Ade in Business

Insight revisited

I’m taking back the praise I gave Insight about a month ago. Since I wrote that entry, there have been two instances where my Internet connection has been down for several hours, and each time I couldn’t get through Insight support because all their lines were busy.

Well, I finally got through the second time after hitting redial for about 15 minutes (yes, I’m that stubborn). The menu system I had praised earlier was gone, and I was greeted by a voice message telling me that if I was calling about my Internet connection to call another number. You would think the automation system would have the functionality to have me press “1″ and get re-routed to the different line, but I guess they didn’t pay for that upgrade.

So I called the new number, and guess what? Busy signal. So I hit redial for another 10 minutes (no, I do not waiver in my stubbornness) only to wait on hold for another 10 minutes. Hadn’t I also praised them about their quick response times?

Of course, the support rep didn’t have any information for me, only that it was probably a known issue. Sure he was friendly (yes, I was friendly in kind — I’m stubborn, but not a jerk). At the end of the short conversation he offered to transfer me to tier-2 support, who might be able to verify that my connection problems were related to the broader problem. However, he cautioned that “it’s probably a waste of time”, because their lines would probably be busy, and they might not really be able to give me any more information.

Now all that’s left for me to do is explore my DSL options.

By the way, the best customer service I’ve encountered to date was from Southwest. Southwest’s customer service is so famed, there’s even a book written about it. I was caught completely off guard when I called them on speaker phone, expecting an automated attendant asking me to punch in my X digit customer code, and the phone was answered by an actual human. I was calling to get a refund for a ticket I had booked on the website, and it wasn’t quite clear to me that a refund was even possible, so I was prepped for some fruitless negotiation. To my delight the support rep didn’t give me a second of trouble, refunding my money with no questions asked. I didn’t even get to share my sob story.

I think you can guess where I’m going to look first to book my WSOP flight.

4 great support moves and 1 bad one

I recently had a decent experience with my cable provider’s technical support (Insight Communications), and that’s something that I never thought would happen. I’ve had a lot of complaints about dealing with Insight. It started with the cable modem installation when they wouldn’t activate me over the phone, but required a certified technician to come to my house and set it up for me. I had to wait a couple weeks to find a time that worked out so I could sit at home from 8am-12am, so was really frustrated about having to use dialup for all that time. When the technician came to my house, no joke, he screwed the coaxial cable into the modem, called the home office and told them it was ready. That was it — two minutes. Too bad my lack of certification didn’t prepare me for plugging in cables.

So a few days ago I came home from a two day business trip where I was away from a computer most of the time. I was eager to get caught up on emails, RSS feeds, etc., but was dismayed to find my Internet connection out. In short, it was down for almost 24 hours, and I called Insight twice during that time to try to get a status update on the problem. (By the way, I called their toll-free number both times even though a local number is available because, well, if they keep me from working the least I can do is stick them with a $0.10 toll each time I call).

Insight’s recently launched an advertising campaign touting their customer service. I rarely see TV commercials, but managed to catch one recently where the CEO is walking through a neighborhood and ends up helping some old lady make dinner. It was so cheesy it made me want to wretch, but if their goal is to provide that level of service then more power to them. After calling them, I noticed a few great things they’ve done that drastically improve their level of service (none of them relating to their CEO’s cooking ability):

1. Short response times. I’m used to sitting on hold with Insight, and recall once waiting on hold with them for over 30 minutes (give or take) just to speak to a live person. However, both times I called them (around 1am and 10am) I got a live person within a minute after going through the automated attendant.
2. Two choice menus. There were a few things they did right with their automated attendant. The first was that each menu I hit only had two choices - press 1 or 2. I hit more menus than I would have if the menu was compressed to 2 or 3 with 5 choices each, but I estimate that it took a lot less time. I didn’t have to listen to a handful of irrelevant prompts and there was a lot less potential for making a mistake.
3. No voice-activated prompts. I don’t think Insight had this before, but I’m mentioning it anyway since I hate them so much and am happy whenever a company keeps their good ol’ touch-tone prompts. I recently had to go through a voice-activated system for American Airlines. It worked poorly so I had to keep repeating things and I felt stupid talking to an automated system since someone else was in the room at the time. What’s the benefit of using these? I don’t see how it’s any quicker to say “yes” or “no” than to press 1 or 2. And nobody’s fooled into thinking they’re talking to a live person so it doesn’t give you that human feel that I would guess companies find appealing.
4. An apology and a promise. The automated attendant and each support rep I talked to led out with an apology for the problems I was experiencing. Each also promised to “make it right”. Sure, it was scripted, but the promise made it seem like the apology wasn’t an empty formality. So many tech support people lead out with an accusation (”Did you power off your computer and stand on your head for 30 seconds before calling?”) that it makes a sincere apology feel 10x more refreshing. I was mad for having to call, and they diffused the anger quickly by accepting blame and responsibility.

Even though the experience brought Insight up a notch in my eyes, the one thing they did wrong garnered them a mediocre grade:

1. Not enough information. Each time I called the rep told me, “It says here that there’s an outage in the area.” That gave me no ETA or understanding about the scope of the problem. Sure, it was good to know that it wasn’t a problem with my modem, but it didn’t give me much else. Even if what they told me was way over my head, that gives me something concrete — “I can get back to digg.com when the flux capacitor is replaced.”

I’m glad to see they’re working on their support, and hoping it just keeps getting better. Of course, I hope my Internet connection never goes out again and I don’t have to call. Being away from a steady Internet connection for 72 hours isn’t something I’m used to.