ATT and Great Customer Service

All my myriad of followers must wonder what happened to me the past few days. I have had Internet problems. Big Problems. I Could not stay on the Internet. To me this is the ultimate frustration. Not just because of this blog - but my daily living, it seems, revolves around the Internet.

I wake up and read my Horoscope and my daily reading. I play a little Farmtown. I answer e-mails from www.balboa-island.com and my six other e-mail addresses. A lot of times people want to know information about the Island. Does the Ferry run all the time - is it the only access? What is there to do? What time does the Fun Zone open (there is a lot of confusion regarding the difference between Balboa Peninsula and Balboa Island). Lots of questions, lots of answers. Lots of fun. It is my answer to TV - I prefer interaction.

Every night my Internet was going down. Around 5 or 6pm after Tom Stanton my IT guy across the street had left for the night. So every night for weeks I got on the phone and called AT&T and talked to their technicians. And every night by the time I actually got a person on the line - the Internet was working again. It was quantum physics at work - if I paid attention to the net itself - after a certain period of time the dynamics changed and the net worked. Or, maybe there was a ghost in my DSL.

Now, I don't know if AT&T has a way of tracking my calls, but the level of competence of the technicians increased with each call. The first young man suggested I got to Wal Mart and buy and new modem. After that I got various suggestions including several that perhaps the lines get overloaded in our area around that time of night. Each technician tested my lines - in many ways - and found them in great condition. At least I got some answers in all this. I cannot imagine how many hours I have spent on this particular problem. I do wish AT&T would turn the volume down on their advertising on the "hold" function. I had to turn my cell phone down as low as it would go to keep from being blasted with the same drivel over and over and over and over again.

Last night I called twice. During the first call the Internet resurrected itself although I talked to a very nice young woman. During the second call I got "ED" - who tested and tested and then had me move disconnect wires and change things and we FINALLY determined that it was the router - not the modem. Not AT&T's problem. But Ed had a suggestion for me. Go to Best Buy and get a 2-Wire Router and he would call me back today and in 15 minutes I would be up and running again.

Now I would rather walk on hot coals than drive to the South Coast Plaza area where Best Buy is located. I prefer stores within golf cart range on the Island and hate traffic. I had a router I had purchased at Woot.com for $20.00. A Belkin router. I took a chance and this crabby old lady spent 45 minutes with a patient young lady from India and we got the router up and running. There were a few finer points that Tom fixed today so that all the printers were working, but in general we did a great job. Now all is well in Internet Land - and Mom is happy again.

Mike kept telling me to ignore the problem and "just go on to something else when the Internet is down." I replied, "OK - as long as I can unplug your TV during that same period of time and see how that works for you." Ed thought that was pretty cruel.

The bottom line is. Great customer service can overcome a lot. A company is only as good as the people who interact with the customers. If I had stopped with the young man who told me to buy a new modem at Walmart - when it wasn't the problem - I would still have a negative image of AT&T. Instead I talked to several women and Ed - all of whom enjoyed really helping people. That is what customer service is all about. And I have a much better opinion of AT&T than I did a week ago.