Verizon DSL tech support summary: it's bad

| 1 Comment | No TrackBacks
I used to live in area serviced by Qwest.  I thought their tech support was bad, but I've come to appreciate them more, because their tech support people actually listen to what you're saying.  With Verizon, you might as well be reading off their communication script yourself because anything not on that script is either rebuffed or just flatly ignored.

Me: "I'd like to report a DSL outage."

Verizon: "OK, thank you for calling, I can help you with that.  What operating system is your computer?"

Me: "Um.. (Did she not hear me?)  Sorry, I would like to report a DSL outage."

Verizon: "OK yes sir, I can definitely help you with that.  What operating system is your computer?"

Me: "I'm sorry, there must be something wrong with your connection.  Can you hear me?"

Verizon: "Yes, I can hear you fine."

Me: "I would like to report a DSL outage.  Is this the repair department?"

Verizon: "Yes you've reach the Verizon DSL repair department.  I can certainly help you with your DSL outage problem.  Before we begin I need to know what operating system your computer is."

Me: "Macintosh."

Verizon: "OK, can you please hold?"

Four minutes later...

Verizon: "I'm sorry, I can't help you with Macintosh."

Me: "I don't think you heard what I said earlier.  My DSL is out.  It is not a configuration problem.  It was working fine until 7AM this morning.  I made no configuration changes.  Nothing changed.  It is not my computer.  The DSL is out.  I just need to report to someone that it is out, and then I will hang up."

Verizon: "Sorry, I can't help you if you have a Macintosh.  Please hold and I will forward you to another department."

Me: "PLEASE listen to what I'm saying.  The little DSL light on my DSL modem is OUT.  That means the problem is on your end.  It is not my computer.  Can you please file a repair ticket?"

Verizon: <type type type> "I'm sorry sir but no one else in your area has reported an outage."

Me: "Can I be the first?"

This went on for about 15 minutes.  Finally I caved, told her I had a PC and let her walk me through the typical reboot modem crap that I already of course tried several times.

After about 45 minutes she told me that the modem was the problem and that I would need to be sent a new modem.  At this point I had had enough and politely hung up.  She called right back, insisting it was the modem, and I got pretty angry with her for wasting my time.

It hurts to be right.  This morning I woke up and the DSL light was back on and it's all working fine again.  Nothing in the modem configuration ever changed...  I want that hour of my life back please.

No TrackBacks

TrackBack URL: http://www.robertwrose.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/7

1 Comment

Hi,
i am a tech associate of verizon HSI
My name is Keshav..
well!
I am sorry for that hour which you lost Mr. Rose and even god can not give that hour back..

The things which you fail to do is ,
1>You had reach to windows tech support, and if she has taken that information and she did not have you transferred the Mac dept she might have lost her job in the next minute
as a matter of fact i am also working in the windows tech support

**before explaining about the second thing let me just informed . that i am not aware of Mac at all

2> well in the second scenario when your call reached the second associate, (s)he might not found that you are part of a any outage as outages gets release near about every hour and they get updated in india after some more time once it is confirmed as well as you said that your internet got fixed at the second day...

3> there might be some sort of technical issue was getting solved and that must be from the same area as the maintainence guy was working there then he might have stop the stack of 10 - 20 customers of the same stack

4>This went on for about 15 minutes. Finally I caved, told her I had a PC and let her walk me through the typical reboot modem crap that I already of course tried several times.

>>> why this , what happens is first we take information about the customer's equipment and run an initial line test , then we ask the customer to powercycle the modem just to check that is modem alright or customer needs another modem , if everything goes right we follow the troubleshooting steps

why we ask to powercycle is because customers never turn their modem off because in america they dont have a special switches for it as i know they have only one switch for one room if i am not wrong
so in that case they can unplug power cable of the modem (or on/off switch of the modem) every time they turn their computer's off correct?

thats all!!
if you got any general issues you can download"Vz in home agent" and it will help you to solve the issue ,

and in general if you see that your dsl is blinking that means your modem is not synchronised with the Central office that time you need to contact the tech support

thank you for sharing a valuable experience rather a counter with dsl tech support

Leave a comment

Myself

Projects

Monthly Archives

Photos

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by gfm published on June 1, 2010 9:22 AM.

Vaccinating our children was the previous entry in this blog.

F9 001 success! is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.