As as a blogger, Facebooker, and Twitterer, it is hard to believe that I’ve managed not to complain on any of my social networks about what we have been going through since the beginning of the year.  That being said, it is now time.

Let me start by saying that we have AT&T Uverse.  We were one of the first people in my area to get it, and up until January, we had never had a problem.  We have our phone, our internet, and our tv service through them.  When Uverse doesn’t work though, you are screwed when all of that goes through one company.

Our service started freezing up in January.  First, the TV would freeze.  Then I had about 15 seconds and then the phone would go out and the internet too.  We’d be down for less than 5 minutes.  It was more annoying than anything, and we ignored it until it started happening daily.  We aren’t talking about once or twice.  We are talking about 25 times a day when it was at its worst.  This was our service till April.

We had about 18 (give or take a couple) techs to our house.  Now, when you have a tech come, you have to be home.  In a 4 hour time period.  Thank god for mother-in-laws who can pick up children.  AT&T, here’s what I think you need to different with your techs:

1.  Have information on your tickets.  When you are 18 techs in and having to explain what the problem is and that is been going on for 3 months, it is frustrating.

2.  Have what has already been done on the tickets.  It’s a waste of my time to have a tech come out to do what has already been done at my house.

3.  When you have problem people like me, have a person they can talk to.  Nothing pisses me off more than having to call the 800 number and explain yet again what the hell is going on.  (Now, I’ve got some more information on this one below).

4.  Please give the techs more than 20 minutes at my house.  There must be a 20 minute cutoff, because if the techs couldn’t figure out what was wrong, they blamed it on the other set of techs (there are inside techs and outside techs.) Without fail, this would have happen in that 20-30 minute time frame.

5.  Do not let your techs blame one another.  After this has happened twice, please have an outside tech and an inside tech show at the same time.  Then they can’t blame one another.

6.  Make sure your techs show up.  I had 2 inside techs completely no show and at least one outside tech who did the same.

7.  Calling me 2 days later after your tech doesn’t show is not acceptable.  (Especially when you called the evening he was suppose to come to tell me that he was running late and that he was still coming).

8.  When possible, have the same techs come out.  They know what they did last time that they thought was going to fix the problem.  It save both me and them time.

9.  Don’t bill me every time you send a tech out and not fix the problem.  You really want to piss somebody off, that’s a good way to do it.

Yes, I was ready to scream.  We like U-Verse.  We knew they could fix this if they just could figure out what it was.  My last straw was the tech not showing up after receiving a phone call that he was running late and was still coming.  That is when I went to twitter to ask for help.  I have 25,000 Twitter followers and I take that seriously.  I don’t want to bash a company on there that is trying to fix the problem.  So I contact Customer Care on there and was given some help that night.

I have to thank both Alex and Mike.  They did more for me these last couple of weeks than the 2 months prior.  Mike even gave me his cell and I could text him every time I had a problem.  Honestly, it made me feel better (and slightly guilty when it would be at midnight and we were having issues and I was texting).  Mike pulled some strings, slapped a few people with some wet noodles, and got people to my house to fix the problem.  Once Mike got involved, it still took time to figure it out.  However, I could call him when the techs weren’t doing what they were suppose to.

So what was the problem?  Water had gotten into our line which is why it was an intermittent issue.  This is also why it was so hard to track down.

AT&T I hope you take some of tips and use them.  I also think Mike and Alex deserve a raise.  :)  We are happy with our service now, and I’m glad we stuck this out.  What has been your experience with AT&T?