I love the Internet! I'm so glad to work and study this field for so many reasons. It really has made publishing much more open and egalitarian. And it has finally given consumers some power when companies treat them like crap. Yes, I'm not above online revenge and it tastes sweet!
A few months ago I was moving to a new place. As everyone who has moved there is an infinite amount of work to do, and dealing with transferring one's utilities should be the least of one's challenges. Well, as I blogged about dealing with Bell Canada to get our phone, TV, and Internet hooked up was living hell - see my post Dealing with Bell Canada is Like Having Broken Glass Ground Into My Eyes.
Without exaggeration not only did Bell easily waste 40 hours of my life during an incredibly busy, stressful period while I was on hold trying to get them to hook me up, but they also treated me with an incredible amount of disrespect and unprofessionalism. Bell, it turns out uses the euphemisms of "transferring a call" to hang up on customers and "following up" as forgetting and ignoring someone in perpetuity.
Big and small companies nowadays get the power of social media and try to do some "community outreach" or rather damage control. Not Bell apparently as they seem oblivious to the power of word-of-mouth.
As I was having problem-after-mindnumbing-problem with Bell, I told them I would be blogging and tweeting about my experience and telling all my social network never to deal with Bell. My blog has some following and turns up decently on Google for key terms. Regardless, Bell should care what is being said about them online, yet at no time have they ever attempted to contact me or set things right.
So I recently checked out my blog's visitor statistics and revenge is mine! My blog posts detailing Bell's customer service crimes have generated thousands of page views!
I may have gone through hell with Bell, but if I have warned Canadians away from Bell and helped draw public attention to their despicable service then I am smuggly satisfied.
Thank you Internet!
Showing posts with label Bell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bell. Show all posts
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Dealing with Bell Canada is Like Having Broken Glass Ground Into My Eyes
I notice that Bell's Internet television service is advertised more and my blog post on it gets a fair amount of traffic. We've had Bell Fibe service for over two years now. In addition, we have our Internet, home telephone, and voicemail services. I used to also have my mobile device plan with them, but left them as soon as my contract was up due to the inflexibility of their plans, their highest in Toronto (if not all of Canada) rates, and their poor customer loyalty rewards.
Having been a Bell customer for years, I have dealt with their customer many times. For years my dealings with them were fine. I had heard that their customer service was poor, but had not encountered. I even participated in a focus group for Bell and was the only person in the panel that didn't end up using the session to gripe about the Bell's many service crimes.
It was only once we got Bell Fibe, however, that my dealings with Bell's customer service were so horrible that indeed dealing with them is like having broken glass ground into one's eye balls.
My prior blog post on Bell's Fibe TV covered how they fraudulently promised me one price for two years and then failed to honour that agreement. In my experience with Bell, they never put their pricing promises in writing, so even though I had notes on their promises they refused to honour them. They did, however, offer me a new (much less good) deal, so I stuck with Bell.
I also had problems with the Bell Fibe remote which has never worked properly. After 3 calls to customer service to try and get it working and no resolution, I finally gave up on this comparatively minor issue.
But my dealings over the past few months are so horrible that I truly believe there couldn't possibly be a company with worst customer service in Canada than Bell.
When we moved homes recently, we simply wanted to transfer our services from one place to the next. I've done this in the past and I'm sure Bell must encounter this daily, yet it seemed just too much for Bell.
I'll shorten the epic horrible saga of my Bell woes. Granted, our home had some
unique challenges (as every home must) but really nothing that should have provoked such an ordeal.
To condense the problems, we had to have Bell crews come to our house four or five times. In almost every case, they didn't come at the time they said they would (earlier or later) even though they give themselves a big hours-long window. Almost every technician had something different to say and none of them followed up on their promises to connect our service.
So this required me to call endless times to try and get our service up. I had to call at least 1-3 times every single day for 2 straight weeks. Each call took anywhere from half and hour to 3 hours.
Almost every single would be transferred. Every time a call was transferred, the person transferring me would not inform the person whom I was being transferred to of my situation, so I would have to repeat my story. Apparently, Bell is not capable with all their apparent technology and significant employees numbers, to able customer information into a computer file either as every other company in most of the Western world has been able to do for about 30 years now.
Also Bell, once a leader in telephone services, seems to not be able to put people on hold or transfer calls without disconnecting. It happened so many times that Bell's customer service agents would hang up on me that I made the agents promise me that they wouldn't do this again. Another promise, of many, that Bell didn't keep.
