said by linicx:Customer abuse, Senior abuse, and handicap customer abuse should not be TOLERATED.
Was the rep specifically abusive, or just not helpful? They're different things. Both are bad, but I think you may be amplifying the story a little bit for the sake of telling it here.
said by linicx:Then I talked to a telephone system engineer for 5 hours.
A CL employee, or just somebody who is a telephone system engineer? I can talk to Frontier employees until my face turns blue, but they can't do anything on CL's network or to CL's equipment.
said by linicx:It did not work!
I'm in tech support myself. Typically when a customer says "It doesn't work!" and that's the end of the line for them, the call is over and the customer's not going to get anything. Did the original phone rep try to ask questions about the situation? In many large companies providing such diverse services, they sort of have to dig for a little bit before a specific problem becomes apparent...
Especially if....
said by linicx:The bottom line? The modem was replaced.
Do you own the modem or does CL lease it to you? If CL leases it to you, it's their responsibility to take care of it, if you own it, then they have to take your word for it if you insist that the modem isn't broken, and it takes a truck roll with a field tech plugging in their test set or their own modem.
If I were CL, and you owned the modem and insisted that it was not your modem's fault, then I'd probably charge you the truck roll fee. If CL owned the modem and failed to see signs of it failing or agree to ship you a new one as a troubleshooting step, then they deserve to eat the truck roll fee.
said by linicx:CenturyLink needs to take a different tact with seniors and handicapped clients.
I mean, you really can also e-mail them from a mobile phone or use the chat option at a neighbor's house or public library.
said by linicx:NO CLIENT SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WAIT 8 HOURS AND WASTE NEARLY 3 HOURS ON A PHONE TO PROVE WHAT CLIENT KNOWS: IT DOES NOT WORK.
Did you tell them anything other than it doesn't work? It costs a lot for CL to do a truck roll, and typically there's a queue for such a thing. If CL can avoid a support truck roll, that field tech or installer can provision a new customer or maintain lines, and if you work with the agent on the line, it's often true that they can get the problem solved for you more quickly anyway.
Support necessarily consists more of you calling and saying "It doesn't work" and them having an immediate fix. I guess if you want to pay the truck roll fee, you could just ask for a truck roll to save you the phone time.
said by linicx:CenturyLink can do better and they do, but only when prodded. Hopefully my experience will prod them.
I'll never disagree that an organization or company can improve their support. Even at a 100% satisfaction rate (I work on a desk with something like a 92 or 96% satisfaction rate, waaaaay above the industry standard), there's other things that the team can do to increase efficiency and that the overall organization can do to improve.
At the end of the day, and the post, an e-mail to talktous or to the CEO's e-mail address may be a better place than here. This group is inevitably going to have our own conceptions about tech support, and as somebody who works tech support, mine are that it sounds like you were unwilling to work with the agent from the start. It's impossible for me to know for sure, but nothing you wrote makes me feel like you were interested in working with the agent from the start.
Anyway, my actual advice is to e-mail talktous@centurylink.com or glen.post@centurylink.com with this information.
Unrelatedly, I've had good experiences every single time I have spoken with CenturyLink on the phone.