Ready for the Challenge?
As such, getting what you want from AT&T’s customer support line can be quite a challenge. This issue is partly because the AT&T representative has a duty to follow a particular protocol that’s in the best interests of AT&T’s bottom line. But here’s something that most customers don’t realize: There are written and unwritten rules of engagement for the caller that play a significant role in determining satisfaction. Following these rules could mean the difference between getting stonewalled for your legitimate complaint or receiving a fat discount for your trouble. Recently, Reddit user TheBoomGuy hosted an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session revolving around his experience as an employee at Stream Global Services, one of the main contractors that handle AT&T’s call centers. In his AT&T customer support representative tell-all, he gave the Reddit community some insider insight into the way things work at AT&T. TheBoomGuy is based in the U.S. and is part of the Escalation Team. That means he’s the first person you talk to before you talk to a supervisor, but after you get through the first wave of customer support reps who can’t do much for you. The thread elicited over 600 questions/comments/responses and delved into significant issues as well as some minutiae. Some other former and current AT&T reps chimed in with their two cents, too. For your convenience, I’ve summarized the highlights below. Spoiler alert: You already know the main takeaway from this article: Treat the person on the other end of the line with respect, and in most cases, you’ll receive respect in return. But there are some ‘insider secrets’ that can fast-track you to a resolution, discount, credit, or at least increase your chances of success.
Lesson 1: Don’t Fail the “Attitude Test.”
Customer support reps deal with lots of angry, rude, and sometimes crazy people every day. And more than a few of these callers have a massive sense of entitlement. So, unsurprisingly, many have an informal system for gauging your attitude and rewarding or punishing you for it accordingly. As TheBoomGuy says, “If you’re an ass####’ you get nothing. If you are nice, you have a better chance.” He also says that he sometimes puts rude customers on hold on purpose. That’s probably so he or they can catch their breath and come back to the situation with a cool head.
“Can I Talk to Your Supervisor?”
Another big fallacy is that customers can resolve their problem by snubbing the lower-level guys and demanding to speak to a supervisor right away. The exact opposite is true. In this rep’s case, his supervisor sits in the next room to him—so when he has an obnoxious customer on the line, he’ll poke his head around the cubicle and give him a heads up: “Hey, this a$$hole wants to talk to you.” As you can imagine, this primes the supervisor’s willingness to go the extra mile to help you or not. Sometimes, a rep will put you on hold while they run something by their manager. Most of the time, they really are doing this. But if you tick them off, they may pretend to.
How to Talk to Supervisor
Also, note that going to the rep’s supervisor doesn’t get them in trouble. It happens all the time, and in most cases, it’s because the customer is stubborn. With all that being said, the supervisor will fulfill his or her professional obligation to field your request regardless of your attitude. But there are many situations where a protocol allows them to decide one way or another without getting in trouble. That’s why you want to get on their good side. You can believe what you want about customer service representatives, but for the most part, they do genuinely want to help you. It’s easier on the nerves and job security to have a positive experience rather than a crumby one. So don’t assume that they are on a power trip. Instead, try to work with the solutions they are offering you before you get salty. One last “fun fact”: If you escalate to a supervisor and then ask to talk to the supervisor’s supervisor, you’ll usually just be transferred to another supervisor rather than speaking to someone higher up.
Lesson 2: AT&T’s Got Your Number (Lifetime Value)
As someone who’s never worked in a customer support department, this concept fascinated me. AT&T, like many other companies, places a numerical value on each customer based on how lucrative their account is or will continue to be. When you are a brand new customer, you are assigned a customer number of 0. Keep paying your bill on time, buy a more expensive phone or plan and pick up some extra lines, and you can bump your number up to about 3. Level 5 is the highest and is reserved for large business accounts that spend thousands and thousands of dollars a year.
Customer Level
A higher customer level means a better chance of getting a discount, credit, a free phone, or an adjustment to your bill. But beware: if you call in with many complaints and successfully appeal for credits, your customer level will go down. And being a level 1 is worse than being a level 0 because it means you’ve been demoted for some reason. (In this case, the squeaky wheel gets the shaft.) In a way, your customer level is a little bit like your credit score. The length of your history with the company, your payment history, and the amount you pay all factor into how valuable you are as a customer and how hard they’ll try to keep you.
Note: This chart is an approximation for illustration purposes based on what TheBoomGuy said. Those aren’t official figures.
