Dealing With Customer Support

Published by Shawn Wilson in VOIP, 1 month 3 weeks 2 days 33 minutes 1 second ago

Most people tense up or groan when the here anything like this. I want to explain a recent episode I had to deal with. First off when it comes to technology I am probably in the top 10%, this is what I do all day long and while I don't work for an ISP it's something I generally understand.

This all started when my voice over IP service stopped working. To explain in detail my VOIP service is separate from my ISP and this is partly the problem. It's always easier to deal with one company except in this case the VOIP service is quite a bit cheaper with the separate company.

What makes things confusing for most is the setup. I like most people that have hi speed internet run a router in my house. With most VOIP systems you are required to install the VOIP box in between the modem and the router. What causes the issue is that sometimes it's difficult for the router to find an IP address when trying to go through the VOIP box. Confused yet?

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Here is where things took a turn for the worse, the company that provides the VOIP service has now determined that the box is defective. So great, now I have to wait for another box to come through and our family doesn't have a home phone line! The frustrating part is now that the VOIP unit is no longer a part of my set up for some reason the router can't see the IP address the modem is trying to give it. After talking with my internet service provider for almost 30 minutes and of course talking again with my VOIP service for 1.5 hours neither of them can figure out the problem.

Now I have the luxury of talking with the router company. First off any consumer product that you purchase generally comes with some of the worst customer service out there, this has at least been my experience. I had a friend find the number for my router company online because of course mine wasn't working and here is the next step in this amazingly wasted afternoon!

I called the first time and they asked for every darn number you can imagine. Serial number, home number address, the store I bought it from and then they asked what day I purchased it. First off most guys have a hard time remembering their anniversary. The day I purchased my router doesn't exactly stick out!

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I had to call them back a second time and lie about the day I purchased it just so someone would talk to me. While I was talking with the first customer service agent our line was disconnected! After a couple of deep breathes I called them back. From the moment the gal I was talking to I realized she didn't know what she was doing, not enough training and then asked to take calls. This is not your normal router issue either. I finally gave up and waited until the next morning.

I decided to call the router company again and was greeted by another gal who had a confident reassurance about her. I realized quickly she was going to fix the problem. In the end there is a small setting called an MTU and my internet service provider sometimes requires that this number be dropped from the usual 1500 it is set at.

Imagine this my internet service provider wasn't able to fix the problem that they themselves have issued bulletins to router companies to try and fix problems like this. In the end it was a string of bad luck, my internet is running again and all is good.

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