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334K views 992 replies 358 participants last post by  gzink 
#1 ·
This thread is for folks to post good stories and bad about Rogers Customer Service.

EDIT: Since changed to Rant thread since that is the bulk of posts ;)

If your posting a bad post, then at least try to post what knowledge is lacking and how the company might improve service rather than calling CSR's useless or idiots.

Remember CSR's are human too and sometimes they don't have all the answers
 
#2 ·
my #1 pet peeve is when I call customer service to change something with my channels, they always ask me, can they juggle it around some more by changing into some other package ("it'll save you a lot of money"). It's totally uncalled for. I'm just calling to make a minor change to my services, there's no way I'm going to let some CSR screw around with my services, because once they change them they can't set them back to the way they were. I once had a cable bill with about 4 pages of cancels/adds of services just to fix what some CSR did.

my #2 pet peeve is when the call is almost over, they ask you "are you interested in cell phone services", and if you say no, then they won't let it go, they'll ask you why, etc. etc. etc. It gets tiring after the hundredth time they ask you this kind of stuff. There's a place for upselling and this isn't one of them.

M23
 
#3 · (Edited)
hugh said:
Remember CSR's are human too and sometimes they don't have all the answers
I've only had to deal with them a few tmes but each time have felt the same afterwards. Its sort of like buying an airplane ticket... you can call 10 times and get 10 different prices.

Two days ago I called to find out if what I was currently paying was better than the VIP bundle. The CSR had no idea. He went to the same web site that I did... and he started to throw numbers around but at one point said "No, that isn't right..." and I never did an answer with confidence. Their pricing structure is simply too complicated.

I think I could have gotten a lower price but it would have involved a stopover in Chicago.

Al
 
#4 ·
We've been clients of Rogers Cable for close to 12 years, and with the exception of a couple of minor things, we have had a good rapport with the CSRs.

It has only been in the last couple of weeks that we have had some problems with the CSRs.

During the free preview of EuroNews, we received it no problem. On October 11th the free preview of EuroNews ended.

On October 16th we signed up for the new Rogers VIP Ultimate bundle.
On October 16th we were once again receiving EuroNews without any problems. October 17th we were no longer receiving EuroNews.

A check of our online cable services profile shows that we were supposed to be receiving EuroNews.

October 17th we called Rogers, and the CSR attempted to re-activate EuroNews for us. No go. The CSR then transferred us to the technical department. Technical department attempts to activate EuroNews, but is unable to, and opens a support ticket.

October 18th, someone from the Rogers technical department calls us and says we are not supposed to be receiving EuroNews...ticket closed.

October 18th, I tell my wife to call them back since our online profile indicates we are supposed to be receiving EuroNews.

She spent over two hours on the phone with the CSRs and people in the business office.

A supervisor from the business office informs my wife that we are supposed to be receiving EuroNews as part of the VIP Ultimate bundle. CSRs still unable to activate EuroNews.

Someone from the business office indicates that Rogers recently switched their internal software packages, and that not all departments have been upgraded yet (that was the explanation given as to why the technical department told us we were not supposed to get EuroNews).

Another ticket was opened with the technical department.

Calls to specific Rogers personell to check the status of the support ticket have not been returned.

As of tonight, we still do not have EuroNews.
 
