night because I know first hand how damn hard this person worked to purchase this, and not being a morning person I wasn’t going to let them down.
I read the connection instructions through, even though it’s basic. Carefully. Checked. Double checked. Troubleshooted. Nothing. Zip. Nada. It was not at our end.

So we decided to phone the computer company first.
They were awesome.
No long menus.
No waits.
Just really polite, pleasant and knowledgeable service.
Blew me away. 
The simple reality was at the ISP end and we’d have to deal with them.
The computer company tech mentioned they are getting a lot of calls about this.
Quelle surprise.

So we started dealing with the ISP. 
I honestly don’t know how many calls were made, I was focusing on connecting. By seven o’clock that night I’d had it, and we walked to the mall to buy a up a piece of equipment that might make things easier. I know the person can’t afford this. 
The guys at the store know me, they have their horror stories too and were good comic relief, reluctant to sell something that might not be needed At least they provide good service and if push came to shove and the stuff wasn’t needed it could be returned, no hassle.

Like I said, I’m not going to yell at techs who are proud of their jobs, who are feeding their families and who work very hard to deal with spoiled Canadians that want things to work now.
But when we got back from the mall and got talking to the ISP again I lost it. And I lost it for the same reasons I nearly lost it when my modem went.
Wrong advice.
Simple, simple wrong advice that even a first time computer owner could understand as incorrect. 

At the best of times it requires patience to listen to accents, listen to advice, venture into software,  repeat back, attempt to walk through from A to B to C.
Communicating is work. 
I was sleep deprived, fed up with mistake after mistake and determined to get this person online before I left.  The ISP had refused to put me through to a level 2 tech.  I told the ISP tech they were wrong about their advice and hung up, it was not going to be my problem anymore.
But I tried one more thing. (yes, sadly I’m stubborn)

I phoned the French language line so I could get straight through to a level 2 tech.
I couldn’t reach someone, so I gave up for the night. Steaming. Annoyed. Frustrated. Tired. Disappointed. Ready to look in the front of the phone book and call Bell/Sympatico management. (The grand poobah number is in the phone book, it’s required by law:^)

The next day the computer owner got through (weekends they put Canadian techs on the service desk) and finally got properly hooked up.
Stuff that should have happened the day before.
Of course the connection information we’d been told was wrong,  I knew that from the first phone call. Yelling, arguing or debating doesn’t fix connections and neither does incorrect information.

So, supposedly my bill is fixed.
So, supposedly this new computer will stay online and connected with the ISP. 
We are merely two of thousands of people in this country going through problems with this company.

It’s not worth it.
It’s not worth it financially.
It’s not worth all the time it takes.
It’s not worth sorting through wrong advice.
It’s not worth the rising cost of internet services with a company that makes it increasingly difficult to communicate with them.
It is not worth the stress.
When you live in a remote area and one company owns all the infrastructure you take what you can get, and you pay because you just don’t have the choices larger urban centres have.

I have something I would like to say to Bell/Sympatico management.
I wish I could say it face to face to someone in the grand poobah department who has authority and clout. 
Thank you for training your workers to be polite.
Thank you for providing jobs for people that want them and appreciate them.
However you are raising my costs as your consumer and your service is poor and getting worse. 
You provide a service that has opened up the world to most of us.
Thank you. But why are you making it so incredibly stressful to deal with your errors?
I am not filling out any more customer satisfaction surveys.
You’ve lost my trust, you’ve lost my confidence, I’m no longer a satisfied customer and when I can figure out my options you’ll be losing my business.

I realized how much your company service had gone downhill when I dealt with the computer company the other day.

It’s taken me six months to realize what a hassle it has become to be your customer.
Like a frog in warm water, I’ve been too stupid to hop out.

You used to be good.  
Your company employees used to stay on top of a problem until things were solved, but I no longer see an effort on management’s part to communicate with your workers and give them the tools and authority to help your customers.
When your equipment works, it works.
You only hear from customers such as myself when there is a problem.
But when there is a problem…
 
I don’t need copious menus, talking Emilies, wait times, billing problems, six months, six weeks, three weeks, hold times, transfers, cut offs, or the opportunity to talk to just about every polite employee you have to: 
a) get a modem replaced
b) get a billing problem fixed 
c) help another one of your customers get online or
d) have costs increase for less service

I should have listened to that last snap in my head.
When we were at that mall we went to the Bell/Sympatico store.
Talked to a pleasant employee who had the modem needed.
He couldn’t sell it to us. 
He had the decency to be genuinely embarrassed because he goes through this several times a week.
How nuts is that?

Oh snap.
When a communications company stops caring about communicating, it’s time to stop being a loyal and subservient customer, weigh options and just move on.