Lesson 3: Threatening to Switch to Verizon Doesn’t Always Work
For some reason, customers always think that a threat to switch to Verizon or T-Mobile, or Sprint is their magical ace in the hole—especially now that Verizon is getting the iPhone. But AT&T has an even bigger trump card (did I mix card-playing metaphors?) It’s called the Early Termination Fee, and they know that you loathe to pay it to break your contract. From the AT&T website:
Specified Equipment
The iPhone and most other smartphones fall into that “specified equipment” category. Unfortunately, that means that you’ll pay a minimum of $95 in ETFs, even if you cancel on the day before your contract expires. True, AT&T is aware that Verizon Wireless poses a threat to them—everyone knows that. But they’ve already thought of that, and their ETF is how they are protecting themselves from the threat of defection. Threatening to switch or coyly mentioning an attractive offer from Verizon might get you some traction, but it all comes back to your attitude and customer level/Lifetime Value.
Other Interesting Stuff
There were lots of other topics discussed in the thread, not all of which were actionable. Some more highlights:
Ever wonder how reps keep their cool, even when you’re acting like a total jerkaholic? It’s all about the magical MUTE button. As one Reddit user described it, the MUTE button is their “sword and shield.” They’ll hit MUTE and then vent—screaming profanity, calling you names, etc.—and then pop back on the line, voice sweet as honey. Think about that next time there’s a long pause in the conversation.Oh, also, on that note, if you are also prone to venting profanities when you’re on hold, know that the customer rep that you are on the line with can’t hear you, but the quality control person can listen to what you say when they playback the recording.On an even further tangent, the person at McDonald’s can still hear you after you place your drive-thru order. And if you leave your radio turned way up as you idle in front of the menu, it completely deafens them.
Be Aware of Service and Phones
Beware of phones sold from shady authorized retailers (i.e., mall kiosks.) Sometimes, these are liquidated phones with no warranties.If service sucks in your area, or you have a dropped call, call and complain. AT&T will take a look at your call and verify that it was dropped, check to see if other complaints have been made in your area, and then finally send out an engineer to survey your area. If they determine that your reception really does stink in your area, they’ll give you a free microcell.AT&T call centers are mostly in the Philippines, not India.A long time ago, The Consumerist published AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson’s contact information, including his email address and phone number. For a while, customers could get issues resolved lickety-split by bugging Stephenson. But now the jig is up, and repeated emails might get you a cease and desist letter.
Tethering and More
AT&T can’t tell if you’re tethering illicitly—say, with a Cydia app. They can, however, see that you’re using a considerable amount of data, and then they can flag your account. In addition, they have an entire department that investigates fraud and abuse. So watch out.AT&T can’t look at your texts and SMS content, though the recipients are shown on your bill. However, if they are subpoenaed, they may produce the content from your texts to a court of law.The OP of the Reddit thread recounted how a customer once called in, threatening to kill herself and blame him in her suicide note. His response?: “We would hate to lose you as a customer.”Trying to unlock your phone? Call AT&T and tell them that you’re traveling out of the country and plan on using a local SIM card, and they might give you an unlock code. Several customers testified to this working; however, others had less luck. So, again, your customer level plays a significant role.If you were grandfathered into an unlimited data plan, you’d lose it when you upgrade to a new phone/renew your contract.
