on hold for over 2 hours today, had customer chat up for about half that time,

no response,

its really too bad, they are 1 of the worst companys but they have the best product or I would be gone,

I just had Shaw phone service and internet hooked up today. The phone service did not include the voicemail package as I'd ordered it. Not a huge deal if there's a bit of a delay but I don't like it.
I went online to see if I could set it up. Nope. So, I called the 1-888 number and waited on hold for half an hour. 30 minutes! Then I gave up and had dinner. I came back after dinner and found their online chat feature. I tried that a few times but it was out of commission so I went back to calling. Only now I found a local number where it says they are standing by 8AM to 8PM - Nope.
Their message said that "all our customer service representatives are busy... current wait times are more than (wait for it) two hours." So, I went back and called the other number where I'd waited on hold before and it now had that same message.
Talk about buyers remorse. I'd get them to come out and take all this stuff away (we already had the tv service)... but I can't get ahold of anyone.
At this moment... Shaw sucks.
Maybe I should have known when the website of an internet service provider doesn't work on the worlds most common web browser.

Hugh, if you're looking at this thread, do you have any suggestions as to what is going on with Shaw and perhaps what the best we have to address it - short of flipping the goodbye of course.

I am perplexed and frankly shocked that they have let the service response times deteriorate to fast and so far?

Any thoughts from other members would be useful. We clearly have to give Shaw a reason to think more carefully about their approach to the clientele. The posts on the various forums here are giving the other companies all the ammunition they need to bury Brad's company. Where is Peter Bissonette in all this? General frustration showing through here.

It would be really helpful to see a detailed response by someone speaking for Shaw, as to the issues expressed in this thread.

Some indication of the steps that are being taken and time frames to completion/resolution might save us all a lot of grief.

One small step is to befriend Shaw on facebook. I see a number of people complaining there.

finally got through to shaw, after 1 hour trying to get through on online chat,

told him I was having problems with my wireless dropping connections,
I had already disabled the wireless, and hooked up my old router, lan to lan with the SMC,

so after checking out a bunch of stuff, the solution was to leave it the way I have it,

I agreed, and it works, but doesn't say much for there product support,


I have had on going problems with 1 of my PVR's,
before we could get into my problem the connection dropped, and now I'm waiting to connect again,

this is unbelievable and a complete waste of my time, I only work 4 days a week on a rotation, so I have time off, but what happens when you have a job where you work 5 days a week, and you don't have hours in the middle of the day to wait on hold,
Do you just not get service from shaw?


One small step is to befriend Shaw on facebook. I see a number of people complaining there.
sounds like a plan

They are on Twitter too. https://twitter.com/#!/ShawInfo

Another posting of 3+ hours of waiting for a call back, after being told it would be "over 2 hours". At least I was able to get a call back...

And then they can only send someone out to address the situation on Sept 28, 2 weeks from now. At least it's not a critical (as far as tv watching goes) issue.

I am really curious about how they let things get so bad. You don't degrade to 3 hour CSR wait times overnight, I wouldn't think.

Clint

Just a quick follow up to my post above in which I detailed my frustrations and mentioned signing up for Optik TV.

I went to the Shaw desk in downtown Vancouver to return my equipment and cancel my account today. The customer service rep was very pleasant however did not ask why I was cancelling. They are losing a $1,500 / year account and don't even want to know why? It alarms me that they are letting people walk away and don't even want to know a reason.

A short synopsis of my dilema;
Sep. 6th. 09:00 Shaw technician installs my new Gateway system.
Sep. 9th. 16:00 complete system outage, several system power cycles to no avail. I spent four hours on hold trying to get a Customer Service Representative on the phone, no one answered. Fortunately I am a member of a local Forum "Digital Home" (that some of your employees frequent) and a Shaw employee who read my problems phoned me at home and we spent 45 minutes troubleshooting my system. He determined that the Gateway box was at fault and suggested when I arrange for a home visit that I relay this to the technician.

