So, here’s where we stand when it comes to our problems with Teksavvy. If you’ll recall what I said in my last post, I started out with DSL trouble, then ended up with no DSL and no voice phone service. Teksavvy had promised to send a Bell tech out the next day to fix these issues. Since I was in the United States on business, my wife pulled some strings to be home between 12 and 5 to be here for the Bell tech. Too bad they didn’t show. But was was really weird was that Bell kept calling the home phone, despite the fact that I had given them my cell phone number to call.
So I called Teksavvy again and asked for an explanation. After waiting for 20 minutes which is typical for them these days, they apologized repeatedly and after reaching out to Bell, they found out that the ticket that I had opened up was actioned at the central office and everything was working. That could not be further from the truth as I phoned home on a speaker phone so that the Teksavvy rep could hear the static on the other end. Also, my wife texted me that we had DSL service, but it was at 2 Mbps downstream which of course is abysmal. The Teksavvy rep got back onto the phone with Bell and they said that the best they could do is to get someone out on Saturday. That wasn’t acceptable to me as my wife wasn’t available on Saturday and I wasn’t supposed to be back in Toronto until Sunday. But I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to change, so after asking to speak to a supervisor, I used my laptop to get onto Expedia.ca to find a flight back to Toronto early in the morning. It was a good thing that I was in a city that was a major hub for several airlines. That allowed me to route myself to be on the ground by 7:10 AM. Since I live close to Pearson Airport, I could be home by to meet the Bell tech who was scheduled to show up between 8 and noon. Which of course they did not. More on that in a second.
I got on the phone with the supervisor and expressed my displeasure to her. She was nice enough, but the thing that infuriated me was the fact that she kept deflecting blame away from Teksavvy and towards Bell. Now I get it’s Bell that delivers their DSL services and that it’s Bell techs that have to be dispatched. But I don’t pay Bell for my telco services. I pay Teksavvy. Thus they need to take responsibility. My perception was that beyond discussing providing me with a credit once this is sorted out (which is fair), she didn’t really want to take responsibility. My friends, that is not how you retain customers.
Now we’re on to Saturday. After finishing up my server install in record time and getting onto a flight to Chicago to connect to a flight to Toronto early this morning, and being fuelled by coffee, I got home and waited for the tech. By 11 AM they had not showed up and the phone calls from Bell started up again on the home phone that was not working. Since I could not tell them anything since the phone wasn’t working, I called Teksavvy. After waiting for close to 30 minutes on hold, I got someone who promised to transfer me to a “account representative.”Too bad they transferred me to a Bell call centre. So with my patience starting to nosedive, I called back and after waiting another 20 minutes, I got through to someone who got me to an “account representative” after another 15 minutes on hold. After explaining my situation and that I wanted this resolved TODAY, I waited again on hold while he phoned Bell and I was told the tech would be on site soon. They also said that they would be following up with me after the tech was there.
Fast forward two hours. No Bell tech. No phone service. Substandard DSL service. So after yet another call to Teksavvy and 15 minutes on hold, I got an agent who tried to escalate the issue. Then after another 10 minutes on hold, I was told by that agent that I would be getting a phone call back from the supervisor that I was dealing with within 30 minutes. The agent also was unable (or unwilling) to give me any sort of feedback as to if Bell was actually going to show up. That was very disappointing to hear and I had the feeling that my issue is not going to get resolved in any timely manner.
Thirty minutes passed with no call back from the supervisor that I spoke to. Not that I am surprised by that as was losing faith in Teksavvy at that point. Much to my surprise, a Bell tech arrives. He had gone down to the telephone room of my building and found no issue there. So when I explained what had happened, he looked at the new jack the previous tech installed. He disassembled it and found that it was installed incorrectly. He reassembled it and got a dial tone on two of the three jacks that I have in the condo. The third which was not far away from this jack in my kitchen was not working. After further troubleshooting he found that the previous tech had not wired things up correctly to make the kitchen jack work. After a few more minutes of work, he got a dial tone on that jack as well. When I asked him for an explanation, he was very diplomatic about the incompetence of the previous tech. But he explained that the previous tech had wired things incorrectly that caused all the jacks to short out.
Someone clearly needs to fire the tech that was in my condo earlier this week.
As for my DSL, some testing indicated that my speed had increased from around 2 Mbps to 6 Mbps. I typically get 10 Mbps. The tech was going to get the profile raised and he would make the phone call from his van and call me back in 20 minutes. Which he did and when I tested my speed, I was getting the speeds that I was used to getting.
