you really don't want to know

After searching high and low for a new apartment, I settled on a place that — as luck would have it — didn’t offer Comcast as an option for TV service, or for high-speed internet. DirecTV was the only available TV service, and the building is already wired for it.

But here’s the thing: even though I was raised on mass quantities of TV and movies on cable, I haven’t been “a TV-watcher” for the better part of a decade. I go to movie theaters when I can, and I occasionally flip on the TV for something specific. But I’m not a channel-surfer, I don’t have any specific shows that I MUST be at home to watch, and I generally only watch a TV series when it’s available on DVD.

But I’m recently single, after a long-term relationship didn’t work out the way I had hoped. There’s a lot of silence and empty space, and I figured I might want to sign up for TV service before I drive myself completely mad. Sure, there’s a bunch of crap on TV, but I figured I could find the diamonds in the rough, and make do.

So, I called DirecTV to talk to someone about it. And talk we did, for about ½-hour. The prices seemed higher than I liked (especially since HD service is $10 more per month, and isn’t mentioned until you start the process of signup). But I decided to go for it, and take the deal they were offering. The woman who walked me through it told me there was a 12-month commitment, but that I could cancel my service within two weeks of activation, paying only for what I’d used. Well, I thought, at least there’s that. Odds are, I figured, I’ll just enjoy the service, and that’ll be that.

Of course, after speaking to the DTV rep for ½-hour, she told me (after beginning the sign-up process) that I had to call my local provider, Consolidated Smart Systems, to create my new account. Grand. I did so.

Cut to one week later, and  I’m really disappointed at the preponderance of complete dreck that’s on all 200 channels. I like movies, I like high-quality TV shows, I like comedy…but, in one week, I wasn’t able to find enough of any of it to justify the monthly cost.

So, I did what any right-thinking individual would do: I called Consolidated Smart Systems to cancel my service. And then, I called DirecTV, since Consolidated Smart Systems is apparently unable to handle cancellations. After a handful of infuriating voice-activated prompts, I got to a DTV rep. She had a thick accent, and seemed to have no earthly idea how to wrap her head around the notion that anyone in this world would be disappointed with 200 channels of pure HD bliss. I explained to her that it turns out I’m not much of a TV person, and that the service (while exactly what I was promised, and worked just fine) was a bad fit for me. Now, I’m not exaggerating when I say she couldn’t understand. She responded as if I hadn’t spoken. She read from scripts. She offered little discounts. When that didn’t work, she told me that she could cancel my service, but I would be responsible for a cancellation fee of $20 per month, for the rest of my 12-month commitment.

“What?”

I related to her that I was told I could cancel my service within two weeks, and I’d only be billed for the service that I had used. Her response was that, no, I had only 24 hours to review the service after activation. Of course, I started to get irritated, and told her what I’d been told when I signed up. She tried offering me “deal sweeteners” again. I asked to speak to a supervisor.

Now, when I ask to speak to a supervisor, it doesn’t bother me when someone asks “why?”. My response was honest: “Because I don’t believe that you and I are understanding one another. You’re doing a good job of trying to offer me things to retain me as a customer, but this is a service that doesn’t work for me, and I need to cancel it, and I need someone to honor what I was told when I signed up.” But, even with this explanation, she refused to transfer me to a supervisor, telling me that I had not given her a reason. It took another five minutes to convince her to transfer me

I was placed on hold for another 15 minutes, and someone on their end dropped the call, presumably when trying to pick up. Now, I’m a guy who understands one very important thing about customer service: you’re not gonna get anywhere if you’re a belligerent asshole. But, at this point, my composure was waning.

I called back, and spoke to a nice, well-intentioned — albeit very young and inarticulate — dude who, again, tried to offer me deal-sweeteners to keep me on-board. I told him I’d already explained my situation to a previous CS rep, and that I’d been hung up on (or accidentally disconnected) while being transferred to a supervisor. So, I asked him to transfer me as well. He did, and was reassuringly “shepherded” my call while performing the transfer, presumably to allay some fears. I appreciated it, and regained some faith in humanity.

The “supervisor” who picked up my call was clearly under 20 years of age, was definitely chewing gum, and — if I were to hazard guess — was likely perturbed that her lunch break at the mall with her girlfriends had been cut short for this bullshit customer service call.

A few minutes later, she disconnected the call while I was mid-sentence. And seriously, honest to god, it wasn’t a “belligerent customer” situation. If anything, I was being way too polite. There was no reason for her to hang up on me. But the one thing I got from her during the conversation was this: the only option she was offering me was to cancel my service, take the $20/month penalty, and write a letter to the billing disputes department. I’d have to commit to ending my service, commit to paying $20/month for twelve months to even have the opportunity to dispute anything at all. That’s my recourse, I can take it or leave it.

So I called back, and I spoke to another person, and learned that each of these people work in what’s called the “Customer Retention Department.” This last guy I spoke with was very understanding, very apologetic for all I’d had to deal with, and had a very good understanding of the Golden Rule. And he gave me everything he could: the address for the billing disputes department; the badge numbers for all the CS reps I had spoken with; assurances that my letter would result in investigation and response.

Of course, I put all the information in a text file, didn’t quickly save it, and my laptop randomly shut down shortly thereafter, because the battery is (apparently) now kaput. Being busy at work, and with other things, it took me a couple days to get up the energy to call them again.

So, this is just big, big rant to say this: I can’t recall a single instance, in my life, of ever getting a desirable result from “writing a letter.” Tomorrow, I’ll boil this blog post down to a reasonably cordial letter to DirecTV. Will report back if anything ever happens. If I haven’t heard from them in a month, I’ll make a short post about it. This one’s long enough.

Tags: consolidated smart systems, directv, dtv, frustration, tv

This entry was posted on Friday, August 14th, 2009 at 8:28 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.