Gadgets – Page 8 – Dishers.com

July 9, 2008

Customer Service Lessons for TimeWarner

I’m pretty much ready to be done with TimeWarner/RoadRunner. It’s not as much about the service, although my RoadRunner, which used to be outstanding has been pretty flakey over the last year. I’m on my 3rd failed modem in that time frame.

This last episode was driven by the electrical storm that apparently nuked our DVR, 42” Plasma TV and apparently my Cable Modem.

The Internet is a necessity these day. I keep a permanent VPN tunnel to work using special hardware to do that. I need to be connected. Can I be down a day? Sure, but not 7-8 days.

Last nights tech support call was atrocious, so we made the trip to their retail store on our dime to pick up a new modem. They new that, they did the exchange. It should be plug and play when we get home. In fact there are only 3 connections. Power, Cable, and one Ethernet to our router…

Of course it didn’t work, so I called tech support again.

The lady I spoke with initially, looked up the MAC address and said point blank, oh, it’s not provisioned. Let me transfer you.

After 10 minutes on hold being transferred I get a woman who said “Honey, I don’t know what your problem is, your modem is provisioned. What do the light say?”

Uhm, they are all green but I can’t get an IP, and when I do I can’t go anywhere.

“Well then you need a service call, the earliest I can give you is… Oh, you already have someone coming on the 15th. They’ll fix it then.”

I said well can you just have them pick this stuff up when they come?

Nope, we’ll bill you until you bring the modem into a service center and drop it off. What?!?!?! I just picked it up…

This infuriated me.

So while I’m on the Internet trying to figure out how to order Zoomtown from Cincy Bell, (the only other company I hate more that TW… just started looking a lot better), my wife calls and was able to move the date up to the 12th.

After more troubleshooting, I could now all of a sudden get an IP every time. But I still couldn’t go anywhere. This to me isn’t something a tech is needed for. So I called back in again. Explained my plight, and was escalated to Tier 3 support. The hold for this was throughout dinner and while I swapped out the TV that no longer works and worked on troubleshooting the DVR.

An hour late I get a Tier 3 guy, who is kind enough to inform me that my modem is stuck in auto-provision, so he’s going to kick it in the head. 5 minutes later we’re back up.

I candidly asked him, “Do you really need a Tier 3 person to force a provision?” He said no.

I said can you look at my DVR? He said no but he’d put a note on the trouble ticket so hopefully they’ll bring one on Saturday.

So my tips for TimeWarner.

1) Not all your customers are stupid, so don’t treat them like they are.

2) Not all your customers are out to steal your modems and hardware. I have no use for a cable modem if I’m not subscribing to your service. You know the one you can’t get to work.

3) Step up the training on your tier one folks. They should be smarter than my 13 year old daughter when it comes to troubleshooting this stuff.

4) If you see someone’s called in 3x looking for help, you can assume they did the fundamental troubleshooting on the first two calls.

I realize you probably get some real winners calling in for support. You get people who can’t release and renew their IP’s… I know these people, but come on… The steps to figure out where the problem lie aren’t that complicated. It took me 3 calls to get through to you that it was on your end and that you could fix it remotely.

5) 7 days is far too long for anyone to wait for service, I don’t care what business you’re in. You almost dispatched someone to my house for a problem they couldn’t fix anyway. That can’t be cheap.

Wake up! Cable tech support has sucked since day one. You’d think you’d have this figured out by now.

July 8, 2008

Electrical Storm = Bad Juju

Tonight around 11pm EST, lightning struck… Quite literally, just outside the house. The TV, DVR, DVD, VCR, all went blank… Surprisingly we still had electric, which rarely is the case out here in the sticks when we have a bad enough storm.

I ran into the office to check the computers, everything was still up and good. The cable modem wasn’t happy though. No blinky lights. I’ve been here before too. So I rebooted it. Amazingly, the power light and the cable light lit up. But no PC or data light. I figured the cable network was probably zapped. Again, not unusual.

Back into the living room to check things there and to verify that the cable was dorked up. All of the entertainment stuff was plugged into a surge protector, but it was dead, no juice. I ran down stairs and found a circuit breaker popped… I’m thinking this is a good thing.