I got Gateway Support, after I was told about the 855 number (that is not published anywhere by the way) to book a technician who showed up Friday Sep 16th @ 09:00. I relayed what I was told about the Gateway failure but after the technician spoke with his Gateway Support people they elected to run a new feed to my house to boost the signal and did not change the box.

Sep. 17th. I turned on the TV and after 30 minutes of viewing it froze, I power cycled both the Gateway and the Portal, but it was displaying the same symptoms as originally reported, continual Gateway cycling, unable to get DNS or network connection. I have been on the Shaw Gateway support line 1-855-812-5090 (two attempts) totalling over five hours, both calls ended abruptly (line went dead) after well over two hours of waiting.

I have paid a lot of money for what is supposed to be a leading edge technology, but has turned out to be a dismal failure for me. The worst part being the inability to get anyone from Shaw to hear my issues and respond.

I do not want to wait another 8-9 days without service for another house call. I am really starting to wonder if the system is worth all the trouble, I have lost two beautiful Saturdays (we don't get that many) with my wife and that is unfair to her as well!

You have some really great people (in the field), but the inability to connect to anyone via phone, web or twitter really leaves your company out of my good graces.

Go nuts...

# Vice President, Customer Care – The entire Shaw team is committed to providing exceptional experiences to our customers. Our Vice President, Customer Care is available to ensure we find an appropriate solution to your concern. Our local management teams will be happy to put you in touch with our VP, Customer Care as required or the Vice President can be reached directly as follows:


* Address: Suite 900, 630 3rd Avenue SW, Calgary, AB T3A 5S3
* Phone: 1-888-750-7429
* Fax: (403) 750-4501
* Email: vpccare@sjrb.ca

thanks, by the way, the email address provided, bounces, permanent failure, no such address :confused:

Crap. Used to work because I've used it in the past. Kind of speaks volumes that they killed it. The ever increasing wait times were just another reason why I left Shaw.

I fired off a letter (a what?), hopefully the address is still functional :confused:

I just spent an hour and a half standing in line at Shaw's Barlow building to return a Phone modem and, even once I got to the counter after an hour and a quarter, it still took more than 10 minutes to get it all sorted out and get me a receipt. I had called yesterday and canceled and the girl had put a note on my account that I would be returning the box today and it still took 10 minutes for the girl at the counter to bash away at her computer before she had to find a form to fill out by hand as a receipt as her printer wasn't working.

It's really nuts there and Shaw has a HUGE problem on their hands. I would guestimate that 80% of the 100 or so people in the line while I was there were returning hardware. Lots of PVRs, DCTs and Modems. In the hour and a half that I was there, and I got there right at noon when they opened, the line only got shorter by about 4 places. For about 20 minutes it was doubled back on itself all the way back to the counter and new people coming in thought there must be two lines and were trying to step into the middle of the line which was out at the front windows.

To add insult to injury, there was a nice big whiteboard with a 'Welcome Customers, Please help yourself to refreshments' sign and there wasn't even a drop of coffee left in the pot which was obviously from another day. One guy waiting in line went looking for the washrooms and noticed some interesting items written on the other side of this same whiteboard.

It seems there had been a few suggestions written by someone. There were three suggestions on how to improve Customer Service wait times, to which one of the guys in line added, at the top: ANSWER YOUR PHONES.

We all thought that was quite appropriate. It seems there was either an impromptu 'sandbox' type session there previously or something similar as this board had been left there from before the doors opened today at noon. Despite having 4 out of the possible 8 or so 'agent' locations manned today, it took well over a half hour for one pair of women and almost another half hour for one gentleman to get what they needed done. A half hour each really held the line up so I sure hope the rest of the people there when I left didn't take out their frustrations on the girls behind the counter.

The comments regarding how people feel about Shaw were getting pretty heated in the line and it took less than an hour of waiting for the silence to be broken and there was a distinct change in the mood of the crowd. I think I was lucky to get out of there when I did. There must have been at least 20 people who took one look at the line and just turned around and left. One mother with her infant in a stroller got in line but after 20 minutes of standing in one place, got tired and left.