As of now I have phone service and DSL service. But what’s clear to me is that Teksavvy is not only unable to deliver any decent level of customer service which is best exhibited by the supervisor not calling me back as promised, but they are unable to resolve customer issues in any way shape or form as they are at the mercy of the incumbents. What’s also becoming clear is that if you want reliable phone or Internet service, you need to go with one of the incumbents. Now some people reading this will say that I could have a customer service nightmare with an incumbent telco. And others will point out that it was Bell who was largely making my life miserable and Teksavvy only holds some of the blame. Both of those are true. But at least I would have one throat to metaphorically choke as the incumbents control their infrastructure from end to end. That’s not the case here as Teksavvy is relying on Bell. But as I mentioned earlier, I don’t pay Bell for my telco services. I pay Teksavvy and it is they who need to take responsibility for this. Sadly it seems they can’t or won’t do so. Plus, if you make a commitment to a customer, you need to deliver. Teksavvy didn’t do that in this case.
So as a result, my wife and I have decided to transfer our Internet service over to Rogers. Currently, Rogers has a deal where you can get up to 35 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream with a modem included and 300 GB of usage for $45.99 a month. They also say that there will be no price increases for 8 years. I read the fine print and there’s really nothing there that jumps out at me as being objectionable. So my wife and I are likely to go for it. But we will call Rogers to see if there’s any other discounts available because you never know unless you ask. For now we will leave our home phone with Teksavvy until we can figure out what to do with that. Rogers Home Phone is tempting, and I did review it a while ago so I do know what it’s all about. One thing I found during the review is that it uses a battery to keep phone service running if the power goes out. Conversely, unless you’re very far away from a central office, Bell doesn’t need a battery because it’s powered from said central office. That’s a consideration that we have to keep in mind as we’ve had some significant multi-day power outages in Toronto over the last year.
I’ll update you as we make this transition.
UPDATE: Five minutes after I posted this, the supervisor called back and I am getting a credit for two weeks of service. It’s a good gesture that takes some of the sting out of this.
UPDATE #2: Teksavvy reached out to me via Twitter:
Please feel free to look a this situation and see if you can improve things on your end. It can only help your customers.
I should also mention that when Bell raised my profile, it turns out they raised it to a 15 Mbps profile. I am now getting 12 Mbps downstream consistently. I’m dubious as to how stable that will be. But it will be irrelevant in a couple of weeks.
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The Nightmare With Teksavvy Ends…. Painfully [UPDATED x2]
So, here’s where we stand when it comes to our problems with Teksavvy. If you’ll recall what I said in my last post, I started out with DSL trouble, then ended up with no DSL and no voice phone service. Teksavvy had promised to send a Bell tech out the next day to fix these issues. Since I was in the United States on business, my wife pulled some strings to be home between 12 and 5 to be here for the Bell tech. Too bad they didn’t show. But was was really weird was that Bell kept calling the home phone, despite the fact that I had given them my cell phone number to call.
So I called Teksavvy again and asked for an explanation. After waiting for 20 minutes which is typical for them these days, they apologized repeatedly and after reaching out to Bell, they found out that the ticket that I had opened up was actioned at the central office and everything was working. That could not be further from the truth as I phoned home on a speaker phone so that the Teksavvy rep could hear the static on the other end. Also, my wife texted me that we had DSL service, but it was at 2 Mbps downstream which of course is abysmal. The Teksavvy rep got back onto the phone with Bell and they said that the best they could do is to get someone out on Saturday. That wasn’t acceptable to me as my wife wasn’t available on Saturday and I wasn’t supposed to be back in Toronto until Sunday. But I had a feeling that this wasn’t going to change, so after asking to speak to a supervisor, I used my laptop to get onto Expedia.ca to find a flight back to Toronto early in the morning. It was a good thing that I was in a city that was a major hub for several airlines. That allowed me to route myself to be on the ground by 7:10 AM. Since I live close to Pearson Airport, I could be home by to meet the Bell tech who was scheduled to show up between 8 and noon. Which of course they did not. More on that in a second.
I got on the phone with the supervisor and expressed my displeasure to her. She was nice enough, but the thing that infuriated me was the fact that she kept deflecting blame away from Teksavvy and towards Bell. Now I get it’s Bell that delivers their DSL services and that it’s Bell techs that have to be dispatched. But I don’t pay Bell for my telco services. I pay Teksavvy. Thus they need to take responsibility. My perception was that beyond discussing providing me with a credit once this is sorted out (which is fair), she didn’t really want to take responsibility. My friends, that is not how you retain customers.
