As you mostly know, I am going through some crap with AT&T U-verse. I have gotten to the point of writing a strongly worded letter. Here is v1. My boss is currently reviewing and adding to it. I’d love some input:
To whom it may concern:
My name is Bryan <lastname> and my AT&T U-Verse account information is as follows:
<account info removed for privacy purposes>
Since the week of 2/2/2009, I have experienced over 10 outages of my service. I have had 6-8 visits from technical support personnel. I have called into the AT&T U-verse support number more times than I would like to recount. I have received numerous diagnoses for why my services have been down. Finally, the issue was determined to be a problem at the NOC with a piece of hardware.
I was given no ETA as to when this hardware issue would be resolved. At one point, one of the techs suggested that I have Time Warner cable come and install so that I could use that temporarily while AT&T figured it out. Fortunately, I never had the install done as I was lead to believe on Monday (2/23/2009) that the issue was resolved.
You might be saying to yourself, “hey buddy, what’s the big deal?!?”. Well, I am a strictly “work at home” employee. I work for a small consulting company and do not have an office to go to if my services are not up and running.
Although I have received quite a bit of credit to my account, I have to say that my faith in AT&T’s reliability of service is in the negative numbers. I am currently pricing out other services to see if they can compete with what AT&T offers. Due to my experiences, you have lost at least 4 more potential customers.
Although I do quite enjoy the service that AT&T provides, if it is not up, what use is it? What use is a credit to my account when I cannot use my services?
On Friday, 2/27/2009, I experienced another outage so I called into AT&T customer support with my employer on the line. Because of the problems with AT&T’s reliability, we, as a company have lost close to $<a lot> in billable time and services that I have not been able to provide due to loss of connectivity.
The customer support rep kindly credited my account by another $100 understanding fully that this did not help in terms of the service coming back up. She then transferred us to tier 2 support who verified that a technician was on his way. We then asked to speak with management. At this point Marc (mj2556) got on the line.
I explained to him that my employer was on the line but he refused to even listen to what he had to say. Understanding this, I asked to speak with HIS supervisor at which point he informed me that he is the highest customer facing person that I can speak to. I would not say that I think he was lying, but, in my experience working for a support organization, there is ALWAYS someone higher to speak to customer facing or not.
I again explained that we are a small company (4 people) and that due to AT&T’s inability to resolve my intermittent connectivity problems, we have lost close to $<a lot> in services rendered.
At this point, Marc asked me if I had read the AT&T TOS. He specifically said that AT&T U-verse is not meant to be a business grade product that it’s “all in the TOS”. I have to say that this made me very upset. I asked him to explain to me how this many outages, tech support visits, lost time, etc would be acceptable to ANY customer. He was not able to do this and again stressed that I look into AT&T U-verse business services.
During the time I was talking with Marc, the services actually came back on. Shortly after, the tech arrived and did some further testing and communicating with his peers. It was then determined that the hardware problem was resolved last night, but the ports on my ONT were never unlocked. The tech verified that they were in fact unlocked and then gave me his phone number. He instructed me to call him directly if I experienced any more outages in the next few days.
To sum up, I am sick of talking to AT&T support. You are all very nice, but I have lost sleep, time, work, wages, and patience.
Additionally, my employer is currently exploring legal action with regard to this matter.
I eagerly anticipate your response.
Regards,
Bryan M. <lastname>