#6 ·
MY biggest problem with them is having a CSR that deals 99.9% of the time, with Ontario.
I called not too long ago to inquire about the dual tuner PVR. I specifically asked to speak to a New Brunswick CSR and the Ontario CSR was a bit perturbed as to why I'd choose someone from NB and not him. I went on explaining that ROGERS was too big for its own good and that people like him had almost NO idea as to what is available in NB or not. He said he did so I decided to test him out. I asked him if the dual tuner was available and of course he said yes. I asked him if he was sure and he said he was. I asked him what brand and he told me SA. I said "Oh, that must be new for NB. We've had GI for the longest time and now we have Motorolas". Dead silence for 30 seconds. "I'll transfer you to Moncton". I tell him "You see? That is why I wanted someone from NB from the beginning. Then, I don't have to spend more time waiting and explaining why you couldn't help me"
This happens all the time. Now, when I call, I ask right from the start "Am I speaking with someone from Moncton?" If not, then I politely ask them to transfer me or I just tell them I'll keep trying until I get Moncton on my own.
I had problems this spring with digital cable. From February until end of April, I was calling repairs at least 4-6 times a week. I'd lose cable at around 8 or 9 at night and I'd get it back at around 10 in the morning. What it turned out to be was that when the cable was installed to my house, the guy wire built inside the cable had been cut and the sheath around the cable had been nicked. This would let water inside the cable as it was way up in the electrical mast. At night, the water inside the cable would freeze, and the connection inside the grey box on the side of my house, would disable any signal to come in properly. In the morning, when the sun would hit the gey box, at around 10, the signal would be enabled again.
When the internet extreme was available for us, the guy that brought my modem said he'd like to check the box just as a precaution. When he unhooked the cable coming from the street side to my 3 way splitter, water drops were forming from the cable. He snipped the end of it and water gushed out. 16 feet of cable holds lots of water! I joking told him that when ROGERS says you can surf the net, I didn't think they litterally meant it. He then changed the cable from the street and all the way to my house. I was credited for bad service for all these months on cable as well as internet. For that alone, I was very satisfied with ROGERS. The only thing I really hate, is when you do have problems, the CSR has a troubleshooting guide that applies to newbies and I am not a newbie. I understand more than just the basics. When I tell them that I have helped a tech install 3 new lines from their splitter to my 2 tv's and cable modem, that I have no other splitter, then I know for a fact it isn't on my side. Then they still have to make you dance on one foot, whistle , tap your tummy, and more, in hopes that it might solve my problems.
Now, with PVR's, when I do have a problem, I record some of the program I'm missing due to artifacts and when the tech comes over, I'm able to show him what it does.
Overall, I give them 8 out of 10 just for the above mistakes.
 
#7 ·
I've been in contact with Rogers Internet support on several occassions recently by email and by phone. My experience is that the lack of continuity causes a lot of frustration for problems that take more than one call to resolve. Everytime you call or email, you most likely will get a different person and that person has to refamiliarize themselves with your problem. I've been put on hold for up to 10 minutes while the CSR reads through the history of my ticket. They usually answer pretty quickly though.

Sometimes in the course of an email exchange trying to resolve an issue, I've had a random CSR just reply and say, "Thank you for choosing Rogers. If you have any further problems please contact us again." WTF?!?!

They also don't want to support you unless you're running WinXP, 2000, etc. This is mostly because they want to know what commands to tell you to run to inspect/change your network settings. If they can tell you what they want to know and you can figure it out you should be okay. Everytime I mention Linux or NT I can hear them reaching for the disconnect button.

If you have a firewall/router in place they may ditch you on account of that too. (tip: Make them wait while you reconfigure your network)

Your goal is get the problem "escalated" to Tier 2. Before this will happen, the CSRs will want to rule out everything on your end including sending a truck to your house to check the line whether you need it or not. Once a problem is escalated, you never get to talk to the people involved anymore. You're always stuck with the front line people who don't have control over the solution. This can be frustrating.

Have as much info as you can, timestamped if applicable, and repeatable test cases. If you're running an "unsupported configuration", be ready and able to present your problem in a supported configuration. Also, always note the work ticket number because they'll close the ticket on you, forget to give you a credit, and you'll need the number to retrieve the history. Then they'll only give you "partial credit" and only because you're a "good customer".
 
#8 · (Edited)
bgclarke said:
We've been clients of Rogers Cable for close to 12 years, and with the exception of a couple of minor things, we have had a good rapport with the CSRs.

It has only been in the last couple of weeks that we have had some problems with the CSRs.

During the free preview of EuroNews, we received it no problem. On October 11th the free preview of EuroNews ended.

On October 16th we signed up for the new Rogers VIP Ultimate bundle.
On October 16th we were once again receiving EuroNews without any problems. October 17th we were no longer receiving EuroNews.

