The Blinking Light
Marian called me this morning to tell me that the U-verse battery pack in the basement had an alarm sounding and a red light flashing. When I returned home, I hit the button that says “silence the alarm,” and went online to see what the story was. From what I read, it meant the battery needed to be replaced. Interesting since it was installed “new” within the last several weeks.
I went to the AT&T “contact us” page and found there was no link in their three-tiered set of questions to deal with battery backup systems. Unless you can put an answer into each of the three tiers of questions, you cannot contact them. There is no “Other” choice. Just stuff that didn’t apply to me at all.
So, I started a chat with a technician, Prakesh. He had me do a self test on the battery, but the red light was still blinking. He then told me the battery needed to be replaced. Okay, I thought, let’s schedule an AT&T person to come here and do that.
Nope. I was told that’s not handled by their division and I was given an 866 number to call (the battery manufacturer) for a replacement. So, I have to call a third-party vendor instead of AT&T doing the servicing? Yes. That’s how it is.
To find out more, I called the AT&T U-verse 800 number and, thankfully, worked my way swiftly through the recorded Q&A session to get a live technician. I was told that AT&T (1) had probably installed an old battery that was sitting around too long and, therefore, didn’t hold its charge, and (2) AT&T doesn’t have any of these batteries in stock, so I would have to call the vendor.
I did. Vendor really nice. Looked up my account. Said I’d get a new battery within a couple of days and where to recycle the old one. And he confirmed that they were having lots of calls for replacement of these batteries due to AT&T having them sit on the shelf too long before using them. Oh, I have to do the replacement.
It’s mind boggling to me how AT&T has broken up stuff into different departments (a look at my phone bill shows different 800 numbers for the land line, wireless, did have one for DSL before U-verse, but now have one for U-verse). And even within a division, there is division. Read my earlier blogs about how the U-verse installer the first time couldn’t deal with anything outside the house since it was another division of the service department. Now I have to get service on my U-verse from someone who is not even AT&T.
Anyone there hear of the words “customer service?”
I went to the AT&T “contact us” page and found there was no link in their three-tiered set of questions to deal with battery backup systems. Unless you can put an answer into each of the three tiers of questions, you cannot contact them. There is no “Other” choice. Just stuff that didn’t apply to me at all.
So, I started a chat with a technician, Prakesh. He had me do a self test on the battery, but the red light was still blinking. He then told me the battery needed to be replaced. Okay, I thought, let’s schedule an AT&T person to come here and do that.
Nope. I was told that’s not handled by their division and I was given an 866 number to call (the battery manufacturer) for a replacement. So, I have to call a third-party vendor instead of AT&T doing the servicing? Yes. That’s how it is.
To find out more, I called the AT&T U-verse 800 number and, thankfully, worked my way swiftly through the recorded Q&A session to get a live technician. I was told that AT&T (1) had probably installed an old battery that was sitting around too long and, therefore, didn’t hold its charge, and (2) AT&T doesn’t have any of these batteries in stock, so I would have to call the vendor.
I did. Vendor really nice. Looked up my account. Said I’d get a new battery within a couple of days and where to recycle the old one. And he confirmed that they were having lots of calls for replacement of these batteries due to AT&T having them sit on the shelf too long before using them. Oh, I have to do the replacement.
It’s mind boggling to me how AT&T has broken up stuff into different departments (a look at my phone bill shows different 800 numbers for the land line, wireless, did have one for DSL before U-verse, but now have one for U-verse). And even within a division, there is division. Read my earlier blogs about how the U-verse installer the first time couldn’t deal with anything outside the house since it was another division of the service department. Now I have to get service on my U-verse from someone who is not even AT&T.
Anyone there hear of the words “customer service?”
posted by Bud Hirsch at 12:43 PM
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