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(CS: Based off this week where I've been out of service for a significant portion of my working hours, this post from last summer seems appropriate to be reposted today. I do have internet back, but I'm scrambling to get to all the work and meetings that have been lost. Unfortunately, it is another repost.)
Why hello, Rogers, the massive multimedia empire that I use for my internet, cable, and phone. I am writing to you today because as a billion-dollar company with millions of paying customers, you will obviously come to a website that pops the champagne cork if we have a thousand readers in a day.
As a creator who crafted articles and podcasts that a few people are aware exist and maybe even enjoyed, I am here to provide six tips that you can follow to better serve your customers and send yourself surfing the wave of awesome. You’re probably just ecstatic with what this writer, who totally had at least one person read an entire article he wrote yesterday, is about to lay out for your massive future success.
These pearls of wisdom humbly come to you from a neighbourhood coffee shop. But wait! Didn’t I say that I have internet at home that is provided by your terrific company? Why oh why, does someone who works from home and knows how to make a pot of coffee (I press a button) would write this masterpiece in a coffee shop other than to further the stereotype of the writer?
Well, the coffee shop has working internet.
Here are six incredible tips for success that may potentially be connected to my experience over the last 24 hours!
1. If a few of your technicians have decided that they want to spend an afternoon digging up dirt and playing with cables, then I am not here to rob them of that fun. My kids spent years thinking dirt was nature’s toy that kept on giving joy, so I have witnessed the love that it can bring in one’s life. Do your workers like to pour it over their heads too?
When I was a kid, I really loved burying my Star Wars figures in the dirt, and it had the added benefit of discovering them a year later and suddenly remembering, ‘Oh yeah1 I already had a Yoda figure!’ Maybe causing issues with a cable that provides service to several homes, thus meaning you need to return to the job is like the adult version of discovering lost Star Wars toys.
Totally dig away and do your thing with the cables. You got to do what you love. But may I humbly remind you that in 2022, many people work from home where they rely on this pesky thing called a working internet to serve their clients and run online meetings. If you’re aggressively interacting with cables that provides this internet, then may I suggest the crazy idea of notifying the neighbourhood that work will be done that day and there could be an interruption to service.
Here is another crazy idea, if one is notified that such an interruption may happen that day then they could schedule it that they don’t need to do work that must have a working internet during dirt play time. Or working cable. Or a working home phone. Those minor little conveniences that I’m sure we all barely ever use, but it will still seem like a professional gesture to just notify your customers. Maybe they could bring some shovels and buckets to help with the dirt play?
I can give tips on how to clean it out of your hair after, because I have experience with my own kids.
2. After the dirt and cable fun is done, may I suggest the technician check to see they did their work properly and not do something wild like knock out service to all the Rogers customers in the area.
As a writer and podcaster, I do this wild high-concept activity where I go over my work to see if there needs to be any editing and corrections. I hear you screaming, ‘But your writing is so crappy and full of errors!’ But imagine how awful it would be if I just smacked my hands together and called it a day not even fixing anything.
I also aspire to be better and try to discover my bad habits and not repeat the same errors and typos. Maybe your technicians are aiming to be better too, but I could be wrong, my assumption is your business model is to not knock out service for a day every time you participate in local dirt play day.
Maybe the pot roast is done in the slow cooker and I get they want to get home to start on that gravy recipe they found on their working internet, but to this writer who sometimes even creates something that at least one person kind of maybe liked, it might be a cool customer service gesture to make sure the work was done properly and all your customers in the area have that service you’re getting paid to provide.
I know, these tips are kind of wacky.
3. For some reason, you have never had a take your customer to work day, so I have never had a chance to pretend to be an airplane soaring through your halls or muck around on your computers to see if you downloaded any cool games from your working internet. So, this also means that I have never had a chance to try out the software that is used to see if there are outages in a specific area. This means I don’t know what is defined as an outage or how it is determined.
But may I suggest a strategy that seems more reliable than the software, its called going to your neighbours and asking if their Rogers is out, and then they say, ‘Why yes, it is,’ when multiple neighbours say this, then it means there is an outage in the area.
I know, I know, it seems like a waste of time for a Rogers representative to go door to door for such a purpose when you have the Outage Detector 2000 (maybe?).
Other wastes of time are telling your customer to unplug and then plug in the modem after they already told you they did that six times throughout the day to no success. Though, I am sure it is very fun to tell them to do it anyway, and then pretend you're super shocked it didn’t work this time, because this time, it was done with the authorization of a Rogers Specialist! Then for kicks, it is super fun to tell them to do it three more times, so that you can work on your surprised voice some more.
It also seems like a waste of time to just ignore a customer and instead reiterate that the previously booked technician is coming to check out the issue in the house when they called to inform you that the issue is not with their modem, but was due to the work done that day on the cable, since all Rogers customers in the area are without service.
I am not a Rogers technician, so I am not aware if they carry a wand that solves all problems, but if they don’t, then a customer calling with new information is trying to ensure the right technician with the proper tools (like a bucket for dirt) is coming out to solve the issue.
Customers are these zany animals (like a platypus) that like to think the company they are contacting is actually listening to them. They also have a harder time being patient and cordial when the technician does arrive to the house and is shocked to find out about the issues that had been discussed on the phone the previous day. Almost like the customer could give their lunch order and that would prepare the tech just as well for the job. I'd like extra cheese on my BLT.