A check of our online cable services profile shows that we were supposed to be receiving EuroNews.

October 17th we called Rogers, and the CSR attempted to re-activate EuroNews for us. No go. The CSR then transferred us to the technical department. Technical department attempts to activate EuroNews, but is unable to, and opens a support ticket.

October 18th, someone from the Rogers technical department calls us and says we are not supposed to be receiving EuroNews...ticket closed.

October 18th, I tell my wife to call them back since our online profile indicates we are supposed to be receiving EuroNews.

She spent over two hours on the phone with the CSRs and people in the business office.

A supervisor from the business office informs my wife that we are supposed to be receiving EuroNews as part of the VIP Ultimate bundle. CSRs still unable to activate EuroNews.

Someone from the business office indicates that Rogers recently switched their internal software packages, and that not all departments have been upgraded yet (that was the explanation given as to why the technical department told us we were not supposed to get EuroNews).

Another ticket was opened with the technical department.

Calls to specific Rogers personell to check the status of the support ticket have not been returned.

As of tonight, we still do not have EuroNews.

I am having the same probem as well. I switched to the new bundle 10 days ago, and was able to receive EuroNews until then. I have been on the phone with 5 different CSR's, 4 different technicians and had a service call, and still having the same problem. I have been in touch with the President's office and was told that I am in fact supposed to be receiving Euronews. I suggest you call the main Rogers switchboard at 416-935-6666 and ask for the office of the President of cable and explain the your situation to them.

My situation was escalated to the Engineering Dept. yesterday. I got a call from them saying that it was a problem at their end and the problem will be fixed. But this morning I got an automated call from the service dept. saying that they needed more information from me. I called and the service department and they told me, after being in touch with engineering that it was not their fault and it was an account problem - again. I talked with a manager at the customer service dept and was told that it was an error in their computer system and it needed to be reconfigured.

I have since called back the President's office and was told that it was a programming error and it will be fixed by early next week. Stay tuned....

Good luck,
Dave
 
#9 ·
I have been going through an ordeal over the past couple of months in which I was getting audio dropouts on my NAD receiver from the digital output of the SA8000HD. It was soon obvious that it wasn't going to be easy to determine whether the problem was in the receiver as it decoded the data stream or with the STB and how it was delivering the data stream.

I have to commend Rogers on their performance on this issue. They sent out a technician to the house that was in way over his head. He checked the signal going into the STB and found it to be good. That was the extent of his usefulness to me. He did however recommend calling back and asking for a senior technician.

When the senior technician came to the house he listened to my problem and immediately got on the phone to another senior technician that had a testing unit that could analyze the digital signal coming out of the STB. The second technician soon arrived and together they did some testing only to find no problems with the signal out of the STB.

One of the technicians said that he would check with one other very knowledgeable technician just to be certain that there wasn't anything that they were missing. He called me back less than a week later to tell me that they were certain that the problem was with the receiver.

What really surprised me is that they extended an offer to NAD to bring their receivers by the testing facility at Rogers so that they could verify the source of the problem together.

Now, all of a sudden NAD was admitting that there were issues with my receiver and that the new model of my receiver would work just fine with the Rogers box...information that they were not so forthcoming with previously.

So, if you ever have any technical problems with Rogers I would highly recommend that you ask them to send out a senior technician.

Darren
 
#10 ·
I've had good and bad telephone experiences with Rogers, but with a bit of persistance, they have consistently surpassed my expectation. On two occations, at two different residences, they did an amazing amount of in-ground work to fix border-line signal strength issues. They went far further than I ever would have imagined, considering it was really just ONE customer complaint. They probably could have gotten away with simply installing a drop amplifier, but they opted to fix the entire link.
 
#11 · (Edited)
I have not had any bad experiences with Rogers CSR's and their tech support until the Euronews problem. Granted that it is a new channel and new bundle packaging. Some of the CSR's I talked to didn't even know what Euronews was and the new bundles actually were. It wasn't until I went further up the chain that I started getting some answers. Rogers should give their CSR's a better heads-up when new channels and packages are launched and what is in them.

