As many of my readers know, I recently switched cable services from Comcast to AT&T and also purchased faster internet service.  Consider this Part II to AT&T: How Not to Do a Survey.  This is probably multiple blogs as the events are something out of an old horror movie, except it is real.  The reality show continues:

Wednesday:  I was scheduled  to have a service technician (tech) in between between 8 – 10 AM.  At 9 AM I received a call from Michigan telling me to expect the service technician between 8 and 10 and that he would call ahead of time.  I am not sure of the purpose of the call and would have to consider it waste from a customer perspective.

The tech came 20 minutes later (no call ahead, making the Michigan call worthless), he asked me a series of questions.  Many that the salesperson had already asked (waste) and began the installation process.  Seven hours later he finished and many problems were uncovered during this process the most notable were my security system was improperly wired (not AT&T problem) and an hour wait for the cable to be properly provisioned (more waste).  Ultimately, things seemed to work OK when he left.  A few hours later my internet was constantly getting a router-router error kicking me off the internet everytime a wireless connection from a laptop or iPod touch was started.  The final straw was the TV locking up over and over again.

Thursday:  I called the customer service line next day and after navigating my way through the IVR (3 minutes) I was able to talk to a customer support representative that helped unlock my TV and fixed my conflict of my routers, but I discovered that AT&T could only see 3 boxes and not the 4 located at my home.  Total call time almost 60 minutes.

Friday:  The TV locked up again and I called support, navigated the IVR and was informed that the TV that was locked was the one they didn’t show in their system meaning a tech would need to come to the house again on Monday.  While getting the necessary information off the router (during the troubleshooting process) the whole system went down phone lines, internet and cable.  I reset the router and while the system was coming back up the customer support rep called me on my cell.  The system came up and things were running again.  Total call time over 90 minutes.

Saturday: our main TV goes down while watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I call customer support (again) and to be honest I really don’t want the IVR at this point.  I am basically told that I am hosed until the tech comes in on Monday. Total call time 14 minutes.

Monday, the box that wasn’t recognized by the customer support reps was caused by a line split something the first tech missed.  The problem with my router-router error was diagnosed as conflicting firewalls between the my AT&T router and my Apple router – a problem we resolved Thursday night without taking down my Apple router now required taking it down.  This leads me to now have a Mac that has questionable connection via the Airport rather than being through the direct connection to the router (more than I want to know too).  The short of this:  good internet connectivity except on my wife’s Mac . . . just kill me now. (4 hours to resolve all issues including a new router because the one I was given was defective and a phone call from home office saying the tech was taking too long).  I will be having to call again this weekend to resolve my wife’s Mac issue or I may be in deep manure.

One other tidbit, the salesperson overstated the capabilities of the system. The system does not:

  • Allow me to have 3 HD channels working at once, only two
  • I can record or pause only on 1 TV not all 4
  • Slice, dice or crawl on its belly like a reptile (OK, made that one up)

I am afraid to see how my first bill looks when it arrives.  Now you understand why the survey for the salesperson proceeded the service.  I did not answer the survey because I did not know if the service was accurately represented – it was not. 

I received a second survey via email for one of the phone calls I made – I just don’t know which phone call because the survey doesn’t identify which of the three.  Further, the language in the survey doesn’t identify the problem in a way I understand or the multiple problems I encountered.  The only way for management to understand is to experience it as I did.  No mystery shopping or fake customers are needed, these things are happening everyday to real customers.  Get off your rumps and go see for yourself.

A systems thinking organization understands the end-to-end customer management process is what matters to me . . . the customer.  I did not expect to have a tech in my house 11 hours or spend almost 3 hours (and counting) to play troubleshooter.  The waste in this system is enormous and 95% of what I saw was attributable to the system that AT&Ts management put in place.  Only 5% of what I saw was attributable to the worker.  The work design is broken, not the individual.

I can only hope that AT&T and its competitors read this and understand the opportunity for improvement is great, but the command and control style of management that they display is broken.  Business improvement can be accomplished there is a better way.

Tripp Babbitt is a speaker, blogger and consultant to service industry (private and public).  His organization helps executives find a better way to make the work work.  Download free from www.newsystemsthinking.com “Understanding Your Organization as a System” and gain knowledge of systems thinking or contact us about our intervention services at info@newsystemsthinking.com.  Reach him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/TriBabbitt.