Conclusion
Overall, it was a kind of interesting thread. Note, however, that (A) the identity of the poster was never verified, (B) that he was an employee of Stream, not AT&T, and of course, (C) his views do not reflect the official company stance and only speak to his personal experience. But his responses confirm and debunk some of the suspicions we’ve all already had about AT&T’s customer support protocols and practices. Nevertheless, if nothing else, it was a fun thread AND a fun groovyPost to write. Hopefully, you agree! Featured Image adapted from original by Katy Warner. Rep:”Have I resolved all your concerns?” Me: “No.” Rep (in a sassy tone): “yes I have; I answered all your questions. Thank you for calling AT&T. Goodbye.” click How about that?! And when companies starts gaming their provision of customer service by ranking it then everone suffers. Where I work, if yhou can’t resolve a customer issue within 15 minutes, you promptly tell them you’ll call them when a resolution is at hand or you tell them it cannot be fixed. Most folks understand if you are honest and knowledgeable. Just try to comment on third party website which gives an exposure to your complaint and try to help other customers by making them aware of these type of issues with the AT&T Customer Service. I was assigned a “Personal Implemention Specialist” who had an email with an auto responder saying he was out of the office and an extension that had a message saying that number was out of service. Bottom line….after over five hours on the phone with I think everyone who has ever worked for ATT on every continent in the world, my call has been dropped too many times to call (I’m on hold right now as I’m writing this with yet another person dedicated to my satisfaction). I’ve just been told that my business line (remember I’m a therapist…that means I have people who need to be able to reach me) is no longer in service. My number has been ported out and, of course, no one is taking ownership of the problem. What can I do???? My phone number is no longer active and it’s not my fault! Before I discuss my department, let me clear up the “ETF” – the contracted purchase price you got on your iPhone? The reason you got it is that AT&T paid Apple the bulk of the normal price of the phone, on the condition that you commit to two years of service, so that your payment of monthly recurring charges eventually reimburses AT&T for paying a LOT of the purchase price of your phone. If you decide to bail because Verizon wants to give you service $30.00 a month cheaper, AT&T just gave you a really cheap iPhone, which you now own and can probably sell for more than what you actually paid AT&T. If you don’t want an ETF, don’t get a contract – the monthly price for the service is the same, but you’re going to pay for the fact that you could simply move the phone to several other carriers to save yourself money. Granted, AT&T could probably better explain this to customers when they purchase phones at prices contingent on agreeing to a two-year service commitment, but to be fair, you also get 30 days to cancel the service after purchase. So if the thing works terribly because of dropped calls or whatever else you don’t like, you return the phone, and end up being billed a $36.00 activation fee. Now, in my department, the general rule is that a customer can be as rude as they want. Frankly, with the way the “automated system” routes customers who are trying to get help with their account (frequently, to the wrong department), they should be rude. If they’ve been transferred 4 times before they get to me, they should be rude. In fact, the only thing we are told we can threaten to terminate a call over is either foul language or threats. If somebody wants to yell for 5 minutes straight about how screwed up their account is, they can yell away. The split-second the customer’s account is accessed, the billing system notes the account with the AT&T email address (sans the @att.com) of the individual accessing the account. If somebody told you they have your account pulled up, and then they disconnect you for being pissed at what AT&T has screwed up (without cussing and swearing or threatening to blow up an AT&T store or whatever), the next time you talk to somebody, they can literally send a message right over to the previous agent. It is also company policy that, immediately upon account access, the name and callback number of the customer calling in must be taken. If the call is disconnected, for any reason, prior to resolution, the agent must close out from inbound calls (and potentially complete the next call that came through immediately when yours dropped), and then call you back. Failure to do so constitues what the company terms “customer mistreat”, and is grounds for immediate termination. Now, let me tell you how it actually goes: AT&T is actively converting call centers from pure customer service to customer service and SALES. Yes, that’s right, call center reps now work on commission, based on what products they sell to either existing customers calling in, or new customers calling in to establish service. