Robert Stinnett

You know, few companies are doing well nowadays.  The economy is really dragging everyone down.  You’d think, given the dire circumstances, that companies would be doing all they can to make sure customers are happy and not thinking about going to a competitor.  Unfortunately, there are a few companies out there who have no competitors – companies like the phone company, cable company, electric company, etc.  It’s these businesses who seem to think that customer service is an afterthought and a good deal of them have the attitude of, “If you don’t like it, where are you going to go?”  And so begins my tale of AT&T…

I got home from work the other night and found the phone bill waiting in our mailbox.  We’ve been examining every expense lately and making sure that we are getting the best value for our dollars.  This is not the time (nor is it the time no matter what the economic conditions) to be wasting money.  I found that we were paying for something called the “Essentials Plan” that provides Caller ID, Call Waiting, Three-Way Calling to the tune of $20.82 per month.  I also found out we still had Call Waiting Caller ID to the tune of $1.43 per month.

Now there was a time when we had a use for these services – but nowadays we use our home phone for the occasional fax and less than 10 minutes of outbound calling a month.  Cell phones have all but replaced the need for all these fancy services.  So I decided it was time to call and change our plan – to put the $22 and change back in our pocket every month instead of handing it over to AT&T for something we don’t use.

It was around 6:30PM on Friday evening when I called and I got thrown into the “hurry up and wait queue”.  You know the one I am talking about – the one where your call is so very important, but we only have one person working because we don’t want to pay for anyone else.  That queue.

While waiting they told me to go online and I could change my plan easily – so as I sat on hold I fired up my web browser and went to AT&T and logged into my account.  Sure enough, I could make changes to my account – at least part of them.  Well, that is I thought I could until I hit the submit button and was told “Oh, too bad, you have to call and talk to someone to make these changes”.  Uh-huh – how is it when you want to DELETE things you have to call in, but you can ADD things all day long?

So I continued to wait… and wait.  Then the clock struck 7:00PM.  Almost instantly a recorded voice came on telling me that they were sorry, but I was calling outside of normal business hours (they didn’t bother to tell me what those hours were) and then hung up on me.  I was furious.

What other company makes you wait and then hangs up on you?  It’s like going to a grocery store and being in line at 9:00PM when they close and them just turning the lights out on you and locking the doors.  I wasted 30+ minutes of my time and for what?

This is lousy, awful customer service that AT&T should be ashamed about – but why do they have to worry?  It’s not like there is a competitor I can go to for my local phone service.  If there was I would guarantee you that I wouldn’t have been hung up on after waiting in line for 30 minutes.

So come Monday I’ll try again – and perhaps, while I’m sitting here fuming over it, I might just decide to drop my home phone service once and for all.