For a dozen years, we had a great relationship, my Internet Service Provider and I. Neither was overly demanding, nor asked too many questions. I needed reliable Internet access, e-mail and occasionally, a live human being to explain or fix a problem. Their needs were pretty simple: $23.95 a month.
Suddenly it was over. They left me — and hundreds of other customers – because they couldn’t agree on service terms with their Internet backbone provider.
Oh well, nothing lasts forever. So I called Qwest and learned I could get 7 Megabit Internet and ISP service, for only a few bucks a month more. The service date? – Well, unfortunately, it would be a full week. Rachel in Sioux Falls thanked me for my order and said how much they appreciated my being a customer for over 40 years. Nice touch.
I never realized how much I had come to depend on the constant nourishment of e-mail and Internet. In the early seventies, telcos had foretold the coming of an information utility. Plug into a wall socket, and out would flow rivers of information. A few decades later, I’ve become acclimated and addicted to an uninterrupted supply.
On Wednesday morning of the promised date, I thought I’d call Qwest, just to be sure everything was on track. (I wasn’t born yesterday, you know.) Mark in Boise couldn’t find the order, but he was kind enough to escalate the problem to Denise in Phoenix. Somehow the order had been dropped from the system, but she would expedite it. It would only take an extra day. And thanks for being our customer for over 40 years.
Late the next day I called again. Kelly in the Philippines assured me in less-than-fluent English that my service was pending activation by 6:15 p.m. At least that’s what I thought she said.
Friday morning I reached Abraham in Salt Lake City. He seemed to take a personal interest and researched all the annotations on the electronic service order. The installer needed to do some work at my house and was scheduled for 2:36 p.m. that very day, Friday. Really, 2:36 p.m.
When no one showed by 4:30 pm, I located Ashley in Logan, Utah. My phone worked OK, but my patience was picking up static. Ashley remonstrated that she was just a billing rep. She put me on hold for 10 or 15 minutes, ostensibly while she checked on the order. I took the hint and re-dialed. Sam of I-forget-where was more gracious. He prophesied the installer would arrive Saturday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Didn’t happen.
So I was surprised to receive a call around 5:30 p.m. Saturday from Jack, the installer. Half an hour later, a middle-aged, silver-haired man pulled up in a Qwest truck. He apologized for the delay – he’d been assigned eight orders that day, and I was only number four.
Deftly Jack installed a new DSL modem, which, he explained, was the reason my service wasn’t yet working. Then he re-jiggered the inside telephone wiring to get my service humming at 7 megabits per second. Only one glitch – the e-mail part of the order had somehow gotten hung up. Jack’s contact said it would get done Sunday.
During this Saturday evening gig, Jack got a phone call from his teenage daughter, asking when he’d be home. “Honey, I don’t have the kind of job that I can just leave and go home,” he apologized. “I’ve got four more orders to finish.” His cell phone rang with a call from a customer farther down the list. Jack exhibited more patience than the caller.
I tagged along to the outside phone box and held a flashlight while we chatted. Turns out Jack’s been laid off once and “surplused” five times during his Qwest career. He’s looking forward to retirement in a few years. It’s apparent the guy works long hours, atones for a multitude of Qwest’s broken promises, and endures constant stress on his family.
Gradually I got a clearer sense of a system that is fundamentally broken. No one seems to have the big picture – not the service reps who lob computer-scripted promises from behind a desk; not the installers, the flesh-and-blood stalwarts on the front lines; not even the company’s management.
And those of us who pay Qwest’s bills? Unfortunately, the firm has transferred significant costs of doing business to its own customers, who spend myriad hours calling to follow up problems, navigating automated attendants, and just waiting. You get the idea of a vast, interconnected system that’s missing the most important connection of all – to its own customers.
We can only wait so long.
Arnie Snyder is owner of Elder Life Advisors, LLC, a Littleton-based consulting firm (). EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
