Dear Frontier,
I, like many others living in the 21st century, rely greatly on the internet. I use it for many purposes, using Facebook/Skype/Twitter/FaceTime to catch up with some friends who are several thousand miles away…or a little closer to where I call home, streaming Netflix or Hulu (on your piss poor 1Mb connection speed but I’ll save that for later), as well as keeping on top of emails for my job, band and personal stuff.
Last Thursday, our Internet randomly stopped working. I wasn’t surprised as we have had many outages in the past since Verizon dumbfoundedly transferred their Internet services in our area to you guys a year and a half or so ago. The outages prior had lasted from a few hours to almost 12 hours, so I hoped by Friday morning when I woke up it would be back to normal. Nope.
So I called customer service, the first of over 10 calls I’ve made in 5 days. I’ve had dealings with some companies who had awful customer service representatives. Congratulations, you’ve won the prize for worst customer service reps EVER. And for a company who prides itself on all jobs being in the US, that’s embarrassing.
The first time I called, the lady asked for an account number which I did not have because we do online billing and your service online sucks so bad we can’t log in to see what it was. And of course when I call back this other lady NEVER asked for anything of the sort. Your company is so inconsistent with protocol as well as clear signs of different rules given to each batch of new trainees for what to say to each customer. Not only was the second woman unaware that an outage had even occurred, she told me to hold the line and directed me to technical support without asking me if I wanted to be redirected. Tech support lady knew there was some sort of server upgrade done prior but ALL of my surrounding area had been fixed and ready to go. First lie, and another example of terrible intercommunication between your staff. We tried all different things to try and get it working, but to no avail. Defeated, I hung up the phone, depressed that I had such sucky Internet providers.
I went on Twitter, searched the words “Frontier Internet” and there were plenty of angry tweets from people within less than 10 miles from where I live saying how much your service sucks and that their Internet had been down since Wednesday. Guess I was a little luckier than them. So obviously the outage was NOT solved in Durham.
Saturday afternoon, and I call again. And again, different protocol in terms of what they ask to confirm your identity: classic case of poor colleague training. Everyone being taught different things makes your company look unprofessional and inconsistent. This was one thing that stuck out like a sore thumb during this whole ordeal.
Anyway, I call and the rep informs me that I had set an appointment the day before for a repairman to come. Unless I did so in my sleep, or I time travelled without realizing, I did not. But, whatever, a repair was due the next day, I was a little more content that it’d be back by the next day at the absolute latest. But wait. It gets better.
As I was on the phone, my wife noticed a Frontier van right outside our apartment. She spoke to the man and he said he couldn’t fix ours just yet as we weren’t “on his ticket” but would be here tomorrow. Ok. Why waste money on gas (an all important thing these days) as well as making the poor man come back right where he was a day prior? He could have fixed it there and then and I would haven’t been as pissed off as I am now. Guess that’s too simple for you guys.
So, Sunday came and the repairman came. He smelled so bad of body odor that we had to light candles and open our doors and windows after he left, his smell was that bad. Obviously that’s not your problem, but it’s a fine indication of your company. Even HE had problems talking to your reps and he works for you! One rep was totally unhelpful and told him something completely untrue from what was meant to be done, while the other rep told him how it was done and sorted out the problem for us. As it turned out, Frontier did not ever clear the remains from the Verizon data in our telephone line/modem, so during the upgrade Frontier did not recognize us anymore because they didn’t do their job properly. Again, another example of poor staff training and poor management.
Monday came, and I demanded a refund for the days that we did not receive Internet. The lady I spoke to, Kim, was (at the time) very friendly and understanding, although she also had a different protocol where I had to now be authorized as a joint account holder. Fine. She immediately took $10 off our bill without hesitation. Afterwards, I let her know my feelings on your service and how we were planning to switch to Time Warner Cable. She then offered to give us your full Internet speed in our area (which she said was 8MB) for $24.99 as opposed to $39.99 to convince us to stay. I thought that was a great deal, she was about to set it up but to her “embarrassment” (her words) her computer had just crashed so she said she’d call me back within the hour to set it all up. She never did.
Later that day, I called back. Again, different protocol from the rep asking me random security questions. I informed the gent that we were given an offer by the rep a few hours ago for 8MB for $24.99. He, as I predicted, had no idea about this, and said we already had a GREAT deal, 1Mb for $19.99. Ha! I let him know that it was really quite awful. Anyway, he said that Kim would call me back in 10 minutes. Guess what? She never did. That was the end of that offer. Or so I thought.
I was determined to get this deal so I wouldn’t have to deal with canceling one service and setting up another. I called the next morning, different questions again from the rep, and get this – I supposedly wasn’t an authorized co-holder on the account. Something I just had to go through the day before! So my wife had to give them permission AGAIN because of their incompetence. At this point it was getting beyond a joke.
So, I explain to the lady the situation so far, and she agrees that it’s been less than satisfactory. Then she delivers the nail in the coffin – all this time, I was lied to by Kim. The fastest we could get in our area with Frontier was only 1MB. Really?! So I was lied to and mislead. Great company tactics, ethics and customer treatment there Frontier. Kim’s computer probably “crashed” cause she knew she was up shit creek without a paddle.
Angrier than I had been before, I called Time Warner. The difference in customer service? Night and day. Friendly, simple, to the point. Not patronizing. It was actually quite a pleasant call. We were told in our area we could get up to 50MB. So, there.
And then, nearly 72 hours TO THE MINUTE later, our Internet went down again. I made 2 calls. Both contradicted each other. One said they were aware of the outage and the repairman from Sunday didn’t do the job properly outside “on the field” (if she meant an actual field there aren’t any fields in this apartment complex) and that a repair had been scheduled for tomorrow, and one said they hadn’t heard of any outages whatsoever, put me on hold and “asked others”, and they hadn’t either. Yet another fine example of poor intercommunication.
So to add to that, during that 72 hour outage, I went over my iPhone data plan limit and am now being charged $15 extra. Thanks!
This whole experience has been the worst I’ve ever encountered in dealing with a company. I’ve never experienced a company with so many different protocols and the level of professionalism is shocking to say the least. I’ve also never heard of an ISP being down for over 3 days solid unless it was due to a weather issue which is totally forgivable.
If you continue to keep treating customers this way and not sorting your problems out, you’re going to lose a LOT of customers FAST. You’re about to lose one in me very shortly.
Iain Watt
