With bad internet and customer service from good ole Bell Canada I recently switched over to cable Internet and TV with Rogers. I'm expanding my blog here to cover telecommunications - phone, internet and TV, since it's become a staple in our lives, and more often than not, all controlled by the same company, in what is an monopolistic environment.
For the most part, I've been happy so far with the underlying service - tv and internet. As usual, add in customer service and marketing and that's when things go wrong, or more eloquently, get f#$%'d up.
I tried to sign up with Rogers over the Internet using their online site - to select my package and set up my account. I did not find the site user friendly. I could not easily identify what I'd end up paying with combined packages and ultimately when trying to set up and account (i tried this three times), I got an error message saying there was a problem with there system, please try again later. Really? This is a tech company. I've heard from some people in the industry a major consulting firm was hired to redevelop their Web site. Really? You end up with an un-user friendly technically broken site. So much for hiring high paid consultants. I'm sure their powerpoint deck looked great though!
So, I'm two months in to this service and I see I'm not being billed. Let me clarify, I am being billed, but despite providing my CC number when I finally called up on the phone to set up an account, I'm not being charged. I am indeed being billed, but now I'm behind a month and paying late fees. I just went through this with Bell. Who the f@#$ works on these billing systems. It's a non-stop pain in the ass for customers and a brand killer for the communication companies.
My other beef with the set up and becoming a new client was having the tech guys that installed things tell me that my internet would work from any of the previously installed cable outlets (I'm in an older home up here that had cable installed previously). Indeed, they did not. I was told I would not be charged for the guy to come back and actually make more than one outlet work. He only set up one when he came to install cable. And oddly, I had two cable boxes. So that cost another $50, $50 more than I was told I would be charged.
I went back to the web site to inquire about my bill and got another error message.
I called their main phone number for help and got the usual 'we're experiencing higher than normal call volume". You know that voice, the same one you hear any time you call any customer service line. I wonder if they're all using the same company for their billing system, that might explain the higher than normal call volume : )
Of many things I will probably wish for on my death bed, it's to have all the time back I spent dealing with cable and phone companies. Life is too short for so much BS.
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