A TIP WHEN NEEDING AT&T REPAIR SERVICE

Last Thursday evening, after AT&T men had been working all day in a hole in the ground outside our middle building, I found that neither my landline (AT&T) phone nor my Internet service was working. Friday morning I checked my latest AT&T bill for the Repair number and found it had changed from the old 611 to 1-877-737-2478. I called the 877 number from my cell phone and got a machine. Service would be restored by Monday, I was told. That seemed like a long time, especially when I was 90 percent sure the problem had been caused by the men in the “pit” not having reconnected the wires correctly. I wanted to speak to a live person but couldn’t, or I didn’t know how.

The repairman came on out Saturday afternoon, which was a pleasant surprise, and he could not have been nicer. The problem had been with the men working in the pit, and he set it right. I told him what had frustrated me, he empathized, and he said what you need to do at the prompts is press ZERO, and if necessary keep pressing ZERO. I had forgotten about that little trick. Dialing ZERO, he said, will get you a live person. Of course the AT&T “robot” will not tell you that.

Being unable, or having it be very difficult, to get a live person on the line, is very frustrating to me. I remember the days when your place of business could have the phone company visit your business and teach the employees how to answer the phone courteously and competently. Now, it seems to me, AT&T is one of the worst OFFENDERS in helping people with a phone (or Internet) problem. I got a call today (another robot) asking me for feedback on the resolution of my phone problem, but all they wanted to know was how the TECHNICIAN did. Well, he did fine (and I said so). It was their robotic answering service that I hated, but I had only 30 seconds to describe that, and then “click,”my response opportunity was ended.

Oh, for the good old days!