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, there are agents in my call center – in a Midwest city with comparatively low cost of living to the rest of the nation – that are making 6 figure incomes. Now for the dirty part: If an agent hits exactly 100% of their sales targets in a given month, their pay is about 40% hourly, 50% commission, and then there is a flat $500.00 at stake for scoring maximum on customer survey. That $500.00? Miniscule portion of a commission check. Tiny. Furthermore, the survey system can be manipulated so that customers never actually receive a survey call (if the rep notes the call as a transfer to another department, even if no transfer occurred – yes it’s actually possible to do this – then the customer never gets a survey on that rep). So, a rep can basically crap on you, then flag the call as a “transfer”, and you get no survey. If a rep receives no survey responses in a month, then they are paid as if they made 100% of their survey score requirements. The ETF about cell phones I mentioned earlier? Yeah, it makes sense for cell phones because AT&T is basically floating you a loan for a lot of the purchase price of your phone. What is inexplicable is the fact that AT&T does the exact same thing for wireline services for small businesses, even when no equipment was purchased, and AT&T is using the same infrastructure it was using for the last person who occupied the office building/suite/whatever. A lot of businesses have multiple phone lines. The ETF for terminating a phone line under a 1-year contract (basically all small business products come with one year contracts), is $15.00 per line times the number of months left on a contract. Terminate 5 lines 6 months early, $375.00. But it doesn’t stop there. They put long distance plans on an entirely seperate contract. The early termination fee is half the monthly price of the plan, times the number of months remaining. So if your 5 lines had unlimited long distance on all 5, you may have gotten an introductory rate of $10.00 per line. $25.00 ETF times 6 months remaining means an additional $150.00 long distance ETF tacked onto the $375.00 ETF already billed for the local calling plan. DSL internet also has an early termination fee for business service, U-verse internet does not. Now, keep in mind that small business customers are a TINY TINY FRACTION of AT&T’s subscriber base. It is largely residential users. But let me tell you some of the things AT&T does to these people:
- That local calling plan I told you about that comes with a one year contract? Here’s what the customer doesn’t usually get told: When you order that service, AT&T sales/service reps have the ability to set the contract to auto-renew (literally, place you under a new 1-year commitment) up to two times. Since I listen to people sitting right next to me every day sell this stuff, I can tell you, they don’t even ask the customer if auto-renew is desired. Instead, they just pick “Y” (for yes) in that field, the customer knows nothing about it, and if they don’t open the contract expiration alert mail that is sent to the billing address on the account, in a seperate mail from the bill, and in the same envelopes as all the mailed advertisement existing customers get every month – if customer says to themselves “I already paid my phonebill” and has spent 10 months getting a bill and then 2-3 pieces of advertising mail – they assume it’s advertising and trash it. Then, maybe 14 months after they initially established service, they say “One year contract is up” and go to another carrier. Since going to another carrier and keeping your phone numbers automatically disconnects service with the previous carrier, the customer’s first time being informed of the auto-renew is when they get a final bill from AT&T with 10 months worth of early termination fees. Why not simply stuff the contract renwal notice with the bill, and actually make it the first page of the entire bill, in huge letters? Because, when customers refuse to pay the ETF, AT&T proceeds to start making collections calls, and if that doesn’t work, they turn it over to collections and report either the customer’s SSN (for sole-proprietors) or Federal Tax I.D. number (for corporations) to the credit bureaus! Now, on to the next problem:
- The environment in AT&T Small Business call centers for my regions has become one where, before anything else, sales numbers are the most important thing. If it’s taking me 20 minutes to resolve a customer’s issue so they can get off the phone, that’s really too long. AT&T tracks the average call handle time of all their customer service reps, but it is not even a component of our annual performance review. If I spend an hour on the phone with every customer, but meet my sales targets, AT&T is totally indifferent to the fact that most customer service issues should probably be addressed in 5-8 minutes. Additionally, the hiring standards in these call centers is “high school diploma, previous call center experience a plus”. The reason for this is that ALL of the California call centers are being shut down, because they have an average right now of 60% of employees calling in sick EVERY DAY (that 60% number was shot out on a conference call with management the other day). They cannot fire them because of California labor laws and absurd CWA (union) demands, so they are simply closing those call centers, because they don’t have enough people showing up for work to handle the California accounts. The flip-side of that is that they are hiring about anybody who asks, touts their up-sells of candy bars at the register at Walgreen’s as “sales experience”, and knows how to use a computer. The result has been that service representatives (the ones that work on commission), are using increasingly fraudulent sales practices to falsify their sales records and increase their commission. I’ll give you a very brief example: Customer calls and asks for a single business line, long distance service, and broadband. Price of that service on one year contract is $75.00 per month prior to taxes and surcharges. However, here’s the catch: Company directive is that sales reps that aren’t also selling AT&T Webhosting services, as well as AT&T technical support services for customer computers – they are going to