Is Charter Pulling A Fast One In Tech Support?
Charter Communications is our cable company. We get our cable, premium channels (boy, was Rome good last night), and cable modem all bundled up for about $120 a month. We've had some problems with the premium services and our new TiVo unit, but that's to be expected, and a technician is coming out to help us today between 8-12.
Charter is a local company, and we don't want to bash it. In fact, Franki says that she has never had a problem with Charter and they are 100% in her eyes. Of course, she hasn't had to negotiate their phone system to get help (they outsource tech support to India). I recently went through that process, and it had the same problems much outsourced work does - a long, detailed automatic system, then a scratchy connection, and of course, after 15 minutes on the phone, I was disconnected from my helpful Indian friend and had to call back. As an American Consumer, I've learned to put up with these minor inconveniences.
As I called back, something strange happened, and I want to be clear about what happened before I make a false statement.
You call the Charter customer service number. that's 1-800-211-4450. Following the prompts, you let the system know you have a problem with your cable, and it involves not receiving premium channels.
The automated voice on the line says they are going to walk you through the process of restarting your cable box before you talk to a live operator. They ask you to turn off your cable box, and unplug it from the wall, so that they can make some changes on their end. You dutifully turn off the power, unplug the cord, wait a few moments, then plug the cable box back in.
At this point, you're quite aware of what's going on. Turning off computers and unplugging them is standard tech support. We all know to do it. But Charter takes it a step further. The automated voice claims it is resetting your account from their computers. That sounds reasonable, but there's one problem.
When you call in, how do they know which cable box is yours?
I called from my Vonage phone, which Charter does not have the number to. I entered the Vonage phone as my number, which Charter does not have. I know this, because when I gave my number to the 1st Indian operator, he couldn't look up my system. I had to give him my wife's cell phone number to access the account.
So what exactly was Charter doing when it said it was resetting my cable box? Is this just an elaborate ruse to convince people to go through the motions of unplugging their cable box? When I called back, I raced through the prompts, ignoring the instructions to unplug the box this time, and nothing happened. This isn't conclusive proof, but it made me a bit dubious that anything was being done.
Possible explanations:
1) Entering your phone number really does allow them to reset your cable box, but entering a false or different phone number than they have on file confuses their system, but it makes a good faith effort
2) Resetting the cable box works in a lot of cases, so they came up with the "extra effort on their side" to make sure people went through the system.
If it is option 2, I don't know whether to clap in surprise or boo in disgust. I'll go through the system again and record the actual conversation, then report the results to you later.
Charter is a local company, and we don't want to bash it. In fact, Franki says that she has never had a problem with Charter and they are 100% in her eyes. Of course, she hasn't had to negotiate their phone system to get help (they outsource tech support to India). I recently went through that process, and it had the same problems much outsourced work does - a long, detailed automatic system, then a scratchy connection, and of course, after 15 minutes on the phone, I was disconnected from my helpful Indian friend and had to call back. As an American Consumer, I've learned to put up with these minor inconveniences.
As I called back, something strange happened, and I want to be clear about what happened before I make a false statement.
You call the Charter customer service number. that's 1-800-211-4450. Following the prompts, you let the system know you have a problem with your cable, and it involves not receiving premium channels.
The automated voice on the line says they are going to walk you through the process of restarting your cable box before you talk to a live operator. They ask you to turn off your cable box, and unplug it from the wall, so that they can make some changes on their end. You dutifully turn off the power, unplug the cord, wait a few moments, then plug the cable box back in.
At this point, you're quite aware of what's going on. Turning off computers and unplugging them is standard tech support. We all know to do it. But Charter takes it a step further. The automated voice claims it is resetting your account from their computers. That sounds reasonable, but there's one problem.
When you call in, how do they know which cable box is yours?
I called from my Vonage phone, which Charter does not have the number to. I entered the Vonage phone as my number, which Charter does not have. I know this, because when I gave my number to the 1st Indian operator, he couldn't look up my system. I had to give him my wife's cell phone number to access the account.
So what exactly was Charter doing when it said it was resetting my cable box? Is this just an elaborate ruse to convince people to go through the motions of unplugging their cable box? When I called back, I raced through the prompts, ignoring the instructions to unplug the box this time, and nothing happened. This isn't conclusive proof, but it made me a bit dubious that anything was being done.
Possible explanations:
1) Entering your phone number really does allow them to reset your cable box, but entering a false or different phone number than they have on file confuses their system, but it makes a good faith effort
2) Resetting the cable box works in a lot of cases, so they came up with the "extra effort on their side" to make sure people went through the system.
If it is option 2, I don't know whether to clap in surprise or boo in disgust. I'll go through the system again and record the actual conversation, then report the results to you later.
posted by James Durbin @ 6:57 AM PERMALINK
4 Comments:
Charter customer service just gets worse and worse...fortunately if you are persisitent you can usually find someone in the system who cares and will solve the problem...for some reason the Orlando call center seems to have people willing to own the problem and fix it.
You raise some interesting issues!
Marianne
Option #3:
When you turn your cable box back on, the cable box does "phone home" back to Charter, and at some point their computers re-load your data back onto your box.
So, technically, they are telling the truth... their computers are reseting your box.. but only because you reset it, not because of your phone call.
Actually it's option #4.
When you first called Charter Tech Support from you Vonage phone, charter intergrates that into your account information. When you called a second time, the system recognizes you are a repeat caller from the last time you called and asks you if it's the same problem (in your case it was) and provides you with steps to troubleshoot. A yes, it probably did a hard reset which refreshed your cable box information on charters side.
I consider most ALL of their tech support efforts about as helpful as this:: http://rcmediaservices.net/images/
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home