New Charter Direct Support Forum Launched

I'd almost have to say I was part of that when I called some lady in one of the Carolina's about the cap issue. When I mentioned I heard about it here at dslr, she flipped! Started asking me all kinds of questions.

Was discussed some here, »[HSI] Charter's New Caps Policy

Pretty sure it's rather because of the thread below to be able to assist Charter customers on a more private platform, avoiding a massive amount of private messages (PMs) through the forum. It's a pretty good idea and definitely seems easier to handle for them, considering privacy, different markets, etc.

»had 2mb upload for a week then it was gone

Like to see this sort of stuff happen here for increased support. Nice work.

Obviously the forum has already filed for bankruptcy noting the lack of techs and topics.

/joking

The direct forum has actually been in the works for some time and the great people here at DSL Reports were a big part of making this happen and we thank them for that. We are very excited that it is now active as this will help us to work better as a team (since IM's only go to one of us at a time), give a more direct line of communication for those needing assistance, and help us to identify issue patterns and/or area wide problems.

Also there are no topics yet because it was JUST launched and no one has entered any

I know, it was a joke. Granted I don't use charter (my mother-in-law does) I'm glad to see the company actually doing something to better themselves and their image as well as their customer support.

If I am reading the info in the second paragraph at the top of the Charter Direct forum page correctly, your message and any replies will be private (i.e., invisible to others)--this would be unfortunate for customers, but good for Charter since Charter could give someone a good deal and not have to give it to everybody.

One of Charter's really big problems is that every area not only has different headend, distribution, and customer equipment, but also different lineups, packages, and pricing.

What Charter could really do to get back to good customer service would be to eliminate the call centers and return customer service to each local office--that was the way it was years ago. No matter the day or time you called a local number, spoke to a person who could really do something, and got things fixed immediately.

The main purpose of the Direct forums is for people to contact ISP techs when solving their problem involves giving the ISP their private account information. If the public could view the threads that would not be possible.

Down under we have Whirlpool, the Aussie internet meeting place somewhat similar to BBR.

My ISP, Internode, as do quite a few others, have their chat lounge and a place to have a gripe about their service.

The boss of Internode, Simon Hackett often will buy in to a thread and take up the OP's concerns. Also a lot of the Internode Tech and other support staff will watch the Internode chat area and will come on board to help a poster with their problem. Mind you if the OP can be helped via other comments well and good.

Works well without giving away the OP's private details.

That's what the public Charter forum does here.

By the way, is Whirlpool on that stupid blocklist? There was a thread in the Security forum about it awhile back.

fatness

For years the techs easily handled this by having the individual PM any information that NEEDED to be private(MAC, IP, Account #). IF those techs were to post today they would be fired. 95% of the information can (and should) be publicly available. There is no reason to hide information about an area having router (or whatever) issues. This will not cause any additional problems for any user.

In the past when you were having any issue you could often find another thread from the same area. It is much more difficult for an ISP to deny there is a problem if you have a dozen people (openly) posting about the same issue. If you hide all the information (city of issue, etc) the ISP can easily deny that there is any issue. This situation can easily be documented by going through the older threads. It was not a rare occurrence for posters to mention that they had called in and customer service said there was not issue, yet there would be multiple posts from that same area about the same issue in the forum. Hiding non identifying details is putting the users right back into that same situation(no way to disprove the ISPs denial).

For instance how much of this(see below) could not be done in the open?

TBS HD out for me in 75087
Available in my area
Problem with digital cable
Pre-Qual for my home???
Slow speeds at random times on Montgomery
Contract ending; What are my options?

These are the current topics in the private (closed) forum.

Guessing at the contents of a thread from the title isn't real reliable. 4 of those have private information being given, and the other 2 may get to that point.

Yes, some may require SOME private information (easily handled by PM) but all of them are topics that concern many people.

If one lived in 75087 it would be nice to know what is going on.

If one lived in the same area it would be nice to know if service is available (www.charter.com is notorious for being wrong).

How to diagnose problems with digital cable or the area the problem is occurring in.

How do I pre-qual my home?

If I lived in Montgomery and was also have slow speeds at random times.

My contract is ending, what are my options.

These examples were not cherry picked, they were just the threads on the page.

The forums are intended to handle what was handled before by PM. And if one has a concern or question (like what's going on in your zip code area) one can voice it or ask it in the public forum. Nothing has changed about that.

Unfortunately it has. If you look at the way they now respond(as compared to a year ago), they will post almost nothing in the public view.

Lazlow brought up a good point about customers no longer being able to obtain situational awareness from others' posts. This is to Charter's advantage.

If privacy is the reason for invisible threads, giving users the ability to choose to hide individual posts (ones containing account info) would fill this role and allow customers to be better informed.