We've got Internet!
I want to tell you about a lesson I learnt today.
I ordered Telus ADSL internet to my apartment. It should start working a week ago, on Tuesday.
It didn't.
A week before an enter-phone had been fixed. The enter-phone technician told that in the building electric room there were wrong wires with the ADSL which didn't allow the enter-phone work. He removed these wires.
So, starting from Wednesday I was calling Telus every day. I had to talk to robot, answering a lot of irrelevant questions, and getting finally a message like "We are experiencing higher than normal load... Average wait time is 51 minutes." So I left my number to the robot to call me back. After waiting for an hour I had up to 50 minutes talk with a support guy (every time a new one). I had to explain the problem from the beginning all the time. They checked something, tried to reset the connection, change modes, but didn't hear me saying that it's useless, that I just don't have the physical connection.
On Friday evening the support had to admit that they had to send a technician to the building. So, they put the visit on schedule for Saturday morning. The technician didn't come. Then I called again (yes, several hours more talking with the support), they arranged the technician visit on Sunday morning. He didn't come. Then on Monday evening. He didn't come. Of course nobody called and said that the technician was not going to come... So I had to wait like an idiot all my weekends and Monday evening.
So, yesterday evening I just didn't know what to do. I was jumping between dropping the whole idea, or burst into rage talking to support...
So, I called (no waiting this time), heard a women's voice, calm and confident and ... just calmly told her, that I'm calling every day for the whole week, and that the technician doesn't come for three days...
I had a very pleasant talk. She said that she will personally track what's going on until I get the Internet working. She guaranteed that the technician will come today. And she gave a two months credit for the worries and thanked me for my patience. She told that many of the support people are new and don't know the right way to pass the problem. (This seems true. In my impression, only she and the first support guy I called, were competent and got the problem on the fly.)
So, today the technician came. He fixed that wire in the electric room. He also changed the free wireless gateway Telus had given me before to a better one (I've got a MacBook for my wife, which is not friendly with every hardware).
Now I believe that in this country politeness and confidence works better than fury and pretension. People more likely want to help you, but hate the pressure. And you must have enough luck to get to the competent person.
Простите мой французский :)
Короче, у нас есть теперь дома Интернет.
I ordered Telus ADSL internet to my apartment. It should start working a week ago, on Tuesday.
It didn't.
A week before an enter-phone had been fixed. The enter-phone technician told that in the building electric room there were wrong wires with the ADSL which didn't allow the enter-phone work. He removed these wires.
So, starting from Wednesday I was calling Telus every day. I had to talk to robot, answering a lot of irrelevant questions, and getting finally a message like "We are experiencing higher than normal load... Average wait time is 51 minutes." So I left my number to the robot to call me back. After waiting for an hour I had up to 50 minutes talk with a support guy (every time a new one). I had to explain the problem from the beginning all the time. They checked something, tried to reset the connection, change modes, but didn't hear me saying that it's useless, that I just don't have the physical connection.
On Friday evening the support had to admit that they had to send a technician to the building. So, they put the visit on schedule for Saturday morning. The technician didn't come. Then I called again (yes, several hours more talking with the support), they arranged the technician visit on Sunday morning. He didn't come. Then on Monday evening. He didn't come. Of course nobody called and said that the technician was not going to come... So I had to wait like an idiot all my weekends and Monday evening.
So, yesterday evening I just didn't know what to do. I was jumping between dropping the whole idea, or burst into rage talking to support...
So, I called (no waiting this time), heard a women's voice, calm and confident and ... just calmly told her, that I'm calling every day for the whole week, and that the technician doesn't come for three days...
I had a very pleasant talk. She said that she will personally track what's going on until I get the Internet working. She guaranteed that the technician will come today. And she gave a two months credit for the worries and thanked me for my patience. She told that many of the support people are new and don't know the right way to pass the problem. (This seems true. In my impression, only she and the first support guy I called, were competent and got the problem on the fly.)
So, today the technician came. He fixed that wire in the electric room. He also changed the free wireless gateway Telus had given me before to a better one (I've got a MacBook for my wife, which is not friendly with every hardware).
Now I believe that in this country politeness and confidence works better than fury and pretension. People more likely want to help you, but hate the pressure. And you must have enough luck to get to the competent person.
Простите мой французский :)
Короче, у нас есть теперь дома Интернет.