Considering that vast amount of time it takes to get a hold of anyone that has a remote clue on what to do, getting disconnected is not only incredibly rude but wastes even more of my time. But truly, unless they were hanging up on me on purpose rather than dealing with my case (a distinct possibly) it means that Bell hasn't perfected the technology handling telephone calls. Rather unbelievable but from my experience a daily occurrence.
Escalating problems to managers did no better. Although they would claim to solve my problem and to follow-up on my behalf - they dropped the ball just as much as their call-centre employees. They were just more conciliatory in tone.
After an incredible amount of frustration, we finally got one very-nice and intelligent service agent that solved most of our problems rather quickly. We also got a manager that did give us a small rebate as a gesture of their many errors.
The Bell Fibe service, although expensive, is rather good. It does can out for hours at a time every couple months or so. But otherwise, it is a cool service.
Considering the living hell Bell put me through over months (and this is a condensed account) however, I can't wait to switch to another service. But I have heard that the only alternative available, Rogers, isn't much better.
I'd love to hear from anyone that has advice on television, Internet, and home telephone service that offers comparable products and at least slightly less horrendous and disdainful customer service...
Having been a Bell customer for years, I have dealt with their customer many times. For years my dealings with them were fine. I had heard that their customer service was poor, but had not encountered. I even participated in a focus group for Bell and was the only person in the panel that didn't end up using the session to gripe about the Bell's many service crimes.
It was only once we got Bell Fibe, however, that my dealings with Bell's customer service were so horrible that indeed dealing with them is like having broken glass ground into one's eye balls.
My prior blog post on Bell's Fibe TV covered how they fraudulently promised me one price for two years and then failed to honour that agreement. In my experience with Bell, they never put their pricing promises in writing, so even though I had notes on their promises they refused to honour them. They did, however, offer me a new (much less good) deal, so I stuck with Bell.
I also had problems with the Bell Fibe remote which has never worked properly. After 3 calls to customer service to try and get it working and no resolution, I finally gave up on this comparatively minor issue.
But my dealings over the past few months are so horrible that I truly believe there couldn't possibly be a company with worst customer service in Canada than Bell.
When we moved homes recently, we simply wanted to transfer our services from one place to the next. I've done this in the past and I'm sure Bell must encounter this daily, yet it seemed just too much for Bell.
I'll shorten the epic horrible saga of my Bell woes. Granted, our home had some
unique challenges (as every home must) but really nothing that should have provoked such an ordeal.
To condense the problems, we had to have Bell crews come to our house four or five times. In almost every case, they didn't come at the time they said they would (earlier or later) even though they give themselves a big hours-long window. Almost every technician had something different to say and none of them followed up on their promises to connect our service.
So this required me to call endless times to try and get our service up. I had to call at least 1-3 times every single day for 2 straight weeks. Each call took anywhere from half and hour to 3 hours.
Almost every single would be transferred. Every time a call was transferred, the person transferring me would not inform the person whom I was being transferred to of my situation, so I would have to repeat my story. Apparently, Bell is not capable with all their apparent technology and significant employees numbers, to able customer information into a computer file either as every other company in most of the Western world has been able to do for about 30 years now.
Also Bell, once a leader in telephone services, seems to not be able to put people on hold or transfer calls without disconnecting. It happened so many times that Bell's customer service agents would hang up on me that I made the agents promise me that they wouldn't do this again. Another promise, of many, that Bell didn't keep.
Considering that vast amount of time it takes to get a hold of anyone that has a remote clue on what to do, getting disconnected is not only incredibly rude but wastes even more of my time. But truly, unless they were hanging up on me on purpose rather than dealing with my case (a distinct possibly) it means that Bell hasn't perfected the technology handling telephone calls. Rather unbelievable but from my experience a daily occurrence.
Escalating problems to managers did no better. Although they would claim to solve my problem and to follow-up on my behalf - they dropped the ball just as much as their call-centre employees. They were just more conciliatory in tone.
After an incredible amount of frustration, we finally got one very-nice and intelligent service agent that solved most of our problems rather quickly. We also got a manager that did give us a small rebate as a gesture of their many errors.
The Bell Fibe service, although expensive, is rather good. It does can out for hours at a time every couple months or so. But otherwise, it is a cool service.
Considering the living hell Bell put me through over months (and this is a condensed account) however, I can't wait to switch to another service. But I have heard that the only alternative available, Rogers, isn't much better.
I'd love to hear from anyone that has advice on television, Internet, and home telephone service that offers comparable products and at least slightly less horrendous and disdainful customer service...
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Need Advice on Which Smartphone to Get
Last month, after three long years, my smartphone contract with Bell finally expired!
