comments on review of TekSavvy Cable → TekSavvy Resolution

Hi readers,

I'm sorry it took so long to update this.

On December 29th, 2012, a representative called me because he didn't want things to escalate. He read through my notes and acknowledged that everything I put on this forum and the TekSavvyDirect forum were true. Additionally, he said that I didn't even have to call during accounting hours to get my credit back, so a big thank you to the multiple reps that tried to waste my time.

As a resolution for the incompetence and poor customer treatment, I received a cheque totaling $142. Details below:
- $123.17 ($99 for the modem, $10 for original shipping, $14.17 for taxes)
- $11.30 for return shipping fee
- $7.53 for 5 days credit (original was 4 days of credit)

I really do appreciate how David (rep) handled the situation. However, I still think that TekSavvy needs to have better training for their customer service. I find it pathetic that I had to waste so much time going back and forth between different representatives and only after I resorted to letting the world know about my situation on this forum was something tangible done. Every claim I made was true as per all recorded conversations, my notes and verbal agreement on a few calls.

I ended up paying $78 for 26 days of service, which is definitely better than $220. The installation fee was not waived, even though there was a 4 day delay, but at least I was able to return my modem without the ridiculous $25 restocking fee and all my shipping fees were reimbursed.

Some advice to people who are interested in TekSavvy as their ISP:

1. The reps will be sugary sweet to you up until you make that initial bulk payment of setting everything up. You will be reassured that everything will be set up accordingly and there will be no issues, but this was not the case for me and it might not be the case for you. It appears that delays are an ongoing issue as there are multiple forum posts where people did not get their internet set up until 2 weeks later, so this is definitely something to keep in mind if access to internet for work or personal use is a must.

2. You are paying for the quality of service - bandwidth and speed, so this is the service you SHOULD be provided with. Do not rate a company high simply because they have met this expectation. TekSavvy has decent internet service but you paid for it!

3. TekSavvy is still a small company so you might have to deal with long wait times and representatives that don't really know what's going on (eg. credits don't need to be addressed with the accounting department as the rep can issue the credit).

4. Customer service needs a massive revamp as there was only one out of probably ten that I dealt with who was able to get to the root of the problem and actually resolve it. It is NOT okay to read through my notes, acknowledge that everything I said was true and then say "sorry, there really is nothing I can do. Please call back another day". You might be passed along to another rep or told to call back another day.

5. Always remember dates of calls and specific notes made! There is nothing that they can refute if all the evidence is there.

6. Do your research. Different things hold a greater value to different people. For me, I cannot stand tardiness in something as simple as setting my internet up, so this was a definitely an unattractive aspect of the ISP. I also cannot stand being mistreated for no reason. Everything I said was true, so I don't understand why it took multiple calls and posts to finally be reimbursed. If these things don't matter as much to you, then TekSavvy is a feasible choice. There are positive reviews as well, so you just need to filter through which aspects of an ISP are most important to you to make an informed decision.

Hi Annabelle,

Thank you for posting your update to your review. I am glad that David was able to get things finally resolved for you and I sincerely apologize that it took us quite some time to get to that point.

You are absolutely correct in portraying that we are not perfect. Being perfect is something we strive for but reality is that we will never be, nor will any other provider be perfect. Like all other growing companies, we will always be faced with new challenges and we aim to deal with them rapidly.

Looking further into your situation, it does seem that the majority of the delay was in fact caused by Rogers as they had submitted your order as the wrong service type. Now, I am not trying to shift blame onto them as we did also fail on your order and as your ISP, we need to take the responsibility for the entire experience, which I believe we did, however late. I can say though that we did make sure the associates that failed on our side will receive the development they deserve to ensure we can better the overall customer experience going forward.

I wanted to clarify one of your comments that “The reps will be sugary sweet to you up until you make that initial bulk payment of setting everything up.”… We certainly do not aim for things to be this way. We do not ask our associates to be extra special with new clients or with any clients for a matter of fact. We ask our associates to treat all of our customers with respect, and to do so professionally. I think it may just seem that way because your issues were post signup.

You are correct in saying our wait times are high. For a little while now, wait times have increase and a lot of this has to do with growth. We have hired many associates in efforts to deal with these but it is not until recent that we started looking at internal practices. For example, we have recently dedicated a resource just to look at improving our Technical Support processes. This body is responsible to find efficiencies within the Support/Operations group but also to make the customer experience that much better. We have also recently made changes with the associates so that they can focus on their customers, making sure that they provide their 100% attention to their caller or task. Along with better empowerment of our associates to take ownership, I strongly think that wait times will start to decrease.

At the end of the day, anyone looking for a new ISP will need to make decisions on who they will go with and with that, many people will rely on reviews, such as those found on DSLr and the experiences of their friends & family members. I hope that you can revisit TekSavvy in the future as a feasible choice for internet and by doing so, you will see that we do learn from our mistakes and we strive to make the customer experience extremely enjoyable for all.

Cheers,

Andre