As regard to tech support during this ordeal, they were treating me as if I were stupid and didn't know what I was talking about. I almost came to blows with one tech support rep. because I knew that sending out a technician would be a waste of time. As it turns out I was right. Even the technician agreed with me when he was here and himself got into a 1-hour long heated discussion with his service department over the phone.

It took a call to the President of cable's office, threatening to go to satellite before this issue was finally given the proper attention.

Dave
 
#16 ·
On a positive note...

I've always had a low signal strenth to my upstairs office, where my 27" Zenith sits with an SA3250HD on top of it. It's not used much, but it is used occasionally. That same office also has my extreme modem service in it.

When they implemented the recent channel changes, I could no longer receive some of the HD channels (up near 850 MHz).

I was also wondering if this low signal was hampering my modem service, although I was always getting close to the 5 Mb/s download spec.

The service technican came (on time), listened to my problem carefully, realized that I knew what I was talking about and began to replace my 14 year old splitters, and some of the short coax cables running to the equipment. He also installed an amp and the signal to my main home theatre was now excellent, but the signal to the office was still not good and the modem shouldn't really go through an amp.

He stated that the line "through" my house to the office should be replaced by an outside line directly to the office from the "drop". This would then give a good signal directly to the modem. Unfortunately, he could not perform this work because he was not an "outside" guy.

I called to arrange the second service call, requesting an "outside" guy. The technician arrived on time, looked at the situation and agreed. He ran the line directly to the modem, but also performed some further magic to the line on the inside of my house to the Zenith. By rearanging splitters, etc, he was able to get my signal from -18dB to -4dB on the TV. Everything is now working as it should. Both technicians were very good, responsive to my comments and on time.

This second technician has two HDTVs at home and two SA8000HDs. Needless to say, we spent a lot of the time discussing HDTV, the CRTC, etc. ;) He was familiar with DHC.


A pleasant surprise after the "episode" with the extreme modem a couple of months ago...

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showpost.php?p=114749&postcount=72

Since Euronews was mentioned above a couple of times, would anyone who has Euronews and an SA8000HD, please read the following thread.

http://www.digitalhomecanada.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16474
 
#17 ·
I didn't have any trouble getting back Euronews after I initially lost it. I just called Rogers and asked the CSR to reactivate the channel. It was quite hassle free and I didn't find it to be much of an inconvenience. I subscribe to Euronews as an individual channel and not part of the ultimate bundle.

 
#18 ·
An update to my original post in this thread (post #4).

When I got home this afternoon, my wife was on the phone.

A Rogers CSR had called her regarding the open ticket.

After some digging and testing on the part of the CSR, he was able to determine what happened and why we are not getting EuroNews.

To make a long story short, it turns out that EuroNews was not mapped correctly to the VIP Ultimate bundle in our area after the free preview ended.

The CSR has escalated the ticket to the appropriate group to get it resolved.
 
#20 ·
Customer Service

Had Hi-speed and Digital VIP Ultimate installed on Saturday. Of course, the contractor was in and out like a jack rabbit. Once he'd displayed the IPG and had signal on the modem he was gone. I finished the rest.

Hi-speed was no issue, I'm real familiar with that and router setups. On the digital cable, all free previews were there but none of my subscribed channels. Phone calls at 4pm Sat. said too late for someone to fix it then but for sure on Sunday. Sunday no one showed. Phoned, and was assured 8am Mon. morning a tech would fix it, plus I'd get a $40 credit for inconvenience. It's fixed, tech was on time. Initial let down but impressive followup.

Note.........have a new Panny PT47x54 and I've got to say on digital stations on this set the quality of the broadcast is impressive and much better than analogue. I have no issues with it displaying traditional channels and being unhappy with the clarity. Hookup to my Panny Home Theater and VCR recording is fine. Had almost signed up for HD 2 weeks ago and backed out based on the latest news on excluded stations............the only one's that I'd have watched.
 