Back upstairs all of our entertainment devices have power, even the TV, but the TV is non-responsive. You can turn it on with the remote, but that’s it. No picture, no changing inputs, nada… Of course this would be our 42” plasma pride and joy… Our Black Friday special two years ago for $999. Coincidentally the same amount as our home owners deductible. Oh goody.

So back in the office to deal with the Internet situation. The cable modem appears happy on the cable side, but no link for the PC connection. I swap out the router hoping that it’s not toast. Nope, nothing I plug into the modem is seen by the modem. This isn’t good.

30 minutes of troubleshooting with TimeWarner on the phone they finally give in and offer a service call to replace it. Today is the 9th, and it’s only been the 9th for 30 minutes. The earliest they can service me is the 15th. Isn’t that special? I explain that isn’t good enough for $50/month internet that’s already somewhat flakey. I offer to come pick up a modem and be compensated for my time to drive there, stand in line and drive home. They just laughed but did offer to credit me for the lack of service.

I think I’m just about done with TimeWarner, but I don’t think CBell is going to be any better.

Here’s hoping they’ll actually have one when I get there tomorrow.

July 7, 2008

7 Days and Counting

The trip is getting closer, right around the corner actually. We leave next Monday the 14th at 0-Dark Thirty.

Bike is ready, though I need to double check everything and I’ll pack this weekend.

Whilst on my trip I’m going to do everything I can to avoid work. I will be ‘connected’ when I can be to update this blog mostly and journal the trip.

Technology that’s traveling with me:

I’m taking a super small HP 2133 sub notebook. Space is critical and I thought this would fit the bill just fine. It’s loaded with Vista and I have to say I’m very under-whelmed with both performance and battery life, even with the BIG battery. But it beats nothing I suppose. It’s wifi equipped and I’ll be taking my CrackBerry with Verizon coverage and tether-ability.

I’ll also be using the iPhone (current generation) as my primary communications device.

To give you a sense of just how small this thing is, or just how large my D830 is, here’s a shot of both of them with the iPhone as a frame of reference:

Yeah, it’s tiny.

I’m in the process now of loading up all the prerequisite software which includes but is not limited too: MapSource with 2009NT maps, Streets and Trips, and other utilities.

May 15, 2008

COD 4 Prestige Update

That double points weekend with the release of the new maps really screwed me up. I leveled up quick the the final couple levels were frustrating, playing at level 50+ with level 20 weapons… pfft.

But the dead is done, now on prestige level 8 and sneaking up on the elusive gold cross.

Though I have half a mind to stop at level 9 and call it done. Starting over it getting kind of old.

April 29, 2008

Call Of Duty 4 Prestige Rank Update

Currently:

Level 40-something. I flipped over this weekend during the Double Experience Point Extravaganza that was part of the new map releases.

While double experience points helps you level up faster, it kinda screws with you. I’m somewhere in the 40’s but my weapons have only been upgraded to about where they’d be if I was in the 20’s. So this kind of puts you a little behind the 8-ball if you will.

You just don’t have the tools you’re used to having at this level (perks aside).

I was half thinking about stopping at this level but will need to do at least one more to round out my weapon differential.

The new maps are great, they claimed (4) new maps but only 3 are really playable. Kill-House is pretty useless.

COD 4 remains one of the better games I’ve played, but it’s wearing thin. There are things they really need to fix. (these probably won’t make sense if you don’t play the game).

* Party or Lobby Migration is good, but host migration during a game needs to take place, even if it only moves to the user with the best overall connection. That won’t help when that person leaves, but it would help game performance.

* It needs a messaging system that pops up to let you know you’ve received an invite. Similar to the way the PS 3 notifies you that friends are logged on/off. In game is when you need this. When I push the start button it’s to switch weapons, not to see (and dismiss) a bunch of useless invites received 5 minutes prior.

* When someone performs an invite, they should be forced to wait for those to expire before moving on. It would help with those impatient folks who invite people then go join another room, only to screw up the folks that they invited.

* Tone down the noob tube.

* Tone down Jaugernaut.

* Fix the sniping with the ACOG, for real this time.

* Show the blast radius of what killed you in the kill cam. I die from stuff (claymores usually) that I’m no where near.

* mute in the Lobby, please…

* Oh and fix the hard core team killing… Allow users to vote a player out.