{I’m a letter writer. I wrote a letter to that guy who burned the Quran in Florida.  I wrote a letter to Chex Mix and told them that they should make a bag of just the squares. I wrote a letter to an evangelist who came to A&M whose website says that we should be afraid of our Muslim neighbors, WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.  The last letter I wrote was an unpublished letter to Kidd Kraddick about his total ignorance of domestic violence issues. Here’s a letter that I will be mailing shortly to AT&T.)

August 24, 2011

Dear AT&T Customer Service-

I don’t even know where to begin. For starters, I’m well aware that this letter will probably be tossed in the trash before it’s even read because I don’t get the sense at all that you care about customer service, and thus, you could care less about how to improve it. You tell me (while I’m waiting a good 45 minutes to speak to a real person) that my call is important to you but I just don’t buy it.

Here’s what happened. We had Uverse internet at our old apartment. We loved it. The service was great and  when it wasn’t working, you had someone out to our house to fix it in an appropriate period of time. When we moved, we thought we would just continue on with our excellent service.  Guess what? That didn’t happen.

You didn’t show up to the appointment that you had called to remind us about. Since we prefer to do business with companies where the customer is a priority, we tried to cancel our account that weekend, but of course, your cancellation department isn’t open on the weekends. So, I called on Monday and canceled. Well, you canceled the wrong account and screwed up our ability to pay our phone bill online. Another phone call to your really convoluted computerized answering service, being transferred around to different departments until we get to a department that is “currently closed”, and then having to start all over again made this process more than frustrating.  

Keep in mind that we now plan, realistically, to spend at least 45 minutes waiting to speak to an actual person and about fifty percent of the time we are transferred to someone else to begin the waiting process all over again.  It’s really great. I mean, who needs free time when I can listen to your piano and oboe muzak for an hour out of my day? My husband and I plan an evening at least once a week where we can sit together with the phone on speaker while we hold hands and stare at each other over candlelight. It’s just so romantic.

Well, guess what, AT&T? After being assured that we would never ever have to call you again, you’ve sent us a bill for a service that we never had. I’m so excited that I AGAIN get to sit here and listen to you tell me how important my call is and how my satisfaction is very important to you.  I called the number that you told me to on the bill, had to wait, spoke to a person who gave me a different number to Uverse billing that probably should have been on the bill (you know, since the piece of mail we received was a Uverse bill.)

I talked to an excellent agent, Diane, who took care of my issues and assured me that the problem had been taken care of. When I asked to speak to her supervisor so that I could brag on her, she instead transferred me to your Commendation line, where I could leave a message saying how satisfied I was with her (not you, silly AT&T). But alas, the voicemail on the Commendation line was full and so I couldn’t leave a message to compliment one of your customer service agents who is actually doing her job right.  

Isn’t that just how it goes?

Xoxo,

Beth Wise

PS- I have enclosed a copy of the bill, which has been taken care of, and I would like to give Diane in the Uverse billing department the credit for that.