be subject to discipline. Same situation if the reps aren’t selling cell phones. Keep in mind that the commissioned sales position in my department is something like 3 years old. Prior to that, it was pure customer service reps who got their hourly rate that was largely based on how long they had been with the company. So, in my office alone (I work in the biggest small business call center for the AT&T region I service, about 200 customer service/sales reps), select reps have started telling the customer that the service they are requesting is $89.00 a month, and includes technical support for their DSL/U-verse internet connection. A lot of customers buy it. What the customer doesn’t realize is that the actual price of the local phone service, long distance, and broadband is $75.00. The reason the customer was told $89.00 is that the sales rep added Technical Support services to the order that cost $14.00 a month, didn’t tell the customer, and the rep just made a substantial bump to their commission check. The “tech support for your internet service” part is where the rep misled the customer: Technical support on broadband is 100% free with the broadband service. Repair of inside wire isn’t free, but actual technical support and troubleshooting on issues outside the building is totally free. That’s one example. There are a BUNCH of problems in the AT&T Small Business department right now. When approached about this, managers state the N.O.T. team will catch these people and they’ll be fired. The problem with the N.O.T. team is that it’s in INDIA. Unless the individual in India is dyno-supreme at English, they may not have even caught the manipulation of verbiage by the salesrep in regards to the technical support;. This situation started appearing more extreme, when I began seeing indications that managers (sales reps are divided into teams of 12, under a manager who also gets paid on commission based on the sales performance of their reps) were actively instructing their reps to do this. So, my point is that if you think AT&T mobility customer service is terrible, you haven’t even seen the surface of things. not going to try to be the grand-champion of the premise of mobility early termination fees, but I will tell you that if early termination fees didn’t exist, and carriers kept paying a huge chunk of the retail price of smartphones, then Verizon and AT&T could effectively start taking huge shots at the bottom line of the competition by running a promo like this: “Just recently bought an iPhone from Verizon? Switch to AT&T within 10 days of purchase, and we’ll provide service for 20% less a month than your Verizon service!” If it’s an iPhone 5, and the customer got a $400.00 discount off the normal retail price when purchasing, and then cancels 5 days in, Verizon just forfeited about $400.00. The reason they ask for term commitments is so that, if AT&T attempts something like I just mentioned, then Verizon has a way to recover the costs via the ETF they bill. I am still waiting, not holding my breathe for the “Supervisor” to me in touch with me cause I am in my gestation time of 5- 10 days I was told. Is this great customer service, NOT, I wouldn’t treat my customers like this. Diane Discover Automotive I am glad that you try to run an honest organization. And I do appreciate that governments create situations that make it difficult to do business. I see it all the time. But AT&T is nevertheless responsible to delver what people pay for, and it is not cheap. No other company gets away with charging people for services not rendered, and the reason–be it the government regulations or bad weather–does not get the a free pass? If AT&T is incapable of doing business, delivering the service as sold, and providing the necessary customer support to do so, the should get out of the business…they are committing fraud. That’s how it works for the realtor us. Thus when AT&T offers a contract to delver a service that is consistently not delivered, AT&T has already breached the contract. It is fair to have the free phone retune, but not fair to charge customers when the reason for the broken contract is AT&Ts failure the first place. I think the public outcry will eventually get loud enough that not even their powerful size will stop a federal investigation. It’s long overdue. Absolutely abysmal customer service, which I suspect is deliberate to frustrate the customer into going away with their problem or request. I think the legal term for this is “Bait and Switch”. and they get by with it. Most times when you reach out you get a first level support person and you don’t get treated with any kind of respect. More often than not the “agent” doesn’t understand what you are trying to get resolved. Of course the supervisor is just the person in the next cubicle over and as unable to help as the first person but you have to play that game. If, when calling a customer support person you knew they had the ability to help then of course it would be to your benefit to be respectful and polite. By the way, if true, the “value” score is ridiculous and is the opposite of respectful. I want to file a complaint against a live chat guy. I asked nicely saying I had to to my bill, can I have the URL to do that. it was a long pause so I said im in a hurry please send it to me. he then decided to play dumb and keep sending me snail mail, TV service, everything I did NOT ask for. this went on 6 times before I told him he was rude. he flat out refused to send me the url. I pay a lot of money I should get decent service and when they act like children they should be fired. The main reason, why an agent lies to customer is because he has been instructed by his supervisors to do