Re: Fun With AT&T
- From: "Anonymous" <com@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:04:20 GMT
"Scott in SoCal" <scottenaztlan@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:qamul3dm95ofp90v5ut8c7t4htt8hqhov1@xxxxxxxxxx
Once upon a time, I had a land-line phone from AT&T. Since we have
several cell phones, we dropped the land line earlier this year.
However, the wife had a change of heart, and now wants a land-line
phone again. Silly me, I went to AT&T's web site to place an order for
new service, thinking it would be a no-brainer.
One of the first steps in the order process is an "addess
verification" page where you punch in your street address and they do
a database lookup to make sure you are in the service area. Now,
OBVIOUSLY I am in the service area since I have had service here
before. However, for reasons which shall remain forever unknown, my
address (actually, my street name) is not in their database. So I went
to their support page and asked them for help:
=== BEGIN ORIGINAL REQUEST FOR HELP ===
I am trying to order new telephone service via your web site. I have
had service from you at this address in the past; my old phone number
was XXX-XXX-XXXX, and we discontinued our service earlier this year. I
am trying to re-establish service but I cannot get past the address
validation page on your web site because your computer cannot find my
address.
=== END ORIGINAL REQUEST FOR HELP ===
Here is their response:
=== BEGIN ERSPONSE #1 ===
Dear Scott,
Thank you for your recent email. To process your request to establish
new service, please visit the following link:
https://swot.sbc.com/swot/qualifyingController.do
Please use the following format for your address:
NNNN NORTH XYZ
XXXXXX CA 92NNN
You may also contact our Customer Sales and Service Center at
1-800-288-2020 to process your order with a service representative.
If this response does not address your concern, please reply directly
to this email. To ensure a timely response, do not change the subject
line of your reply.
If you have additional questions, you can also visit:
http://att.com/contactus
Regards,
Israel
Your AT&T Customer Service Representative
To receive regular AT&T email communications, special offers, and
handy online tips please visit: http://att.com/up2speed
NOTICE: Based on the information you provided, our understanding of
your request, and currently available data, we will
address your inquiry to the best of our ability. Please note that
prices, terms, and conditions are subject to change,
and in the event of a discrepancy, prices, terms and conditions in any
applicable tariffs govern.
=== END ERSPONSE #1 ===
Now, I tried every possible combination, abbreviation, etc., including
that one, beforem sending my original email, and none of them worked.
However, I did it once more time, entereing the address EXACTLY as
"Israel" suggested, but it still didn't work. Of course, if this droid
had actually TRIED going to the web page and entering the information
she would have immediately seen that her suggestion was a waste of
time. I replied to Irael's e-mail with a screen shot showing the
results. Here is the response I got:
=== BEGIN RESPONSE #2 ===
Dear Scott,
Thank you for your recent email. Before placing an order for new
telephone service online, please follow the steps below
to delete the "cookies" on your hard drive. Cookies are files Web
sites use to store information on a user's machine and
later retrieve it. They can be used to customize a user's preferences
on a Web site, but they can also interfere with
downloading new information. The following instructions will clear
your computer of all cookies and allow you to download
the latest information from the Internet.
Please note by deleting all the cookies in your browser, you will lose
all of your customized settings on other Web sites.
1) Make sure to close all Internet Explorer windows
2) Open a new Internet Explorer window
3) Click "Tools"
4) Select "Internet Options"
5) Click on "Delete Cookies" and select "OK" when prompted
6) Click on "Delete Files", check the box "Delete all offline content,
and Click "OK"
7) Click "OK" to return to Internet Explorer
Upon completion of this task, if you encounter any further difficulty,
please contact us at 1-888-238-4444 to speak with a
representative. Please be advised, orders successfully placed during
the promotional period will be given a credit of
$35.00 within 1-2 billing cycles.
If this response does not address your concern, please reply directly
to this email. To ensure a timely response, do not
change the subject line of your reply.
If you have additional questions, you can also visit:
http://att.com/contactus
Regards,
Lito
Your AT&T California On-line Customer Service Representative
To receive regular AT&T email communications, special offers, and
handy online tips please visit: http://att.com/up2speed
NOTICE: Based on the information you provided, our understanding of
your request, and currently available data, we will
address your inquiry to the best of our ability. Please note that
prices, terms, and conditions are subject to change,
and in the event of a discrepancy, prices, terms and conditions in any
applicable tariffs govern.
(c) 2007 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T and the
AT&T logo are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property.
=== END RESPONSE #2 ===
So "Israel" couldn't handle this tough problem, and handed it off to
"Lito" (who, along with "Israel," probably works out of a support
center in Bangalore and whose real name is probably something like
"Subramaniam" or "Venkatesan Guruswami").
Judging from the ridiculously inapplicable response, "Lito" apparently
picked a boilerplate email at random from his list of canned responses
and clicked "send" - probably without even reading the previous
correspondence. Probably took him all of 10 seconds to "solve" my
problem; must have done wonders for his average issue resoution time
or whatever metric these customer support droids are graded on by
their supervisors. I tell ya, if I were in charge of customer support
over at AT&T, I would FIRE all of the customer service reps who handle
these emails, and replace them with a shell script that simply chooses
a boilerplate response at random and sends it out; I'd get the same
results for a hell of a lot less money!
Incidentally, by some strange coincidence, Cox (my ISP) just sent me
an offer for their Digital Phone Service. I get my first line for free
for 6 months, plus a $100 AmEx Gift Card. I wonder if THEY can find my
address in their database? If they can, they'll probably get my
business.
Sorry, AT&T, but you just outsourced yourselves right out of a
customer.
Pretty funny story....
.
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