Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Connecting to the outside world, part 2

It seems that the universe didn't want us to have a phone until today. If you remember, Bell had no record of the move request I submitted on October 5 and I spent an hour on the phone with them on Friday after waiting an hour for the technician who never showed up. the best Bell could do was give me a new number today (Tuesday) and if I wanted to keep the old number, it would take a week.

The Rogers guy showed up as I was talking to Bell and said that he could give us a phone that day, so we of course jumped at that opportunity. At first, he said that we could keep our old number... but then it turned out that we can't - but we don't exactly know why. It has something to do with the way phone numbers are administered, but Rogers doesn't have access to override the location the way Bell does.

Then it turned out that there was a problem with our account; when Ian had added me to the account (during the call he made to move our services), we could no longer access it online and new services like a phone couldn't be added. Then there was a problem because the original "keep the same phone number" request was still in the system and the "issue a new number" request couldn't be completed.

Then the connection to the number allocation system went down, and then the ticket-issuing system for the Rogers guy went down, and it wound up that we couldn't have a phone until Tuesday - the same day that Bell could have given us a new phone number.

But we're sticking with Rogers because we didn't deal with any of those problems: we dealt only with our Rogers guy, who took care of all the calls, of escalating things to a manager so that they would get done, and of dealing with other departments. He kept us apprised of the current situation the whole time and stayed on top of it for us. He even gave us his cell number so that we could call him with questions. Now that's service - something that was sorely lacking in our dealings with Bell.

Now that we have a phone, I called Bell to cancel our current service and spoke with someone who was miles more helpful than either of the two people I talked to on Friday. He really wanted to keep our business and was patient with me. He also tried to find out what had happened with the original work order, and couldn't understand why things went the way they did on Friday. Apparently he's in the move service support and I talked to someone outside of that area. I suspect that if I'd talked to him on Friday, we could have had phone service over the weekend.

If that was the case, why on earth didn't either of the people I talked to suggest that I talk to someone in this department? WTF? I know that not everyone in support is that good, but I do expect them to be as helpful as possible, and to volunteer to transfer me to someone who can help me if they can't help.

I'll still be filing a complaint because of the way things were handled and the discrepancies in what I was told by the different people I talked to. I will mention that this guy was very helpful - much more so than the other two.

At least we have a phone now. I'm curious to know why things conspired to prevent us from having one until today: if and when I find out, I'll let you know. I've sent out an email with our new address and phone number - if you haven't received one or want to know where we'll be, please let me know. I've also paid to have the new number given out for six months if people call the old number (the guy I talked to today actually suggested it, even though I'm canceling service). It isn't that expensive and I figure that it's the best way to make sure that people can find us as it's going to take time to change our phone number with everyone.

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