As a longtime AT&T customer, when it came time to consider home security options following the ending of my current agreement I looked at a couple companies but became most interested in AT&T's Digital Life.
As I live fairly close to Glendale, I decided to stop into the AT&T retail outlet in Glendale Town Center and get more information on the service. I initially stopped in for dinner, but after being advised that it would be a 45 minute wait I opted to pass and go to dinner instead. However, after dinner I decided to go back and try again as I didn't want a lapse in my service and I was fairly set on ending my current agreement.
After another lengthy wait, I started off with one particular customer service person who didn't quite seem to have the knowledge necessary to answer what I felt like were basic questions about the service. Fortunately, she quickly realized it and handed me off to Aaron, who was in a supervisory role at that time of evening.
I am a fairly loyal customer. How many AT&T customers do you know who still have an "ameritech.net" e-mail address? That's how long I've used AT&T for my internet service and until recently I also had their U-verse television. After discussing the options, features, and pricing, I remained hesitant as I hadn't yet discontinued my other service and wanted to make sure that went smoothly. However, Aaron offered me a $99 credit to my U-verse bill if I went ahead and went through with it all (Minor Note Here: He initially said "What if I put this credit on your account now?," but by the time I was signing it had changed to "Once you confirm installation"). Regardless, I went ahead and agreed and scheduled the service.
I scheduled the service installation for almost two weeks in the future on a Saturday morning, which should have been plenty of time for the needed packages to arrive as they'd estimated 2-3 days for delivery. They confirmed by phone and text (despite the fact I'd told them text only) but, once again, this was a minor irritant.
On the day of installation, the technician called to let me know they were on their way and it was pretty close to on schedule. Things were looking up. Unfortunately, as he came in the discussion turned to "Did you complete T&C?" (Which would eventually be explained as Terms & Conditions). I was informed it was an e-mail I should have received, but had not received. I thought this had all been completed in the store, but there was apparently no record of it. We spent the next five hours of my Saturday morning with the technician in my house trying to either call in or log in to Digital Life customer service so that the e-mail could be sent to me. Then, he realized I hadn't been sent the equipment and, once again, there began an effort to track down the needed equipment.
What does it say about a company when their own technicians can't get customer service to respond? They finally talked to customer service and the service representative said they couldn't do anything.
Seriously, WTF?
The area manager was contacted and actually showed up at my house. The regional manager called. Nobody could resolve anything. In fact, I would learn as he was preparing to leave my house that the equipment I should have received was specifically assigned to my account and they couldn't use the equipment they were trying to use (I'm making a mental note - "Why did you not know this five hours ago?")
The technician, who was perfectly friendly throughout and I believe genuinely frustrated, spent almost five hours in my home either on the phone or online. He would occasionally wander down my hall, which made me assume he was saying something he didn't want me to hear. Can you say unacceptable?
As he left, he assured me that either the area manager or regional manager would follow up as soon as they figured out what went wrong. He advised me that I should expect some sort of consideration considering it was clearly AT&T failure. I figured, here I go being logical, that within 24 hours I'd get a call. Nope. In fact, I got nothing until 6 days later when some call center rep left me a voice mail saying "You missed your appointment and we'd like to reschedule."
Oh, I promise you I wasn't happy. It's pretty hard to make me angry, but I called and said very intensely "I did not "miss" my appointment. I was here with your technician for five hours waiting on AT&T to fix your mistakes." The rep nonchalantly replied "Oh, that was just an automated message.": I replied "Well, when it's you who've screwed up it's probably not good customer service to blame the customer."
I then hesitated again as he wanted to reschedule and, as already noted, I hadn't yet received the e-mail or the equipment. The e-mail would eventually arrive. After agreeing to reschedule, the phone rep couldn't reschedule because of the existing problems. He said "We need to start over."
I said "No thanks," and Digital Life lost my business. read more