monophoto
Member
So we have four TVs in our house - one in the master bedroom, one in the kitchen, one in my office and one in our son's room. Several years ago, the local cable company switched from analog to digital service, so each TV has a cable box. They sent out cable boxes along with instructions for me to follow to install everything. That was a painful process because the stuff they sent wasn't suitable for the specific situation in our house, therefore requiring numerous calls to the cable company, two visits to their local retail office (where there were long lines because they were forcing all their customers to make the analog-digital change at the same time), and finally a visit from a service technician, and led me to conclude that the only people at the cable company who know what they are talking about are the guys who actually work on the equipment - the telephone 'customer service' people and retail store people are totally clueless.
Last week, I noticed that the TV in the office wasn't working properly - the cable box was responding to the clicker in a strange way. I could still use it, but it was a nuisance. So I called the cable company, and after taking the usual five minutes to get through the harassing automation, I was finally able to speak with a real person. She went through a series of diagnostics, had me reboot the cable box (which takes about 15 minutes), and then concluded that she didn't have a clue what was wrong. So she put me on hold while she reached out to someone with more expertise - but then the call was terminated.
So I called back, went through the usual harassment (why are you calling on your cell phone rather than the phone number listed on the account?), and eventually spoke to another person who also was clueless and concluded that they needed to replace both the cable box and the clicker. She gave me three choices - she could have the replacements sent to me for me to install, or I could drive into town to get replacements at their retail store. And if neither of those worked, they would send out a technician. I opted for the technician - if they didn't really know what the problem was, there was no assurance that simply replacing boxes would solve it, whereas have a technician right there means that someone from the cable company would be available to actually do something.
I had to wait a couple of days for an opening to schedule the technician, and when he arrived, the first thing he did was to test that an adequate cable signal was being received. That led him to replace the coax coming into the house - this is the second time they have replaced the cable since we have lived here. But since the new cable is probably good for another 8-10 years, that alone made this exercise worthwhile.
Then he came inside to address the problem that I had complained about - and within 30 seconds of hearing my description of the problem, he had it solved! It was simply a matter of correcting some deeply-buried settings on the cable box. I have no idea how the settings were changed to cause the problem to appear - I am very reluctant to even look at the settings because they are far from intuitive and there are no instructions that describe what they do (and that's the subject of another rant). But once again, it proved the point that the customer service people on the telephone rarely know what they are talking about. Instead, they have been given a script to follow - if the customer reports X, do Y, and if that doesn't work, try Z, etc, and if eventhing fails, start replacing stuff. On the other hand, the technicians who have actually done installations generally are very good and can actually solve problems..
It's not just the cable company - the trend across many industries is to try to force the customer to do the troubleshooting and repair, and resort to knowledgeable service people only if that approach fails. I can fix a lot of things myself, but if the problem is something I can't solve, I really resent these automated voice response systems that seem to be designed to prevent you from talking to someone with a pulse, only to eventually conclude that the 'customer service' person is incompetent.
Last week, I noticed that the TV in the office wasn't working properly - the cable box was responding to the clicker in a strange way. I could still use it, but it was a nuisance. So I called the cable company, and after taking the usual five minutes to get through the harassing automation, I was finally able to speak with a real person. She went through a series of diagnostics, had me reboot the cable box (which takes about 15 minutes), and then concluded that she didn't have a clue what was wrong. So she put me on hold while she reached out to someone with more expertise - but then the call was terminated.
So I called back, went through the usual harassment (why are you calling on your cell phone rather than the phone number listed on the account?), and eventually spoke to another person who also was clueless and concluded that they needed to replace both the cable box and the clicker. She gave me three choices - she could have the replacements sent to me for me to install, or I could drive into town to get replacements at their retail store. And if neither of those worked, they would send out a technician. I opted for the technician - if they didn't really know what the problem was, there was no assurance that simply replacing boxes would solve it, whereas have a technician right there means that someone from the cable company would be available to actually do something.
I had to wait a couple of days for an opening to schedule the technician, and when he arrived, the first thing he did was to test that an adequate cable signal was being received. That led him to replace the coax coming into the house - this is the second time they have replaced the cable since we have lived here. But since the new cable is probably good for another 8-10 years, that alone made this exercise worthwhile.
Then he came inside to address the problem that I had complained about - and within 30 seconds of hearing my description of the problem, he had it solved! It was simply a matter of correcting some deeply-buried settings on the cable box. I have no idea how the settings were changed to cause the problem to appear - I am very reluctant to even look at the settings because they are far from intuitive and there are no instructions that describe what they do (and that's the subject of another rant). But once again, it proved the point that the customer service people on the telephone rarely know what they are talking about. Instead, they have been given a script to follow - if the customer reports X, do Y, and if that doesn't work, try Z, etc, and if eventhing fails, start replacing stuff. On the other hand, the technicians who have actually done installations generally are very good and can actually solve problems..
It's not just the cable company - the trend across many industries is to try to force the customer to do the troubleshooting and repair, and resort to knowledgeable service people only if that approach fails. I can fix a lot of things myself, but if the problem is something I can't solve, I really resent these automated voice response systems that seem to be designed to prevent you from talking to someone with a pulse, only to eventually conclude that the 'customer service' person is incompetent.