the same. Now, why these supervisors ask agents to lie? Each team has targets to achieve. Surveys place a very important role. To avoid D-sat(dissatisfied-0) survey, agents lie. We have been given strict instructions from the supervisor to proactively transfer the chat to supervisor id and log out from our system and take the same chat from supervisor id. If you think that your issue will get resolved by transferring it to supervisor, then you are wrong. Surveys for the chats that has been taken from supervisor’s Id will not count. Results: The same agent will act as supervisor and will be rude to customers and ask him to call 1800- number and ask him to cancel the services. Why the agents ask customer to call 1800 number? Because when an agent take chat from supervisor Id he has to logout from his own system and that will effect his login hours. And the supervisors won’t entertain to elongate the chats because the next agent might be waiting to transfer the chat I really don’t think at&t has any idea about these unethical and dirty tricks by the outsourced contact centre’s from India. We have been given, strict instructions by our supervisor to proactively transfer the chats to supervisor ID, and logout from our system and take the same chat from supervisor’s system if realize the customer is upset or angry. Because the survey from supervisor system doesn’t count. Surveys place a very important role for these contact centre’s. To avoid (Dissatisfied-0)surveys, this is one of the dirty unethical tricks played by one of at&t’s contact centre in India. At&t spends millions of dollars on these outsourced contact centre’s and I’m 100% sure that at&t will not entertain these dishonest business. Agents has very less to do with these unethical business practices, because we have been instructed by our managers to do the same. For example. After placing a new order we are suppose to provide with all the information to customers like promotion expiry date, ETF and actual price after the promotion expiry date. Managers won’t entertain us to give off these disclosure because, they do not want to lose a sale because of these correct information. They just want to meet the fail sales target. They don’t even care if the customer cancels the order very next day. Most of the cases customers will cancel,since they receive an email confirmation regarding the ETF and other one-time charges. But these greedy managers don’t care a hoot about customers. All they want is to achieve their fail target. It’s high time at&t, should audit the chats from their end take action against these contact centre managers. This again is part of the dirty tricks to avoid (dissatisfied-0) survey. For example. If customer’s payment due date is passed, then he needs to make the payment immediately for past due amount in the current bill to avoid uninterrupted services. If a customer initiate a chat to make payment arrangement for past due amount, we are suppose to educate the customer about the above mentioned fact. But the supervisors won’t allow us to do so, because customer will be unhappy and give us a negative survey. In order to avoid this we have to make payment arrangement to customers and it’s a fact that we will get a positive survey on that particular chat, but customers services will get disconnected within 1 or 2 days. I don’t know where is the customer service part? These supervisors are going blind for achieving the incentives. I should suggest at&t to fire all these greedy hypocrites and clean up their customer care service. IF you are customer support and I tell you I ahve been using and troubleshooting the internet since 1992 and your guess is wildly off and you say you’re 39 and have been doing so since a later year…and I come out and say I’m presently 30. Sit your ass down and respect your elders, ATT salesman. I don’t need your business. Below is correspondence between myself and Pam Rodgers – I never heard back from Pam ####..not a word even though she knows I was in the right. She never closed my account like I asked either. I have spent so many many hours on a problem AT&T created & I’m not calling customer service because I already tried that route and they are incompetent. lazy, or dishonest- pick one. And it’s pretty hard to feel like being a sweety in your corresspondence when you have wasted over 20 hours of your life on something that should have been so so simple. SK
Sharon K Can you please look at your bank statement on 05/21/15, This is where I see a returned payment. I have also sent you a screen print. Pam #### Social Media Manager myAT&T Social Media Team Monday to Friday 430pm to 1:00am CST Check out our support center: http://support.att.com/
SK@#### May 27 to ATT Ms. ####, There is no debit card transaction or activity at all for the date 05/21/15. I could not see your screen print because I don’t have Microsoft word on this laptop. There is no activity for that day at all . On 05/18/15 however, my bank did reimburse me with 2 $50.00 refunds for the money I lost with At&T. Those refunds you see are not from AT&T to my bank account, that is why AT&T is not listed as being the one doing the refunding. The refunds you saw were from my bank to me, not AT&T to me. You can ask my bank as they are well aware of the date and time they refunded my money. That is why I told you earlier AT&T no longer owes me any money- they owe my bank money. I really do not understand the confusion. Why is it being made so complicated? I just want the bills to stop for service I never received. As I said my bank reimbursed the 2 deposits At&T took from me and never returned. Below is a cut and paste of MY BANK REFUNDING THE MONEY on 05/18/2015. As you can see it was definitely