Shaw has totally dropped the ball and the public are none too impressed, let me tell you. There were a lot of expletives being used to describe personal sentiment about Shaw in that line.

Your not going to believe this! I have spent 10 (yes ten) hours over yesterday and today on hold for Gateway Technical Support. After two hours on hold the line goes dead. At 5PM (Pacific) I finally get a tech, go through the whole history just to have him say there is nothing he can do and I will have to schedule a home visit. I say don't you dare transfer me to Customer Service, I refuse to wait another 10 hours for someone to answer, he tells me no worries, when he transfers me I will go the the head of the line and only have a 30-60 second wait.

OK, who's the dummy here :confused:

He transfers me, I get the recorded message that wait times are longer than normal but if you prefer we can call you back, current wait times are between one hour and thirty seven minutes and to and a half hours. I elected the call back feature, I will probably be in bed asleep before or if I ever get a callback.

I used to be a satisfied customer. Service was excellent- probably the key point with Shaw. Price was ok. Product was decent. Started to change a couple years back. Service was lacking- 1/2 hour to hour plus waits but CS reps still helpful. Costs increasing on a regular basis. Product still decent. Last year after many of us complaining about increasing costs came the promotional packages that are now expiring. Today many of us are or have inquired to Shaw about getting some type of deals that are offered to new clients. The answer has generally been absolutely no or very minor on an ever increasing cost. The service has continued to decrease- Shaw let go a number of staff in the last year. It seems almost everyone experiences at least 90 minute waits- many longer. Many of us are looking to upgrade from our old Motorola's to new and better equipment. The choices are buying a Gateway or in my case renting a Telus PVR (which they waived). I like the Telus PVR features better as well. I've been a Shaw customer for as long as I can remember- a long time. I suspected I would be for a while to come. Not to be though- less than 2 weeks and I will be with Telus- saving money (at least for 6 months). I did go on a 1 year TV contract- nothing else. Free PVR rental- if I wanted to upgrade with Shaw only option was to purchase. So far Customer Service has been reasonable. They are simply getting better where Shaw is getting worse. I think Shaw has about 10 times the customers Telus has. I would say this trend is changing quickly. I am baffled as to why? Seems to me they are chasing their loyal clientel elsewhere. Oh well- Telus gave me a decent offer and for the most part- people are reasonably happy. We'll see.

Finally got a call back around 8pm from Nanaimo, hey I don't live on the Island! The CSR's are all very pleasant and accommodating but they can do little for you. I now have a home visit scheduled for "sometime" Friday. So, since the 6th of September I have had the system working for three days.

I asked to speak to a Manager, one is supposed to call be at 11:00 this morning, it is now 11:11, no call, so once again I wait...

I'll have to write a letter to voice my concerns to Shaw.

I got a letter in the mail the other day from Shaw. Thanking me for being a customer and look forward to serving me in the future. I just laughed. Shaw didn't even try to keep me as a customer. The rep just spent the time bashing the competitor.

They should take a page out of the cell phone companies. I've been with the same carrier for the last 15 years or so. When my contract comes due and I hint at leaving, they offer up a bunch of things to keep me, and it works. Plus I don't have to spend hours waiting to talk to anyone.

Oh, my new services are being installed today!

I'm another one who used to be very happy with Shaw customer service, now it's a complete joke.

~ waiting 2-3 hours on hold (even AFTER using the useless call back feature)

~ never returning e-mails sent to them

~ tech support is a laugh, and they rarely seem to know what they are doing...more often than not use a 'hit and miss' approach to fix issues

~ software updates that just screw up your hardware and are never fixed

~ and on top of the issues they continue to jack up rates.

Been with Shaw for over 15 years but I may leave if this BS continues. At the very least I'd like some competent techs to fix Shaws screwups.