Time Warner Cable: no communication
Recently, Time Warner Cable bought Adelphia, the company that provided cable services in my area. I switched to Time Warner Cable from SBC DSL service a few weeks ago. I got onto the Adelphia network which, I was told, would soon be upgraded and switched over to the faster and more efficient Time Warner network.
It was very easy to sign up. I called 1-888-TW-CABLE [1-888-892-2253] and was told that some technicians could come to my place after 10 days. My SBC renewal date was coming up, so I decided to call again after a few minutes to get some other person on the line to help me. I called back after about 3 minutes and was told that someone could come over in 2 days. That was great. So far, calling Time Warner over the phone to get a new service was a good experience, and very fast.
The contracted technicians came and hooked up the new cable to the house. The technicians gave me a receipt and told me that they had no welcome package or any other paperwork for me, as the service was so easy to use. For me, that was fine as I already knew how to use the service. However, I wondered how new customers who had never used a broadband connection before would get started without a welcome package. For me, though, the service worked flawlessly and it was at least 3 times faster than the dsl connection I had from SBC.
On Tuesday, December 5th, around 3 pm, my internet connection dropped suddenly. I called the Time Warner helpline and heard an automated recording that talked about the entire Adelphia network in my region being upgraded at that moment, and the possibility of the entire process continuing until 11 pm, Thursday. The recording also told callers not to call regarding any connection issues until then. For me, that was unacceptable and a good example of bad communication. One of the last things a company would want is for customers to panic, and having no internet connection all of a sudden without any notice or a warning surely results in many customers who go crazy. I didn’t get anything in the mail regarding this, nor was I emailed anything. I could live without the connection for a few hours, but being prepared for such a thing is better. Unexpected surprises that are unpleasant are, well, unpleasant. The connection did come back on for me after a few hours on the same day, and it’s been good since then.
Communication is the central key to any good relationship, whether it be a one on one relationship or a business relationship. The recording on helpline did address my specific question right away. Even then, however, I would prefer a message coming from the businesses to the customers notifying them of any outages in advance, instead of customers reaching out helplessly to the businesses asking them about any sudden emergencies or issues.
Has anything similar happened to you? What is your outtake on this?
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( December 7th, 2006 at 4:50 pm )
Actually, the automated message thing is the same for Comcast… They’ve done that to me before… Yeah, I hate it when they’re upgrading and they don’t give any notice about it! Sometimes, they’d e-mail me, but most of the time, it just goes down without me knowing what’s up with it! I hate that!
( December 8th, 2006 at 8:48 am )
yeah, ridiculous!!
( December 9th, 2006 at 5:59 pm )
Chau — > Wow, they do it there too! Comcast is now owned by Time Warner, so it’s the same thing that they’re doing to customers then. I don’t prefer it either. Check out the link below, it may cover your area also to notify people of upgrades [like when they'll upgrade your network to the Time Warner network].
Valerie — > Yes, very weird. I found this out:
http://help.rr.com/HMSLogic/network_status.aspx
( December 9th, 2006 at 7:36 pm )
Should’nt the company take responsiblity of informing their customers that their network wont be working for a particular period of time. Stuff like this just pisses people off.
Has that happened to me? Yeah, it always does. But the connection comes back within an hour or so. Something like this is very rare out here.
( December 12th, 2006 at 9:37 pm )
Yes, they should. However, in situations like these, they somehow don’t. “Something like that is rare” there; that’s really good. Here, if it happens like this, one only hopes that it doesn’t happen again.
( December 17th, 2006 at 10:37 pm )
[...] An internet connection is to an online experience what a heart is to a body. Without it, you can’t browse anything unless you like saving pages offline. The overall browsing experience has been good since I switched to Time Warner Cable last month. Even though I had an issue earlier this month regarding bad communication from Time Warner, the overall service so far has been nice. Last night, however, the connection dropped without any warning around 9 pm. I tried a few things like restarting the modem, disconnecting the cable wires and changing the settings on the modem and my computer. Nothing worked, so I decided to call Time Warner. After about an hour and a half of being put on hold, I was told that the support staff could not figure out what the problem was, and that the only way to identify and fix the problem would be to leave my computer and modem turned off and wait for the technicians to come over on Tuesday. That sounded strange and a bit illogical to me, so I decided to leave the computer on and see if I could fix the issue. I also decided to call again this morning and see if I could get someone to come today instead of Tuesday. After being put on hold again for about 37 minutes, I was finally told that the technicians would call me within 30 minutes to let me know whether or not they could come today. I waited for about an hour for a call that never came through. While I was waiting and changing a few settings on the computer, the connection came back on. Right now, everything is working fine again, and I haven’t heard anything from the technicians who were supposed to call me hours ago. [...]
( December 26th, 2006 at 7:08 am )
Awful…just awful.
Time Warner promises “local service 24/7″ but when I called them I was on hold for over an hour, listing to their ads for internet phone service.
So here’s my take on this — they provide service 24/7–that’s how long it takes to reach a rep.
And as far as local service goes, the rep was in — get this– Argentina!
They provide local service–local to the galaxy!
Another disgusted customer.
Bob Arkow
http://www.timeworthlesscable.com
( January 1st, 2007 at 9:41 pm )
Bob, interesting comparisons. The wait time is extremely long these months, and Time Warner says it’s because of the holidays and the merger. Let’s see how long the wait times are/become during January and later this year.
I didn’t know they had reps in Argentina also. Wow.
[P.S.: your email address doesn't work, btw].
( May 5th, 2007 at 11:59 pm )
[...] I switched to Time Warner Cable last month. Even though I had an issue earlier this month regarding bad communication from Time Warner, the overall service so far has been nice. Last night, however, the connection dropped without any [...]