Rogers Rant Thread

[hugh]

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

[marvin23]

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

[akennedy]

Originally Posted by hugh

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

[bgclarke]

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.

[otown47]

My pet peave is emailing them with a problem and having them demand that I call and deal with a CSR....

[Danster]

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.

[CW]

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".

[davidtcb]

Originally Posted by bgclarke

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

[kixsand]

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

[JohnnyG]

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.

[davidtcb]

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

[bgclarke]

Originally Posted by davidtcb

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

Dave,

If you get anywhere with this, leave a note here or PM me.

Glad to know that it is not an isolated incident.

Brad

[SMCKINNON24]

I have no problem with Getting EuroNews when the FreeView was over. I just called and it came back on.

[bgclarke]

Originally Posted by SMCKINNON24

I have no problem with Getting EuroNews when the FreeView was over. I just called and it came back on.

Do you subscribe to EuroNews as an individual channel, or as part of the Ultimate bundle?

[davidtcb]

I am able to get Euronews now. I just got a phone call from Rogers and they confirmed it.

Dave