not a refund from AT&T. 05/18/2015 Misc. Credit CREDIT DUE TO DEBIT CARD DISPUTE $50.00 05/18/2015 Misc. Credit CREDIT DUE TO DEBIT CARD DISPUTE $50.00 Sincerely, Sharon K ********************************************************************************************************* SK@### May 28 to ATT Ms ####, #1. When a telephone technician comes to a customers home to climb a pole and install a phone box and a phone line that runs from the box to the home for a land line he has the customer sign a form when he has completed his work. This is something all repairmen/ technicians from companies do. They get a signature from the customer stating that the work was completed and that it’s up and running. Since no one came to my property to install a phone box and a land line – your company cannot produce any paperwork proving any such service was installed because it wasn’t. I was billed anyway. I was billed even after explaining no one came and that nothing had been installed. I can however produce witnesses who are willing to testify that no phone box or telephone line or phone jacks are in place at my home. That home is being remodeled. There are workmen there every single day. They are working on that house inside and out and also know no phone man came and nothing was installed. So, what it boils down to is I can prove my case and your company cannot. #2. I can and did prove to my bank that two deposits for fifty dollars were taken from my bank account by At&T for service that was never delivered or received. Your company cannot prove that any money was returned to me by your company, because NONE WAS. My bank can see that when they look over my account- which they did. #3. Your company is already aware that I was billed for services never received and that my entire orders were bungled and mismanaged. Instead of trying to rectify the situation , more stalling and bungling is going on. It’s a very very simple case. I am astounded and amazed that it is being made so complicated on your company’s end. You are now telling me you have access to see my bank activity. You should be able to see that your company never did return my deposits , but alas the saga continues. 4. My account was never closed when I canceled it even though I was assured it would be. 5. Ms. #### you are receiving a paycheck for the time you are spending talking to me. I on the other hand am not receiving anything but lost wasted time with your company. I had to take two days off twice to wait for a telephone man to come to my home. No one came. That was 2 days of work for me LOST. I had to spend countless hours on the telephone trying to rectify the problem while no one cared and I was transferred from one person to another and then after holding the line and so many transfers having my calls dumped and expected to start all over again. Which I did. Hours and hours lost over a stupid little service I never even received. I was not paid for this lost time as your company employees are being paid to give me the run around. 6. Where is YOUR COMPANY BANK RECORDS showing that I was paid my deposits back? LOL There are none. And there is no record of your company giving my deposits back in my band account records either. END OF STORY….PERIOD. Nothing complicated about it at all. I can’t prove my case & your company cannot. I can remember when AT& T was a good company with quality customer service. Sadly, those days are gone. I will NEVER be an AT&T customer again. This is such a shoddy way to treat customers. REALLY. I believe I’ve wasted enough time. Sincerely, Sharon K After experiencing this for 6 months, I decided to close the account. I called and spoke with a rep that closed the account for me. I paid the account off at that time. Then, couple months later, I found out that the account was never closed, and billing was accumulating even when I get a confirmation number that the account was closed. I called again, another customer service rep promised me to close the account and bring it to “0” balance. 4 months later, I received a later from a collection agency hired by AT&T to collect on the account that is closed and paid off. Their customer service reps don’t document phone calls; they are not coordinated; they don’t speak the same language; they are not on the same page with information provided to customers. It is a big mess to deal with these people. One thing that I noticed their services may be superior to their competitors; but, you don’t have enough time and patient to deal with their customer service reps. They are sucks!!! IS THERE A NUMBER WHERE I CAN CALL AND SPEAK TO THESE CIRCUS MONKEY’S MANAGER/S?? THEY HOTTA HAVE SOMEONE ABOVE THEM ,SOMEONE THAT CARES IF THESE IDIOTS DONT DO THEIR JOB RIGHT,RIGHT?SOMEONE MUST BE INTERESTED IN THE POSSIBILITY THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE HIRED AND ARE CURRENTLY PAYING A COMPLETE MORON WHO IS DOING NOTHING BUT DRIVING HIS\THEIR COSTUMERS AWAY.RIGHT? IF SO ……. CAN I PLEASE HAVE IT???????? File a BBB Complaint, as well. While the BBB is a scam, they do make it hard for businesses to explain-away bad behavior. Re: Why is customer service at ATT so bad?? I have been with ATT prior to them being ATT… It is now 12/17/17 & Customer Service is ATROCIOUS to say the least. I was on the phone with ANN for approx. 