This contract had me locked away from the exciting developments in the mobile device market. Although not completely cloistered and clueless, I really need help in choosing my next device and carrier.
Device
I had a BlackBerry Curve for the last three years. Although it served me well and I love its keyboard, I have found that accessing apps is often difficult with BlackBerry. As a mobile researcher, I need timely access to the popular and cutting-edge apps, so as reluctant as I am to not buy a Canadian company's product, I will not be going with BlackBerry.
I'm not an Apple fan for various reasons, so those devices are out. Even though I've heard positive reviews of Microsoft's mobiles, I'm not convinced. So that practically leaves only Android phones.
I like the more open ecosystem of Android and the large number of apps on the platform. What do you think, is Android the way to go?
I also don't have a tablet or netbook. I really like something highly portable so I'm not keen on those devices, but the new superphones seems to be a compromise between portability and decent screen size. I am worried that superphones won't fit in my pocket as that's where I always carry my device (if I need to carry the phone separately or in a knapsack, I'm not apt to always carry it with me).
I was drooling over the Samsung Galaxy in a store. Any one have any experience with this - caveats or concerns?
Carrier
I will never lock in again! I hate long-term contracts, so I won't deal with any carriers that don't offer a no-contract option.
My dealings with Bell's customer service have never been great and recently it has been horrible (it took 5 technicians visiting and over 12 hours on the phone over 3 weeks to get Bell to hook up my Internet access, telephone, and Bell Fibe tv). Dealing with Bell was like having glass ground into my eyeballs. Their customer loyalty is also non-existence, so I'm eager to leave them behind.
I checked out prices and options and Wind Mobile seems to be the best. But I heard their network coverage is only good in major cities and even then conks out. Any one have any advice on Wind Mobile or other carriers to consider?
I'm presenting at the ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science & Technology) conference at the end of the month on my research on location-based services on mobile devices. I'd love to show up with the best new device so I greatly appreciate any help that will make it less difficult to get my next (heavenly) device.
This contract had me locked away from the exciting developments in the mobile device market. Although not completely cloistered and clueless, I really need help in choosing my next device and carrier.
Device
I had a BlackBerry Curve for the last three years. Although it served me well and I love its keyboard, I have found that accessing apps is often difficult with BlackBerry. As a mobile researcher, I need timely access to the popular and cutting-edge apps, so as reluctant as I am to not buy a Canadian company's product, I will not be going with BlackBerry.
I'm not an Apple fan for various reasons, so those devices are out. Even though I've heard positive reviews of Microsoft's mobiles, I'm not convinced. So that practically leaves only Android phones.
I like the more open ecosystem of Android and the large number of apps on the platform. What do you think, is Android the way to go?
I also don't have a tablet or netbook. I really like something highly portable so I'm not keen on those devices, but the new superphones seems to be a compromise between portability and decent screen size. I am worried that superphones won't fit in my pocket as that's where I always carry my device (if I need to carry the phone separately or in a knapsack, I'm not apt to always carry it with me).
I was drooling over the Samsung Galaxy in a store. Any one have any experience with this - caveats or concerns?
Carrier
I will never lock in again! I hate long-term contracts, so I won't deal with any carriers that don't offer a no-contract option.
My dealings with Bell's customer service have never been great and recently it has been horrible (it took 5 technicians visiting and over 12 hours on the phone over 3 weeks to get Bell to hook up my Internet access, telephone, and Bell Fibe tv). Dealing with Bell was like having glass ground into my eyeballs. Their customer loyalty is also non-existence, so I'm eager to leave them behind.
I checked out prices and options and Wind Mobile seems to be the best. But I heard their network coverage is only good in major cities and even then conks out. Any one have any advice on Wind Mobile or other carriers to consider?
I'm presenting at the ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science & Technology) conference at the end of the month on my research on location-based services on mobile devices. I'd love to show up with the best new device so I greatly appreciate any help that will make it less difficult to get my next (heavenly) device.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
IPTV - My Experience with Bell Fibe
Over a year ago, we signed up for Bell's Internet TV service (IPTV), Bell Fibe. Judging from my blog stats the post I wrote on it last year was rather popular. Bell has certainly been marketing the service more lately.
Since last year, there's been improvements to the service and my experience with customer service has changed, so I thought I'd update the post.