Now we’re on to Saturday. After finishing up my server install in record time and getting onto a flight to Chicago to connect to a flight to Toronto early this morning, and being fuelled by coffee, I got home and waited for the tech. By 11 AM they had not showed up and the phone calls from Bell started up again on the home phone that was not working. Since I could not tell them anything since the phone wasn’t working, I called Teksavvy. After waiting for close to 30 minutes on hold, I got someone who promised to transfer me to a “account representative.”Too bad they transferred me to a Bell call centre. So with my patience starting to nosedive, I called back and after waiting another 20 minutes, I got through to someone who got me to an “account representative” after another 15 minutes on hold. After explaining my situation and that I wanted this resolved TODAY, I waited again on hold while he phoned Bell and I was told the tech would be on site soon. They also said that they would be following up with me after the tech was there.
Fast forward two hours. No Bell tech. No phone service. Substandard DSL service. So after yet another call to Teksavvy and 15 minutes on hold, I got an agent who tried to escalate the issue. Then after another 10 minutes on hold, I was told by that agent that I would be getting a phone call back from the supervisor that I was dealing with within 30 minutes. The agent also was unable (or unwilling) to give me any sort of feedback as to if Bell was actually going to show up. That was very disappointing to hear and I had the feeling that my issue is not going to get resolved in any timely manner.
Thirty minutes passed with no call back from the supervisor that I spoke to. Not that I am surprised by that as was losing faith in Teksavvy at that point. Much to my surprise, a Bell tech arrives. He had gone down to the telephone room of my building and found no issue there. So when I explained what had happened, he looked at the new jack the previous tech installed. He disassembled it and found that it was installed incorrectly. He reassembled it and got a dial tone on two of the three jacks that I have in the condo. The third which was not far away from this jack in my kitchen was not working. After further troubleshooting he found that the previous tech had not wired things up correctly to make the kitchen jack work. After a few more minutes of work, he got a dial tone on that jack as well. When I asked him for an explanation, he was very diplomatic about the incompetence of the previous tech. But he explained that the previous tech had wired things incorrectly that caused all the jacks to short out.
Someone clearly needs to fire the tech that was in my condo earlier this week.
As for my DSL, some testing indicated that my speed had increased from around 2 Mbps to 6 Mbps. I typically get 10 Mbps. The tech was going to get the profile raised and he would make the phone call from his van and call me back in 20 minutes. Which he did and when I tested my speed, I was getting the speeds that I was used to getting.
As of now I have phone service and DSL service. But what’s clear to me is that Teksavvy is not only unable to deliver any decent level of customer service which is best exhibited by the supervisor not calling me back as promised, but they are unable to resolve customer issues in any way shape or form as they are at the mercy of the incumbents. What’s also becoming clear is that if you want reliable phone or Internet service, you need to go with one of the incumbents. Now some people reading this will say that I could have a customer service nightmare with an incumbent telco. And others will point out that it was Bell who was largely making my life miserable and Teksavvy only holds some of the blame. Both of those are true. But at least I would have one throat to metaphorically choke as the incumbents control their infrastructure from end to end. That’s not the case here as Teksavvy is relying on Bell. But as I mentioned earlier, I don’t pay Bell for my telco services. I pay Teksavvy and it is they who need to take responsibility for this. Sadly it seems they can’t or won’t do so. Plus, if you make a commitment to a customer, you need to deliver. Teksavvy didn’t do that in this case.
So as a result, my wife and I have decided to transfer our Internet service over to Rogers. Currently, Rogers has a deal where you can get up to 35 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream with a modem included and 300 GB of usage for $45.99 a month. They also say that there will be no price increases for 8 years. I read the fine print and there’s really nothing there that jumps out at me as being objectionable. So my wife and I are likely to go for it. But we will call Rogers to see if there’s any other discounts available because you never know unless you ask. For now we will leave our home phone with Teksavvy until we can figure out what to do with that. Rogers Home Phone is tempting, and I did review it a while ago so I do know what it’s all about. One thing I found during the review is that it uses a battery to keep phone service running if the power goes out. Conversely, unless you’re very far away from a central office, Bell doesn’t need a battery because it’s powered from said central office. That’s a consideration that we have to keep in mind as we’ve had some significant multi-day power outages in Toronto over the last year.
I’ll update you as we make this transition.
UPDATE: Five minutes after I posted this, the supervisor called back and I am getting a credit for two weeks of service. It’s a good gesture that takes some of the sting out of this.
UPDATE #2: Teksavvy reached out to me via Twitter:
Please feel free to look a this situation and see if you can improve things on your end. It can only help your customers.
I should also mention that when Bell raised my profile, it turns out they raised it to a 15 Mbps profile. I am now getting 12 Mbps downstream consistently. I’m dubious as to how stable that will be. But it will be irrelevant in a couple of weeks.
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This entry was posted on June 14, 2014 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.