Letter to Frontier Communications

This is the letter I sent to the CEO of Frontier Communications, with a copy to the Chairman of DISH Network:

Dear Dan McCarthy:

I recently was going to be a customer of your company but it was not to be.  This is primarily based upon your company’s lack of appropriate software systems and policies.

First of all, I would like to state that your customer service people are magnificent.  They went beyond any expectations to try to assist me in my efforts to get a cable modem installed.  Sadly I suspect that this is a necessary part of their job because of the absolute mess your software system creates for them.  In any case, they are much better than you deserve.

To start, we have temporarily moved to a RV Park.  When we contacted Dish to relocate our satellite service, the Dish representative touted using your company’s modem services.  As I had never had any issues with Dish, I trusted them.  More’s the pity.  I would suggest that Dish should reconsider their relationship if my experiences were an example our your “service”.

To wit:

• You could not get there for about a week and a half (4/13/18) and the service was for 6 Mbps/1 Mbps. While this was iffy, I accepted it because this was all that Dish could provide on the phone.
• I called the Frontier on Monday, 4/9/18, and a very helpful CSR rep supposedly fixed my account information to:
  • Correct the site address: they had site 251 instead of site 376.
  • She noted that I wanted increased speed, preferable 25 Mbps, instead of 6 Mbps, but that I would take the highest available speed.
  • Confirmed that the service was due on 4/13/18 between 8 a.m. and 12 Noon.
• On Friday, no one came.
• At 1:00 p.m. I called. A nice CSR could not figure out why my service did not occur but found that the site information was still wrong on my order and the speed was still at 6 Mbps.  She had to call me back about 20 minutes later after she was able to “fix” the order.  In any case, she added a $25 credit for my troubles and schedule service on Tuesday, 4/17/18, in the afternoon.
• An hour or so later, the same CSR contacted me and transferred me to another CSR to confirm my maximum Mbps. After some talking with this CSR, she discovered that you only had 12 Mbps in my area, which I was OK with (what choice did I have).  Because this entailed changing the order, she would have to update said order, which could change the date of service.  When she tried to update the order, however, another user had it locked, so I was asked to call back in a couple of hours to complete the order.
• Two hours later, as per request, I called back and the fun just got better and better. As we were completing the order the following happened:
  • A hold popped up on the order because someone who had resided in the space before this had left an outstanding balance. My wife convince me to email a receipt for the space in my name.   My first inclination was to drop you at this point, as I am not responsible for prior customers, nor should your policy make your CSR even go there.
  • Then we go along and another hold pops up. I have a built-in hold on my credit check.  For some reason the questions I answered did not satisfy the credit hold questionnaire for the CSR, so the CSR said the policy was for me and my wife need to have a notarized copy of our drivers’ licenses sent to you before we could get service.
  • I canceled your service at that time.

It is obvious that you have outdated software that takes way too long to facilitate order taking.  You cannot coordinate your available services with the addresses you are servicing.  If that is not enough you are not providing your CSR’s with the tools they need to intercede with the customer with problems until the last minute.  Finally, your policies are so outdated that you do not give any leeway in dealing with real world issues.  And before you ask, I will not come out of retirement to fix your problems, even though it is tempting when it is so easy to see something so out of whack and so easily fixable.

Sincerely,

Robert G Boynton

P.S. The reason I am copying the Chairman of Dish Network is that I have had such good service and relationships with Dish Network for so many years, I cannot fathom that they would want to continue a working relationship with an organization that was so bereft in customer service without knowing about it.

P.P.S. This was Friday evening, 4/13/18.  I left an after-hours email with another vendor.  They contacted me on Monday morning and installed service on Tuesday morning and at 16 Mbps.  The irony is that I change to another provider and I still got it installed faster than you company was going to install it with two weeks advanced notice.

interesting footnote:  Frontier Communications did not respond at all.  An executive from Dish contacted me and discussed my concerns.  Goes to show you which company is on the ball and is concerned about customer service.

new footnote: Frontier Communications finally did respond about 3 weeks later from a person representing the “office of the president”.  She did not dispute any of my claims as they were supported by the call logs and times on their records (apparently some of their system does work properly).  She did agree that this should not have worked as it did – no duh!  She apologized and then she noticed that the work order was still open so she cancelled it.  A day or two later I got my credit card and found out that Frontier Communications had charged me $174.98 when the order was placed.  I recontacted the person above and found out that it included the $25 deposit that had not been returned from the cancellation as of yet and $149.98 that they arbitrarily charged me because of the outstanding arrears from the previous account that somehow got tied to my order.  This was without my authorization.  In any case the person did process the paperwork and about a week later I got my refund.  I guess no harm, no foul but this did not imbue any trust in Frontier.