Making a Bad Situation Worse

[Camera.Ken]

Hi All:

Went out on a bike ride today, and when I came home, found a photocopied ad in my mail slot from a Shaw tech, offering me great deals on Shaw service. Thought nothing of it and left it near the garbage.

Later, was annoyed to find Internet off the air. Then perturbed to find phone off the air. Then disturbed to find cable TV off the air.

Used cell phone to call Shaw. 20 minutes on hold. Finally ask for call-back. Call arrives 10 minutes later. Tech checks everything he can, then books a service appointment for 4 days away. No phone, no cable TV, no Internet, no alarm sysem monitoring for 4 days.

I think of the photocopied ad -- maybe the tech, who thoughtfully listed his name, can help. The Shaw support person agrees. Call him, says Shaw support.

I place the call. An embarrassed tech verifies my address twice, then drives right to me, arriving in 10 minutes. He shows me a disconnect order -- he's gone to the wrong street number, right house address.

Takes him 30 seconds to open the 'grey box' and reconnect my services bundle.

Call Shaw support; another 20 minutes on hold to cancel the service call.

Meanwhile I try to use Shaw chat and e-mail support to cancel the service call. Chat is off the air (too busy). E-mail goes through but there is no confirmation of any sort.

So an honest mistake by a tech reveals that Shaw is happy to make me wait 4 days without any services or alarm monitoring. This is how you make a bad situation worse.

Perhaps I should re-think bundling.

[GeeCee]

I thought that a total outage usually yielded a priority (next day) service call. If it was business days (not including weekends), then Monday would make sense.

This sounds to me like an honest mistake by a contracted employee. In the end you had your service restored within a few hours. I think you're being a tad dramatic, or at least abusing your thesaurus privileges. :P

[Camera.Ken]

Hi Gee Cee:

Nope. Told it like it was. And a 4-day outage is really not very good.

What if I had not recovered the tech's letter form near the garbage and decided to call?

Shaw was happy with a complete 4-day outage.

And what words did you have to look up? I looked for all the long ones: "embarrassed, confirmation, disconnect, photocopied". Do you really mean to tell the world that you need a thesaurus to come up with these?

And otherwise, I am not the slightest bit sorry or embarrassed for my vocabulary, or ability to use words.

Nice try.

[Shaw Champ]

Hi Ken,

Very sorry to hear the poor experience you have had. If I put myself in your shoes I would be pretty frustrated.

I can say with all honesty if ever there has been an outage or accidental turn off in my experience it always typically warrants restoration within a 24 hr period.

Just to let you know, the process is usually:
Customer calls.
Reports issue.
If there is no way to get services up over phone a service call booked for when next available slot is and then is escalated to our dispatch dept who will find a tech to pick it up asap.
The duration it would be out would warrant a credit.

You have had definately not 'A-typical' experience.

I do not know if there is anything we can do to make up the poor experience in your eyes if you would like me to look into it I would be happy to.

..........................
Shaw Employee but views/opinions are solely my own and do not represent or are in no way endorsed by any other party.

[Camera.Ken]

Hi ShawChamp:

Thanks for the response.

I appreciate your offer to look into it, but clearly there are big problems at play here. I would hate to think of you getting mired in it.

The tech made an honest mistake. It happens to us all now and then. No fault there.

But Shaw seems to have made some sort of blunder with respect to their service support management.

The more that services are bundled, the more the customer relies upon Shaw support being there, because the totality of the services starts to affect a greater part of one's life. And phone, in particular, can be a service that has life safety implications.

So it seems that Shaw should either hire more staff, or put in place a more sophisticated prioritization scheme. Or both.

And yes, I understand about demand variability and peaking. And I know that such prioritization and management isn't easy. But Shaw is a big and very wealthy company. Perhaps the time has come for someone to loosen the purse strings and get interested in this subject.

Thanks again for your response.

[vjose78]

Just for the record, you don't even know who you talked to on the phone. It could have been someone pretty new at the office or someone who didn't know what to do in that type of situation or perhaps just someone trying to follow their guidelines in order to save their job.

Either way, you did have a cellphone, so it's not like you were completely cut off. And surely you could live without internet, tv, and annoying phone calls for a couple of days especially with this beautiful weather. And honestly, we've never had a house alarm and have never had a need for one. A couple of days without one wouldn't be a big deal either.

You also never mentioned what day you phoned? Was this just before the weekend? On Canada Day? It would be somewhat understandable if they couldn't get someone out there for the weekend.

[Camera.Ken]

Dear vjose78:

Please don't tell me what is important to me.

And please don't tell me how to live my life.

[VuMax]

I totally agree with Ken. It wasn't a "couple" of days. It was 4 days without TV, internet, alarm system or land line. That is not a minor problem or "no big deal". I make my living working at home using the internet. I would be livid.

Telling other people their problems are trivial because they wouldn't bother you as much is arrogant and condescending.

[Cockroach]

Shaw did this to my partner and I 3 years ago. Did something to our tenant's cable service and disconnected out internet service. They said they couldn't reconnect us for 10 days at the earliest (and it was totally their fault). Only had 8 days left of paid service so we happily moved to Telus who got use connected in 5 days.

[admin]

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