Industry Forums > Wireless Service Providers > Informing customers of upgrades and temporary outages

Informing customers of upgrades and temporary outages

We try to alert anyone with an email at least 24 hours in advance. If they call us, we gently remind them that they should be checking the email account that they have on file for us. If they complain that they don't check their email every day, we just let them know that quite often the upgrades can't be scheduled very far in advance and that we simply can't give every customer a phone call since that would usually take far more time than the upgrade itself. We do call a few critical business accounts (the local grocery store or Subway are a few examples since they use it for credit card processing and can usually initiate a dial-up backup system if needed). Other than that, they just have to deal with it and we get the work done as quickly as possible and it has never been a major problem for us. Most people who are frustrated can usually be talked off of the ledge fairly easily.

reply to Jim_in_VA
Email in advance.

In case of emergency or unplanned problems a voice message letting people know what's going on goes up on the asterisk toll free line and will only be played to people once they enter their account number. They will continue to get forwarded to support if they stay on the line but the majority of people hear the message, and then hang up. It's really easy to see in the call logs how long someone hangs on the line before disconnecting.

Also works well for people who have a problem with their routers. They call the support number and enter their account number and if there's no ping response from their SM then we let them know that our unit is not responding with the tower and to check the power connections and cables running into the house. Otherwise stay on the line for help. If the unit is responding then a different message is played saying that their modem is responding and communicating with the towers and to reboot their router and check local connections.

This has cut down on the wide majority of support calls. Especially during outages.

reply to Jim_in_VA
I feel like this question is to solicit answers from us so the OP can run back to his WISP and bitch about the way things should be done. I'm not going to enable any customer of a WISP to do that.

reply to Jim_in_VA
I usually don't. The time it takes for the upgrades to take place is far less than letting everyone know about it. If there's an outage, i'll change my voice mail.

I have recently thought twitter would be a good way of doing things tho

reply to Jim_in_VA
Make a maintenance calendar with google calendar and embed it on your website somewhere. Also, email.

reply to Jim_in_VA
For planned outages I keep it simple.

I maintain email distribution lists for subscribers of each access point, and also aggregate those into distribution lists for a tower site (if the outage will impact an entire tower).

Takes about 60 seconds to notify everyone at once, and I try to do this at least 24 hours in advance.

If the work can be done late at night then I get up at 0 dark thirty when most users are sacked out.

Jim, you ask a LOT of questions but they don't sound like you run a WISP. Are you creating surveys? j/k.

reply to jcremin
Talked off the ledge. I LOVE that phrase.

reply to jim_p_price7
I represent a mobile broadband MVNO in my area. I am not a WISP in the sense that I have a fixed wireless operation. I do however provide a wireless internet connection that is far superior to what Verizon or Sprint can offer directly.

The questions I ask are to forge a dialogue between WISP's wherein the replies often are ideas and suggestions that have not been thought of before. Sharing issues and solving problems is a good thing.
--
... need help? »evdo-tips.com/

reply to Jim_in_VA
What MVNO specifically?

Millenicom.com
--
... need help? »evdo-tips.com/

reply to Jim_in_VA
You represent Millenicom in an official capacity?

you are way off topic ... you're conspiracy theory's are becoming legendary ... "wirelessdog"
--
... need help? »evdo-tips.com/

reply to Jim_in_VA
I'll take that as a no. Just another disgruntled WISP customer.

reply to Jim_in_VA
As a customer of a WISP that uses it to work from home (I told my WISP when I joined), my biggest complaint has always been not being informed that there will be work done on the network on certain days. How long does it take to send out a blast email that just states work is scheduled for these days.

For a while, I had the option of driving to town (only 35 miles) and work from there if the network was going to be up/down during the day. Now my option is to drive 150 miles to the office.

Having to tell my boss that I can't work today since I don't have a 'net connection is bad for everyone. If I don't have a job, I sure won't be spending $85/month on my internet connection.

I have since added Millenicom as a backup connection but switching networks is murder on active vpn and voip connections. If I knew there was going to be work going on I'd just switch my connection in the morning and not use my WISP for the day(s) work is scheduled.

On a similar subject, If there are known issues happening (backhaul issues etc), an email stating such would be helpful. It would sure cut down on people calling/emailing you saying their connection is unstable.

I would at least expect that type of behavior for a business connection.

~Mark

I see your points, and they make sense.

I like the idea of a message on the tech line. That is what the power company around here does when they are having any issues. It at least lets you know they are aware of the issue.

I guess I'm not in the norm since my email is checked many times every day and I still get it if my WISP and backup connection are down.

I did convince my employer to use this WISP as the network for the demo room, until they closed that office. We got it as a business connection (Paid the business price) but we didn't get any notifications about upgrades/issues. We got lucky that none of the down times happened when sales was trying to demo software/hardware. I kept a streaming radio station running on 1 machine on that network so I would know if it went down or was having issues since we were not getting notified.

I just wanted to throw in my .02 as a WISP customer. I'm a software developer and understand that I am not my own customer. I figure that works in the WISP world and many others. You just don't know what the people on the other side are thinking..

Either way.. I can't imagine trying to keep a WISP running.. From my emails and talking to the owner of the WISP I'm using I can tell its not all fun and games. Its a lot of stuff to keep aligned and quite a bit that is out of your control.

~Mark

reply to wirelessdog
I have known the owner of the local wisp for over a decade, we are friends. I send him customers he can reach and he sends me customers he can't reach. It is not a competition ... its serving our small community. I am NOT a official of Millenicom in any way, I simply offer their service and make the connection for them. I am in no-way a "disgruntled" Wisp user ...my connection is just fine.

Back to topic, I asked the question to provide my local wisp, and friend, a way to contact customers when there is a upgrade or outage. Many of you provided how you do it. That is very useful information.

Wirelessdog on the other hand takes it as an opportunity to attack my question , his comments are not relevant to the topic and I feel his comments are a personal attack.

reply to Jim_in_VA

"I asked the question to provide my local wisp"