An open letter to AT&T Internet Support

For the past few weeks we've been having intermittent problems with our Internet connection. So badly that I ended up going out and buying a new DSL Modem/Router because I thought the router was the problem....The new modem worked, for a week, and then would no longer connect to the internet. It had worked, but now didn't work, so I knew that it wasn't the modem now....now I knew the problem was with the service.

Unfortunately that required a call to AT&T for support....and also resulted in the following comment being included on the survey that I received to clue AT&T in on my latest interaction with them, they asked for additional input, so I gave it to them:

The agent that resolved my issue and thusly initiated this survey was the best agent of the 5 that I had to speak to in order to resolve my issue. My problem was that I had intermittent connection to the internet and it had been out for several days prior to my contacting you.

I was disconnected from the first agent and even though she confirmed my phone number in case of disconnection NEVER CALLED BACK!

The second agent immediately pushed me to your paid technical support team when I mentioned that I had a Netgear DSL modem router because it wasn't supported. She wouldn't attempt to troubleshoot the issue at all and transferred me under the guise of "Oh they can help you."

When I got to your technical support all she wanted to do was sell me your technical support - she wouldn't even listen to my problem. Our 20 minute conversation consisted of me asking her to qualify her statements because she never came outright and told me that there was a charge. I told her that my problem was I had no connection to the internet, she countered that with "Well, I can have a technician take control of your computer and mouse and walk you through the set up." At which I asked her how they were going to do that since I didn't have a live internet connection....apparently she didn't have a response for that on her script. After I asked her several times if she could assist me, it basically came down to "Not unless you pay me"

I hung up and dialed through to tech support again....it didn't take that long this time because fortunately I had memorized the prompt sequence from the numerous times I had to complete it. When I got Len I explained what had occured up til this point and he took the time to go through some BASIC setup questions with me, the first one being the connection to the wall....he asked me to remove the filter since the DSL modem was the only connection at that junction...and wouldn't you know it, that was the problem.

Len solved my problem in 5 minutes where as it had taken me over an hour of time with your prior agents to not even go through the basic troubleshooting things and instead relying strictly on a script and not listening to what I was telling them. It should not take an hour of a customers time to get an apparently simple issue resolved and not try to push them off to a paid technical support person.

Oh this is also interesting. Since I didn't know the filter was bad I went out and bought a new modem - my attempt at troubleshooting - and had it set up properly, so I knew the connection worked. But since I had purchased a new modem, I was told that my only option was the paid technical support because you only support the 2Wire modem. I then asked the agent "What if I go buy a 2Wire modem from Best Buy, will you support that?" She told me "No, we will only support the ORIGINAL modem that you purchased from AT&T." So if that modem no longer works (which almost always happens) AT&T won't help me because you only support the ORIGINAL modem - I understand your need to set limits on what you will support, but because I didn't have the original modem I was not offered ANY technical support, not even basic trouble shooting.

I'm very disappointed in this experience and what makes me even more disappointed is that I hardly doubt that ANYONE will read this comment and follow through on it....way to go AT&T.

Sincerely,

Michael Lehet