Qwest Strikes Again
Jun 11th, 2007 by What's Gotta Go
Qwest is notorious for somehow managing to bungle every phone change I have ever been involved in. I know it isn’t just me either, because I have talked to many others in the same situation. For being a high tech service company, if there is a way to screw up an install or change order, they will do it.
Today my company is moving into our brand new building. This is not a long distance move mind you, literally just across the parking lot. We scheduled the transfer of our phone lines and DSL to the new building to be done during 8-12 this morning. The first surprise is that they tech just before 9 am, so I was hopeful to see a new side of Qwest. Nope, the old Qwest reared its ugly head.
The lines were turned off at our old/current building and the tech headed over to the new one…only to find that there were no actual/physical lines laid to the new building yet! You’d think Qwest would know this when drawing up the order for the location. So now our lines are disconnected and going nowhere, and we have no access to the Internet, which for an online marketing company is our lifeblood.
Fortunately they were able to turn the phone lines back up relatively quickly, but even after reassuring us they would have the DSL up too, no connection was to be found. After an hour of working our way through various tech support levels we were able to get the DSL back up an hour and a half later.
Somehow I don’t think this kind of experience is limited to just Qwest, but because they are the only option in our area, I don’t expect to see much improvement either. Why is it even the seemingly simplest of tasks within the boundaries of what a company is supposed to be offering as a service just can’t get done right the first time? Is that too much to ask?
No, unfortunately it is not just a “Qwest” thing. Here in Nashville, we are using “Bell South” for our restaurant phones. We had to have them come out three times before we opened, just to get all four lines correct. They had the main line as the fax line, and the dedicated computer line as the office line, the next time it was visa versa. Well, now we have found that our office line is not even working…didn’t realize it until now, as we hadn’t given that number out to anyone, since I was still using the cell phone, and we had given that number to everyone that mattered. Anyway, we hooked up an office phone since the cell phone is going to be changed next month, and discovered the line is dead. I have called three times to try to get a service call and no one has come by yet! It is frustrating that they can’t even do what they are meant to do….provide phone service! Not only that but we were promised a “bundle business savings,” and have gone round and round about that as well….if you are not going to honor the offer, don’t tell me about it!