47 minutes today to obtain no answer to a simple submission as I could not go any farther back in my call history than 12/05/17 & needed specific dates & times for a specific phone number from 11/01/17 to 12/04/17…you would not think this was a hard question to respond to…well not the case here. I then went to the CHATS, TWO as a matter of fact, one with Diane who disconnected me (lost connection) & one with Judy who disconnected me (lost connection). In Judy’s CHAT conversation I requested an emailed transcript, which I am only presuming is the reason both calls “lost connection” & not on my end. Neither Diane or Judy appeared to read the submission sent to them with my name & phone number as well as what information I was requesting, so from 8:38 a.m. to 9:25 a.m. (when I finally disconnected from phone call) with Ann up until approx. 10:33 a.m. with Diane & Judy, ALMOST 2 HOURS, not one could provide me with the aforementioned information. THREE STRIKES & ATT IS OUT!!! …and all in one day, this must be a record but not one to be proud of, oh, & cathy2981, please be sure to find the other posts on this site to address the content on! Gee…I wonder if ATT is taking a page our of Disney’s playbook as Disney laid off 850 American workers with some given 90 days to train their replacements along with the threat of losing severance pay if they left before the end. This appears to be from an/around 2014 due to H-1B Visas, which is long overdue for an overhaul due to abuse. It certainly appears that this could be the problem with ATT in some way, shape or form…in my opinion. I guess now that I have been on the phone with the company some three dozen times over the last year. my number has been reduced from 3 to 0, because all I get now is hangups, and attitude, even during chats I am passed around from department to department. And I am always described as too kind and respectful. There is one escalation rep. Jay, man this guy is an angel. He does his due diligence before he even takes to the conversation by researching the account for notes so you don’t have to keep repeating yourself, He listens to you, without cutting you off, and does his best to resolve the customer concerns. So I can’t write the company off by generalizing the customer service reps by the actions of a few, If you can find the time to keep calling, or chatting your bound to find those that take customer service serious. And like one of rep stated above, I am sure they get some over the top customers that are just mean spirited which I have worked with, but I understand that many customers like myself feel victimized. Being charged for services you cannot use can be a real problem. 2. listen to the sales pitch. The person your talking to isn’t customer service, they are sales agents. They will try to sell you new service. Normally this will save you money. 3.Asking for a manager is the last thing you wan to do.. The managers have even more on their plates than the agents. Managers will do what they can but really they can only afford to spend 5 minutes helping you before they are being pulled in another direction. 99% of the time the agent has to be the one that fixes your account anyways. I know many managers that can’t even place an order. 4. Dont drag the call out. AT&T only wants agents to speak with you for about 20 min. After that, if your not buying something they need to get you off their line. Also, sent refuse to get off the line. it will not help you in any way. many times that is when the agents just stop trying. 5.The first time you call get the ATT UID of the agent your speaking with. All agents have them and must provide them if asked. if they refuse then ask for a manager. ( side note 80% of the time if you put @att.com after the ATT UID its the persons email account) If that agent is the one that caused the issue AT&T makes their office fix it. So if you keep their ID number then you will alway be able to get back to them.. 6. If they tell you they can’t help you, its true. If an agent is trying to transfer you or get you to the right person that is 100% what needs done. Training is horrible… Agents and managers have no idea how to fix things. BUT! They have a good idea who mite be able to. SO, let them transfer you. ( This is why you need to keep the ATT UID) 7. Nothing is going to happen today. Everything is a process. it takes time to make any change. 8. when speaking to a supervisor. Sometimes you will want to go above a supervisor and many times you can’t. Every office is a little different but at some point your at the top and they have no one else they can transfer your call to. at that point you are at a dead end. let them do what they can. i promise at this point they want to remove it as much as you do.. That way you will just shut up. 9.complaining gets you everything and nothing. If you escalate it will force departments to take action. HOWEVER. They now hate you, and really no one cares if your happy. there are some tips. Im sure a lot of people will hate them. but, oh well. I guess if you buy enough legislators . . . which they certainly do . . . this is not a problem. This country and this company are becoming more corrupt with every passing day. Criminals and law-breakers, should be jailed and publicly flogged. I have had AT&T cellphone for 15 years, U-Verse for 10 – that will be changing very soon. Of course people are angry! By the time they FINALLY get through to a human being they’ve already been run through hours of runarounds, goose chases, impossible websites, overcharges, and general AT&T incompetence. Then he has the audacity to say they’re not going to help customers unless the customers are pleasant enough to them! If anyone should have to be nice, it’s the employees, who better finally wake up and figure out that their jobs depend on keeping paying customers satisfied! AT&T has had horrendous customer service as far back as I can remember. They were THE worst and rudest people in the world back when they had a monopoly, and now they still act like they have a monopoly. It’s no wonder so many people have canceled their land line phones!