#21 · (Edited)
It would be helpful if Rogers marketing department gave some info once in a while, to their CSR's. I called last night to ask some questions about the new AOV channels. The CSR had no idea what I was talking about. I thought that since these channels were on my IPG, the CSR would surely know about it.

He knew nothing of the WWE VOD either.

Not only will this frutrate the CSR's, who haven't a clue what's going on internally, within their company. It's also irritating to have a channel you see on the guide, which you know these CSR's can't order for you, or give information on it.
 
#22 ·
They are either exceptional or mediocre. When I get the mediocre ones, if the waiting time is not a lot, I politely end the conversation and call again. I wish there was a way you could choose which customer service rep. to connect to.
Also, I hate the ones that are less knowledgable about their product offerings than me.
 
#23 ·
Rogers CSR good and bad

The CSR's for Roger's cable internet service are great, the seem knowledgeable and seem to understand the technical aspects of their service.

The CSR's for their cable service on the other hand, are fairly lackluster. A few points I have:

1) each time you call, you need to start from the beginning. On many occasions the beginning of my phone conversations would be to explain the whole situation over again to a new person.
2) technical knowledge of the CSR's are lagging Rogers Cable services by at least a year to two years. For example, CSR's not knowing what HDTV was.
3) CSR's are not trained well to determine if the problems you are having are related to the cable or software on the digital terminals (probably related to point #2). I had problems with my HD-PVR, they sent two techs over to my place twice, both of them end up phoning back head office to complain they've been sent out for a CSR goof-up.
4) CSR's are unwilling to forward you to their managers if you are having difficulty with them.
5) CSR's mumble their names, and never offer their operator ID's
6) When you e-mail them, they usually always ask you to call them (why the hell did I e-mail), then of course, when you call, you need to start all over again.
7) Trying to solve problems over e-mail also restarts every time you reply to the e-mail, you rarely get the same CSR.
 
#24 ·
Here's an interesting situation I currently have with Rogers. Back in August I entered a draw in a new local newspaper (The Monitor). 1st prize was a PVR (non-HD I expect) and a 'years free cable'. Imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from the paper in late September to tell me I'd won the PVR package. I was given a contact number at the paper so that I could call if something got screwed up etc. After two weeks I hadn't heard anything from Rogers so called the contact at the paper. Not to worry, as she would personally call Rogers and get them to call me. Another 2 weeks and still nothing so I call again. Now it's almost the end of October and still nothing. I call again at the beginning of November, having to refresh the memory of the contact at the paper about my 'win'. 4 days later, at last, I get a call from someone from Rogers. This person was very pleasant and said how great the package is and how I'd "Just love it!" However, I was to give them a bit more time (!) while 'things' are sorted out at Rogers. As of today, I still don't have free cable or the PVR................

So much for 'winning' contests! lol What is annoying is that there are a couple of digital channels I want to add to my list (currently 5) but I'm holding off as, supposedly, I'd get all the digital channels free. Also I'm not clear as to how my current account will be handled - I have two STB's (HD) including one PVR. Do I just continue to pay for the HD stuff and get all the other free? I can't really bitch at them as it isn't costing me anything.
 
#25 ·
Cow said:
They are either exceptional or mediocre. When I get the mediocre ones, if the waiting time is not a lot, I politely end the conversation and call again. I wish there was a way you could choose which customer service rep. to connect to.
Also, I hate the ones that are less knowledgable about their product offerings than me.

I read these horror stories and none compare with dealing with American express in India

Look on the bright side at least they haven't outsourced to an overseas vendor who doesn't even know what rogers is or understand the programming they have. At least most of the CSR's have rogers cable at home so they have a vague understanding of what your talking about.
 
#26 ·
Further to my contest win. I actually got a call from Rogers today - about 3 months after winning! Seems they didn't have the necessary 'forms' so that my win could be activated. I will now get free cable and most of the digital channels including TMN, plus a basic PVR. Guess I wont be going out much this winter......
 
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