I’m often the first to complain about AT&T and its customer service. I whine that it takes forever to wend one’s way through the automated telephone system, when a telephone company is supposed to be all about communication. I moan about the difficulty of changing one’s services too. But in all fairness, AT&T came through for me this weekend.
On Friday the man who mows our lawn accidentally cut the telephone wires that extend from a pole by the road to our house. I learned this later; at the time, all I knew was that I had no dial tone. So I dug my dusty cell phone from the drawer where it lives and called AT&T. (I suppose I should acknowledge the value of cell phones while I’m at it.)
After pushing all those buttons in the automated system, I finally reached Ellen, probably in customer service, who maintained her calm as I complained about my phone. The short of it was that she promised that I would have everything back in working order no later than 7 PM tonight. Visions of having to use a cell phone for an entire weekend swarmed in my head, but there seemed to be no alternative.
To my delight, however, the phone was back in working order within several hours. Even though this was on a weekend, a repairman came to the house and discovered that the wires had been cut. I had gone to do some errands, and when I returned there was a note from Peter the Repairman documenting the problem and what he did to fix it. He also left his business card, the business card of his supervisor, and the equivalent of a corporate thank you note for being a loyal customer.
To say the least I was impressed and wondered if the telephone company was trying to be more communicative. In fact, I was so impressed that I called Peter’s supervisor and told her via voicemail that I would publicly compliment him and the AT&T team that enabled me to be ready to hear from my two sons on Mother’s Day. So thanks, Peter. And Kevin, Keith and Chris, the lines are open.
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