Quick Customer Editorial - AT&T Uverse

[rageeumr]

OK, so I fibbed a little bit. I'm not technically a "customer", but I almost was. 95% of you won't care about this, but I wanted to put it out there for anyone who might be considering this service.

I had kicked around getting the Uverse TV service after I got some fliers in the mail. It seemed to be a better value than cable... more HD content, etc. for about the same price I'm paying now. I hesitated, however, after reading some reviews that talked about reliability (blue screen) issues and slightly degraded HD quality. I decided to hold off for a while.

Early last week AT&T had a door-to-door guy in my neighborhood. I usually hate talking to those guys, but since I was considering the service I didn't mind, and he was a good guy. I ended up signing up for their 30-day free trial, I figured I would keep Comcast and compare them side-by-side. I signed up for a 12-2 time slot for today, thinking I'd come home over lunch and let the installer in.

Later last week I realized that my wife would be off work this morning and I called to change my installation appointment to earlier in the day (8-10 AM) so that I wouldn't have to leave work. I was EXTREMELY dissatisfied with the customer service on that call. I was transferred 4 times before I got to speak with someone who could help me. I was also on the phone for 35 minutes before anyone could help me. All this just to change an install time. I told the lady that enough was enough, and that I wanted to cancel my service. I was sent back to sales to do so.

The sales guy then offers me free movie channels for a year if I stick with it. I told him I didn't want to be transferred again, and he told me that he could change my appointment for me (which is odd, since someone in their department was the second of the four people I had talked to that day). I told him to go ahead and do it, against my better judgement. I really wanted to try the service out.

Over the weekend my wife gets an automated call reminding us about our 12pm-2pm install time for today. So I call yesterday to be sure that they have the right time. Oh, yes sir, it's right here, 8-10 AM. At 11 AM I call my wife to see how the install is going. You can see where this is going.... no installer. I call AT&T and the lady informs me that she can't understand why I am upset about not having an installer since he's not supposed to be there for another hour. So I did what I should have done the first time, cancelled.

Seriously, if this is how they respond to their PROSPECTIVE customers, I can't even imagine how they treat you once they have you. Comcast has given me a headache from time to time, but nothing like this.

It's upsetting because I really wanted to see what they have to offer, but I'm not going to subject myself to that type of horrendous customer service. Just a heads up to any of you who might be thinking about it.

[keg in kc]

I had an at&t hard line up until about 2 months ago. I call them to cancel. First guy to answer the phone gets my info and then says "oh, you want to cancel, I have to send you to the cancellation people". So I get transferred to a woman, who takes all my information, and then says "oh wait, you're a Uverse customer (I'm not...), I have to transfer you." Before I can get "what?" out of my mouth, I'm transferred....back to the first guy I talked to. He starts to ask questions, hears the word "cancel" and starts to transfer me. Before he does, I say, "hey, hold on, man. you just talked to me like 5 minutes ago, the lady you transferred me to said something about Uverse, and I don't even know what that is, then she transferred me to you". So he then proceeds to a lenghty sales pitch about Uverse. I say "sounds nice, can I cancel my phone now?"

He cancels my phone. It takes 15 seconds.

So the guy that answered my call, and transferred me to someone else, who transferred me back to him, could've cancelled my fucking service in 15 seconds the first goddamn time...

Needless to say, not a big fan of AT&T customer service, either.

[ChiefsfaninPA]

I hear if you call them a couple hundred times a month they will cancel your account for you.


Oh wait, thats Sprint.

[Rain Man]

I've cracked the code, and to save time I now just proactively hate any company that has more than 200 employees.

[Monty]

I had a guy stop by the house last week as well. He asked me if I was aware of their service(I was). He asked me if I'd like to get it and I told him that if they carried the NFL Ticket, I'd be happy to switch over and take advantage of their bundled package(HD, VOIP, etc.). He said that they didn't carry it, but wanted to know which team I rooted for. I told him that I followed the Chiefs and he said "So do I!!" I then asked him what he thought about Croyle and after he stammered for a bit as it was obvious that he didn't have a clue about who I was talking about, I just shut the door on him.

[Spott]

I look forward to some AT&T door to door salesman coming to my house. I will give him twice the beating that I usally give to those Jehovah bastards who knock on my door.

[kc rush]

I've had UVerse for a couple of months now and have been pleased overall.

I had to call customer service once since they hadn't switched off billing for DSL (since internet service is part of UVerse). It took a little while, but everyone was pleasant.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

...
He cancels my phone. It takes 15 seconds.

So the guy that answered my call, and transferred me to someone else, who transferred me back to him, could've cancelled my fucking service in 15 seconds the first goddamn time...

Needless to say, not a big fan of AT&T customer service, either.

Just about every service company has those customer retention people that they put on you if you want to cancel. It's not AT&T.