I’m writing this to explain the situation, vent a little, make it publicly known, and to pass along to AT&T Customer Care in hopes they might actually fix their broken process in hopes other people won’t have their time and life similarly wasted.

Last Wednesday our home phone line went dead. No dial tone. Can’t make nor receive calls. I filed a trouble report on the AT&T website. I received confirmation saying the repair would be fixed by Friday 7:00 PM.

I later checked the status report to see if there was any update. It said “testing the line” and now the repair estimate was bumped to Saturday at 7:00 PM. *sigh*

Because of locked fences and our dog, I put on the original report “dog, locked fence, call first” (they don’t give you much room to enter notes). I did give them my mobile phone number to call. Saturday came and went and no call came through. There was one call that caller ID said was “BLOCKED” which maybe was them, but I wasn’t going to answer such a call. I was out on Saturday visiting relatives and what could I do? When we got home there was a tag on the door saying AT&T was there but nothing was written nor any boxes checked as to what happened or why things didn’t happen. Just a “AT&T wuz here” sort of notice.

And of course, the phone line was still dead.

I logged in to the AT&T website to check. It said that they needed access to the property thus they’d have to come back. Fine. I tried to reschedule it on the website, but the website kept failing with 404 errors and I couldn’t “continue” with the process. So I tried calling. Sat on hold for about 20 minutes before I hung up because I had other things to tend to; I planned on calling back later. Then around 7:00 PM I receive an automated phone call on my mobile from AT&T saying they tried to come, couldn’t come, and that I was automatically rescheduled with a PRIORITY appointment for Monday between 8 AM and 5 PM. My feeling there was “priority”? between 8 and 5? That doesn’t feel very “priority” to me. But whatever. Their automated system said the appointment was rescheduled so I left it alone.

And so today, Monday, I sat around all day waiting for them. Wife had to reschedule a dental appointment to accomodate this. We both had to shuffle and deal with various inconveniences so someone could be here waiting for the repairman. The hours ticked by, nothing. 5:00 PM rolls around and nothing. Figures.

I try the website again. Still same problems.

I call AT&T’s repair center. I wait 15 minutes to finally get to talk with someone and the moment they pick up the line disconnects and I have to start all over.

I know it’s not obvious from my writing, but at this point I’m pretty pissed off.

I call back, go through the plethora of menus, and sit around again. Again am told “2 minutes to talk to someone” and at least 5 tick by before I get someone. While waiting, I wondered if Twitter might be of help and so I tried tweeting to @ATTCustomerCare (and that’s why I’m writing this, to facilitate explaining things). Yes that lady was polite and nice, I don’t have a beef with her, and in fact she was very understanding that I was upset about the runaround and bullshit. Apparently tho there’s a problem with the system. For you see, it seems that because there was “dog” in the equation no, in fact I was NOT automatically rescheduled — I had to call to schedule it. Something in the system broke down. No indication that I had to manually reschedule the appointment, not by the hang tag, not by the automated call (which in fact informed me incorrectly and was the seed behind the wasted day), not the website, not anything.

So AT&T, you’ve got a problem with your system. You need to fix it. If in fact someone must manually reschedule, you need your system to manage that for them. Heck, if your automated system can automatically call them to notify them, how about having the automated system — if they get a live customer on the phone — go ahead and automatically connect them to a customer service person to get the appointment rescheduled. In fact, actually make them a priority in the phone queue (there’s that “priority” word).

If “customer service” is about serving the customer, then well… you ought to do so. By all accounts here, you’ve failed.

I know. FirstWorldProblems. I know there’s more important things in the world and this doesn’t amount to a hill of beans in the scheme of the grander cosmos. But I’m human, get irritated, and need to vent like everyone else now and again.

BTW, as I’m finishing writing this, @ATTCustomerCare just replied to me on Twitter. Let’s see what happens.