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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.

Had I left the modem and the computer off and waited for the technicians to call me, I would not have known that the connection was back on again. Time Warner has a lot to fix about their communication methods and priorities. First, I didn’t get any notification from them about the updates they were performing earlier this month, and that resulted in an unexpected service interruption. Second, even when I was told that someone would definitely call me, no one did. As a customer, I’m paying not only for the connection but also for being notified about anything that may affect the services I have. When it comes to communication, support, and my experience so far, it seems that Time Warner Cable is not good at notifications, nor is it good at followups about support issues that are critical to a customer.

Customers get multiple notifications from different departments when it comes to billing. How about notifying and keeping in touch with the customers about other things also? How about having a central help system that allows support staff in any department to find out any pending issues that need resolution? A notice could be left in that system marking any issues as either “pending resolution” or “resolved.” That will facilitate the efficient resolution of customer issues and unconventional actions takes by the support staff, such as calling a customer back. Only when someone calls a customer back would such a system allow a support issue of this nature to be marked as resolved. That way, things won’t get lost into thin air that leave the customer wondering “Do they even remember that they were supposed to call me?”

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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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