Of course, you’ve probably been eagerly reading all my articles and posts, and just love me on social media, so you know that I want to be a kinder person. This was likely a planned intervention to work on my patience. You're purposefully pushing me to respond better to situations that I can't control or feel like I am being listened to at all. Thank you!
4. It is awesome that you promise 24/7 technical support. Because you never know when someone could be playing in the dirt where a cable is buried. May I humbly suggest that you alter the advertising to 24/7 advice to turn off your modem and turn it on again, and when that doesn’t work then we book someone to come out in a few days?
As a person who relies on a working internet, and through the Ignite package also gets my phone and TV through the same cable and modem, I get a false sense of everything will be handled swiftly with a 24/7 technical support, and I admit to fighting the expression of frustration when informed a tech can not come out for at least a day. My wonderful experience is a 24-hour wait is ‘swift’, and sometimes it is typing away in coffee shops and kids acting out their favourite shows rather than watching them for a two days before the 24/7 technical service arrives.
But I am appreciative someone is always available to remind me that my modem can be rebooted, even if it didn’t work the first 6 times. Seven is a lucky number, unless your Chinese and superstitious
I am one of those crazy work from home folks that expects the service that I am paying to use is actually working, and when it isn’t working, that the 24/7 technical team resolves the issue, so that I can go back to my job. If it just happens to be a time of year when lot of dirt play days coincide with damaged cables, then I have the crazy belief that several days of no service should mean compensation from the big billion-dollar company that I'm paying to have internet, phone, and TV.
I know, I know, I am the real Maverick here, and I don’t even fly a plane or star in the highest grossing movie of the year. Yet here I am declaring that if I lose work because the service I am paying is down, then I should get a little money back. Bold move, Cotton. Yep, I'm mixing up all kinds of movies now.
What I do know is if I go around the house claiming that I am can make a sandwich 24/7, but then I eat the delicious sandwich that Emily made for herself, then I also get a knuckle sandwich and I'm commanded to make her another one. If I tell her that she can expect a sandwich in two days after my bragging about 24/7 sandwich making, then I get an even more strategically placed punch and commanded to make it now. I am the one who caused the missing sandwich, so it is my job to resolve right away. We’re a zany family that believes in fixing our own created problems in a timely fashion.
I'm a platypus maverick with my zany ideas!
5. While changing your marketing slogans, it might be good to add a few words to ‘Canada’s most reliable network’ by adding ‘to interrupt service every summer because we love playing in dirt!’ Though, I get the mention of dirt might confuse people into believing you’re a sandbox company. That is not an image you want, since sandboxes are very good at always providing what you expect from them. It is a different business model.
I foolishly expected that when I paid for Rogers Ignite that I'd always get internet, TV, and phone. Just like if I pay for a Big Mac, I expect a burger rather than a dirty sock in a box. I also feel that a company bragging about reliability would figure out that an entire day of the internet being down is less than ideal for those that work from home and don’t have carrier pigeons to send off the work or contact their clients. Do you supply pigeons for the times one can’t get online? Maybe you can order some by checking your working internet?
It has been reliable that every summer there is at least one day where my internet is down, and I desperately scramble on how I will get my work done that day. The number of days it remains down is less reliable as sometimes someone comes out within a day, and sometimes there is just too much dirt to play with and I must wait a few more days. It is reliable that I won’t be compensated for my lost work, and my kids will ask me every ten minutes if they can watch TV yet.
It is also reliable that the expert Rogers staff will ask me to reboot my modem because that always works, and then it doesn’t work. Then I get told I can't get a tech out right away because they are all so busy, because that is what happens when you have the most reliable network in the country, I guess. When there are lots of issues to fix that means things are working great.
You should promote the things that are reliable and guaranteed. That way the customer is far less annoyed and frustrated. Or feeling ripped off. Or writing you a lengthy article of tips that may be a tad sarcastic, even though the writer promised himself that he would start being far less contentious and bitter in life.
6. Did you know that customers complain about you and often see you as a soulless money making-machine that doesn’t care about them and are more interested in increasing prices without improving service?
I know, you are really good at writing slogans and having your president write letters discussing how you care about the customer and will provide the best service, and will do everything to ensure the network doesn't go down. The letters are nice, and give people a warm fuzzy if they decide to believe them.
I once wrote lines in Grade 2, because I was talking too much in class. I probably wrote the sentence at least 20 times. The teacher thanked me for writing the lines. I think, I had to do it again a few days later. Apparently, you can't just write about it, but you need to do the action too. I learned this in Grade 2. But I probably still talk too much, so maybe I'm not very good at following what I write either. We have something in common.
But if I keep promising my kids they will go to Disneyworld, then I take them to a mud puddle instead, I shouldn't be confused when they say I suck. Puddles may not be dirt, but they're still fun. But you can't ride Space Mountain in them.
Issues happen. Just like dirt gets everywhere and sandwiches get eaten. But it is cool when a customer thinks the big billion-dollar company that they are paying lots of money for a service actually cares about delivering good service. Or any kind of working service. When a writer is in a coffee shop writing tips to that big giant corporation, then that usually means the service isn't working.
It also probably means the writer is kind of crazy, but that is another issue that I don’t expect you to resolve.
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