The good and the not so good
I have been a *C customer for about five years now and have been quite happy with the service. My parents have been with Bell Express Vu for 8 years now, and my dad gets the worst customer service from them! They have long wait times, they don't return your calls, emails take a three day turnaround. I have found that when I call *C, 9.9 times out of 10, I get a customer service rep. right away. My emails have been answered within hours. Overall, I am quite pleased.
My best experience with *C was when I was having problems with my DSR 530 not recording. The customer service agent was on the phone with me for a full hour, trying to troubleshoot the problem. The entire time he was pleasant and upbeat. He did not talk down to me once (which often happens to females when males are trying to instruct them with electronics. Sorry, but that has been my experience, and I work with computers all day!) As we were working through the problems, he said that we would have to perform a factory reset and, when I was upset that I would lose the two PPV movies that I had recorded but not watched yet, he said that he would credit my account for two more! That was really nice. At the end of the call, when we were still unable to resolve the problem, he promised to contact me within three days and said he wouldn't forget about me. He called me back less than 24 hours later. I should be so lucky to get him as a customer service agent again!
My not so good experience with *C dealt with a service call to my home to examine the DSR 530 hookup. An appointment was made for between 8-5 on a Wednesday. I had to take the day off work, which used up one of the ten vacation days I get a year! I waited at home all day and no one showed up and no one called. At 4:30, I called *C and was put through to a dispatcher. The dispatcher said that they may be running late and already on their way. He said that no one at the business was answering the phone, so he left a message for them to call either me or *C and that, if they hadn't called me by 5:30, to call *C back. At 5:30, I called *C back and spoke to another dispatcher. She said, and I quote, "I don't know why he told you to call back, when he had left a message for them to call you. There is nothing that I can do until I speak to them tomorrow morning." While that may be true, it did nothing to make me feel better, and frankly made me feel like I was putting her out! She then told me to call back at 8 a.m., when they opened, and they would have more information on what happened to the service call. I called back at 8 am, was left on hold for 20 minutes, and then spoke to a third dispatcher. She said that there was no information on my account and called the business. She came back on my line, told me that she had spoken to them, that they were aware of the situation and would call me. And? I said. Do I need to call into work again? Are they coming today? I don't know, she said, go into work and they will call you. How soon will they call? I asked. I don't know, she said. I found it very frustrating that I had to work this problem out myself. The second dispatcher had told me the name of the business that handles the *C account in my area, so I hung up and called them direct. They immediately knew who I was. After talking to the operator for a few minutes, I was guaranteed a service call at 3:30 pm that day. None of this was *C fault. They cannot help it if their service call people ignore the order. I appreciate that. However, I do not appreciate having to arrange my own service call and feeling like, when I hung up, that *C had done nothing to help the situation. During this entire ordeal, no one apologized about anything. A simple "I'm sorry this happened" or "We are sorry for the inconvenience" would have gone a long way. I have worked in customer service for 13 years, and I know that attitude always calms people and reassures them that you are working to help them. However, that is not fair to say *C was the problem, their service call technicans were, but those three dispatchers did not, especially the last two, impress me in the least.
However, after all that I have written, the good and the not so good, I still think that I am far ahead of any Bell customers with the good customer service I have received from *C. I would never want to switch over!