Two Words

Here are my two words about how NOT to run a business: Charter Communications.

There you have it. If you want to know what to do to have unhappy new customers follow the example of Charter Communications.

Since it's my blog, I will take this opportunity to vent. Feel free to just skip this post :-), but you won't be able to say I didn't warn you.

So, here you have it. We signed up with Charter about a month ago, to take advantage of some sort of deal on internet and phone service. When we signed up for service we signed up for Autopay, so they could just take the payment out of our bank account. Simple, right? WRONG! Apparently, because THEIR system can't implement Autopay for at least 30 days (or some ridiculous number like that) we are now getting nasty phone calls about not paying our bill. ???? How exactly does this work? We signed up for Autopay and your failure to get it "up and running" is somehow OUR fault, complete with late fees and all?

Now if this ridiculous situation wasn't enough, their customer service reps apparently skipped that class about the customer is always right and the one about going out of your way to help the customer. I kid you not, I had a rep tell me last night that she COULD NOT, under any circumstances deal with this account issue if I didn't provide her with the account number (she had the info on the screen in front of her, by her own admission and I had provided her with all sorts of identifying information) and the rep I talked to today managed to get right to discussing my account without even ever asking for my account number. Hmmm, how could it be impossible for the one rep. to discuss my account with me, yet the other rep. had no problem doing so?? Maybe they had a staff meeting last night :-)

So, maybe the supervisor would be more customer oriented? NO! I had a supervisor tell me today that she could not give me the phone number for their corporate offices and that I would have to look it up on-line. Oh, yeah, that's really customer service oriented...um, go do it yourself, I have it right here, but I'm not going to tell it to you.

So, my recommendation to you all is, avoid Charter like the plague, but if you have to save a little money to sign up with them, be prepared.....