First, Bell promised me two years of free PVR and two TV receivers, but then after one year renegged on this after one year. Of course, Bell doesn't put anything in writing, but I have notes from my conversations. After endless calls to Bell's customer service which is extremely painful in how unhelpful they are (this comic describes the pain of dealing with Bell's customer service perfectly), they offerred me a pretty good deal going forward, but refused to rebate me the fees I feel they fraudulently charged me. Rather incurring more pain in dealing with them, I accepted their offer. But, once my various contracts are up, I'm switching providers based entirely on this treatment.
Fall 2012 Update: I had more problems with Bell's customer's service when we moved and tried to get Bell Fibe at our new place. Without exaggeration, Bell's customer service is the worst I have ever dealt with. Please see my updated blog post on Bell's bad customer service before considering Bell.
Signal Quality
Since we signed up there has been occasional buggy or down reception. I would say that this is happening less frequently over the past few months. It is rare that the service is down for more than an hour and very rare for it to be down a few hours, but it has happened at least a couple times in the last year. I have never got a rebate or any sort of proactive notice from Bell when the interruptions are more lengthy outages.
Search & Guide
Users can search by program or actor up to two weeks in advance. At first, I thought this was great, but it doesn't take long to get to know when and which network a fav show is on. It was more useful when we had a free trial with a gazillion channels as I could quickly find Xena playing somewhere at any given moment. A serious flaw, however, is that the actor info for shows only lists up to four actors. And the actors listed may not necessarily be the leads or stars. Frankly stars are the only ones who anyone would search for, so this often negates the value of this feature.
Their tv guide feature seems standard to all tv services now. Listings include title, plot synopsis, date of production, rating, and cast. Similar to the search feature the few actors listed are not necessarily the stars and could unknowns playing bit roles. They have a genre search (e.g. news channels, family, movies, sports, etc.) which makes it easier to browse similar channel offerings, which is nice but is probably more useful for new customers or house guests.
The guide allows one to add and then browse by favourites. A feature they don't have that I have seen and like is colour coding of channels based on channels one gets and doesn't. We have to manually remove the channels we don't get up from our guide, but this means they don't show up at all so we don't know when a channel is offering a free preview.
Split-screens
I like the ability to have the main screen stay open and have another mini-screen appear on the bottom. Also, one can browse the guide and see a mini-screen of a channel without actually having to go to that channel. I'm not sure if these features are standard on other services but they are definitely great for channel surfers such as myself.
Family friendly
I'm not sure if satellite or cable offer this feature, but I really like Bell Fibe's parental controls. I can quickly set the tv to block my kid from seeing inappropriate stuff while we channel surf. The blocking is based on ratings, however, so they are not foolproof. We can easily unlock by show or for a block of hours by entering our four digit passcode. It also blocks the pay-per-view and video-on-demand service, which is great as my 7-year-old already knows how to pull these up and is enthralled by them.
At Christmas for the past couple years, Bell special channel with games, music, countdown, and links to holiday programs. We loved this, but they haven't had anything else like it subsequently.
Price
Bell Fibe's pricing structures does not appear to be significantly different than other services. One cannot completely custom order channels despite Bell's claims of this. One has to get a certain high and expensive tiered service before being able to order a-la-carte. Their channel packages, as with other services, are ridiculously expensive and bundle a ton of crap with a few good channels. Video-on-demand is also expensive at $8-7 for new releases and $5 for really old movies. Their VOD offerings, and preview functionality, works great.
On Demand TV
They have a lot of TV shows available to view on demand. Great for when we forgot to PVR them.
Special applications
Since we have had the service, Bell has been rolling out more Internet-enabled features. One can program their PVR via the Internet or mobile device - great in theory, but I can't imagine a urgent need to suddenly and unexpectedly need to record something.
I like their web apps. Facebook and Twitter apps are a fun way to share what you're watching and provide commentary. As I post my photos to Facebook, I really like using this app to provide a quick and easy slideshow. The Weather Network app is also handy, as it quickly pulls up a full local forecast as well other weather info.
PVR
As an introductory offer, I'm getting a PVR for free for 3 years. The PVR has been amazing - and has been the real game-changer for how we experience television. Bell Fibe's service integrates really well with the PVR and all the tvs in the house. As Bell states "set, playback, manage your recordings and pause and rewind live TV from any TV in your home" - this is easy and well-used in our house.
I don't have extensive experience with cable or satellite options, so overall to me the determining factor on whether or not I'd renew my service is price. But as Bell continues to roll out more apps and web-enabled features this may prove a determining factor for me in the future. I'll keep you posted.
Since last year, there's been improvements to the service and my experience with customer service has changed, so I thought I'd update the post.
