I'm just getting back online. I won't say I'm the most observant person in the world. I might even say that if I notice something, it is pretty darned obvious! Take yesterday, just before lunch I see a Spectrum cable truck in the neighbor's drive. Guy in a high vis vest walks into backyard of said neighbor. About 10 minutes later, the internet stops. I don't believe in coincidences. I try to call the cable company but get the automated BS. Screw that. I open the phone app (using cell data) and report the problem. As a network engineer, it hurts my feelings to literally know what the problem is but am not allowed to touch it. It is insult to injury to have to walk through the script with some flunky via chat about turning off the router and waiting 30 seconds, blah, blah, blah! I keep telling them a cable truck was just at my neighbor's and now my internet is out. All I get is, "So sorry, too bad, next available tech appointment is midday tomorrow." Nobody will deviate from the script. About 3AM I get an email saying the outage has been resolved. I see this at 7AM and immediately chat with a rep to make sure my appointment is still on. The person assures me it is still scheduled. The appointed time the tech is supposed to show comes and goes, no tech. I open chat again. Useless person escalated but nothing else. 10 minutes later I get a call that the tech is running late. Geez, would it have killed them to call sooner? Tech finally gets here and I explain what I've seen and that I am fully conversant with networking. Nice guy and says he probably knows what happened since he gets dead line when he tests my drop to the pole. I show him the pole my cable comes from, which is now behind 3 fenced yards. When it was installed, there were no fences. We walk over and see a dangling end at the top of the drop. Looking down, we see this mangled line, chewed up by their dog. Tech thinks he knows what happened. Says he can see several trouble tickets with intermittent service issues in this area. Another tech figured out it was the chewed up cable and unplugged it. Standard procedure is to open a trouble ticket for the problem line. He did not. They just left me without internet or any notice. How's that for customer service?
Oh I HATE that!! "In a few words, describe the problems your having, you can say things like My internet is out" Ok, Im going to say things like "SUCK IT!"
...and because automated system you're interacting with doesn't have "SUCK IT" in its list of valid responses, you'll get some variation of "try again" until you hang up or system drops you. Automated systems are great so long as your issue is covered by flow chart used to program it. Example: we recently had a no dialtone. I was able to rule out a dead line, and Verizon's troubleshooter fixed it in about 10 minutes. Used to need an on-site tech,...
AI has probably evolved enough to put the folks screaming "suck it" to the back of the line, just like good ole fashioned human CS agents.. I learned long ago CS agents match your attitude, and they love nothing more than making some irate jackwagon wait the full 5-7 (7 business days) days for service. I used to deal with a guy who blamed McDonald's for the downfall of society. He made a compelling argument- they instilled the instant gratification mentality into society, and if something is wrong, just yell loud enough and the meal is free. Plus a voucher for another free meal. The customer is validated and proud for getting 3 bucks worth of trash food for free. In reality they gave the customer 3 bucks and got them the hell out of the way. And naturally they kept coming back anyway....
Charter spectrum has a contract with the city I live in to provide cable TV service through which many people get their cable internet through. They have angered so many people in the city with their crappy service they're about to lose the contract. This monopoly they've had in the city has brought the process of getting us all Verizon FiOS to a screeching halt, but supposedly things are finally happening there. We'll see.