First, Bell promised me two years of free PVR and two TV receivers, but then after one year renegged on this after one year. Of course, Bell doesn't put anything in writing, but I have notes from my conversations. After endless calls to Bell's customer service which is extremely painful in how unhelpful they are (this comic describes the pain of dealing with Bell's customer service perfectly), they offerred me a pretty good deal going forward, but refused to rebate me the fees I feel they fraudulently charged me. Rather incurring more pain in dealing with them, I accepted their offer. But, once my various contracts are up, I'm switching providers based entirely on this treatment.
Fall 2012 Update: I had more problems with Bell's customer's service when we moved and tried to get Bell Fibe at our new place. Without exaggeration, Bell's customer service is the worst I have ever dealt with. Please see my updated blog post on Bell's bad customer service before considering Bell.
Signal Quality
Since we signed up there has been occasional buggy or down reception. I would say that this is happening less frequently over the past few months. It is rare that the service is down for more than an hour and very rare for it to be down a few hours, but it has happened at least a couple times in the last year. I have never got a rebate or any sort of proactive notice from Bell when the interruptions are more lengthy outages.
Search & Guide
Users can search by program or actor up to two weeks in advance. At first, I thought this was great, but it doesn't take long to get to know when and which network a fav show is on. It was more useful when we had a free trial with a gazillion channels as I could quickly find Xena playing somewhere at any given moment. A serious flaw, however, is that the actor info for shows only lists up to four actors. And the actors listed may not necessarily be the leads or stars. Frankly stars are the only ones who anyone would search for, so this often negates the value of this feature.
Their tv guide feature seems standard to all tv services now. Listings include title, plot synopsis, date of production, rating, and cast. Similar to the search feature the few actors listed are not necessarily the stars and could unknowns playing bit roles. They have a genre search (e.g. news channels, family, movies, sports, etc.) which makes it easier to browse similar channel offerings, which is nice but is probably more useful for new customers or house guests.
The guide allows one to add and then browse by favourites. A feature they don't have that I have seen and like is colour coding of channels based on channels one gets and doesn't. We have to manually remove the channels we don't get up from our guide, but this means they don't show up at all so we don't know when a channel is offering a free preview.
Split-screens
I like the ability to have the main screen stay open and have another mini-screen appear on the bottom. Also, one can browse the guide and see a mini-screen of a channel without actually having to go to that channel. I'm not sure if these features are standard on other services but they are definitely great for channel surfers such as myself.
Family friendly
I'm not sure if satellite or cable offer this feature, but I really like Bell Fibe's parental controls. I can quickly set the tv to block my kid from seeing inappropriate stuff while we channel surf. The blocking is based on ratings, however, so they are not foolproof. We can easily unlock by show or for a block of hours by entering our four digit passcode. It also blocks the pay-per-view and video-on-demand service, which is great as my 7-year-old already knows how to pull these up and is enthralled by them.
At Christmas for the past couple years, Bell special channel with games, music, countdown, and links to holiday programs. We loved this, but they haven't had anything else like it subsequently.
Price
Bell Fibe's pricing structures does not appear to be significantly different than other services. One cannot completely custom order channels despite Bell's claims of this. One has to get a certain high and expensive tiered service before being able to order a-la-carte. Their channel packages, as with other services, are ridiculously expensive and bundle a ton of crap with a few good channels. Video-on-demand is also expensive at $8-7 for new releases and $5 for really old movies. Their VOD offerings, and preview functionality, works great.
On Demand TV
They have a lot of TV shows available to view on demand. Great for when we forgot to PVR them.
Special applications
Since we have had the service, Bell has been rolling out more Internet-enabled features. One can program their PVR via the Internet or mobile device - great in theory, but I can't imagine a urgent need to suddenly and unexpectedly need to record something.
I like their web apps. Facebook and Twitter apps are a fun way to share what you're watching and provide commentary. As I post my photos to Facebook, I really like using this app to provide a quick and easy slideshow. The Weather Network app is also handy, as it quickly pulls up a full local forecast as well other weather info.
PVR
As an introductory offer, I'm getting a PVR for free for 3 years. The PVR has been amazing - and has been the real game-changer for how we experience television. Bell Fibe's service integrates really well with the PVR and all the tvs in the house. As Bell states "set, playback, manage your recordings and pause and rewind live TV from any TV in your home" - this is easy and well-used in our house.
I don't have extensive experience with cable or satellite options, so overall to me the determining factor on whether or not I'd renew my service is price. But as Bell continues to roll out more apps and web-enabled features this may prove a determining factor for me in the future. I'll keep you posted.
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