Customer Service Archive

  • Dan Hesse email: ‘no current plans’ to alter data pricing

    Dan Hesse email: ‘no current plans’ to alter data pricing

    Posted on June 3, 2010 | No Comments
    Bypassing a company's power structure altogether and contacting the CEO directly is the vogue thing to do right now -- and in light of the AT&T incident this week, it probably behooves said CEOs (and / or their assistants) to earn some PR brownie points by responding with a positive attitude. Take this response from Sprint boss Dan Hesse, for example, in reply to a request that the company "keep [its] great pricing and customer service, and most importantly -- keep unlimited data." In short, Hesse says "one can never say 'never,' but [the company] has no current plans to change our pricing." That's certainly the "correct" thing to say coming off AT&T's big strategy shift toward killing unlimited and hints from Verizon that it'll do the same, but whether Sprint is able to hold the line when the WiMAX airwaves are flooded with EVO 4Gs and EVO 4G-like devices is another matter altogether. We'll see.

    [Thanks, Matt P.]

    Dan Hesse email: 'no current plans' to alter data pricing originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 16:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Picture: Why Customer Service chat sucks

    Picture: Why Customer Service chat sucks

    Posted on April 21, 2010 | No Comments
    Can’t log in? Don’t worry. Just go ahead and log in. [Via Reddit]

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  • Verizon launching 3D on FiOS when it makes sense and not just because

    Verizon launching 3D on FiOS when it makes sense and not just because

    Posted on March 23, 2010 | No Comments
    Amen, Verizon. Amen. Read this bit from Verizon’s statement on 3D. Verizon’s network can easily handle the 3D signal, and we are committed to having a 3D offering later this year, surely in time for the holiday tech buying season, when the penetration of 3D-ready sets increases.  Just as we did with HD, we’ll bring the [...]

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  • Maybe it’s horrible customer service that’s hobbling Palm?

    Maybe it’s horrible customer service that’s hobbling Palm?

    Posted on March 3, 2010 | No Comments
    Dwight “The Houston Tiger” Silverman, like so many tech dudes, likes the Palm Pre and Pixi and, in a way, doesn’t understand why Palm is on the rocks. However, he got an email from a reader who described her Verizon experience as sub-par at best. It began poorly: My original salesperson, upon hearing me say I [...]

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  • Origin’s Eon18 gaming laptop is not entirely origin-al

    Origin’s Eon18 gaming laptop is not entirely origin-al

    Posted on February 18, 2010 | No Comments
    After Dell bought out Alienware, some of the executives jumped ship and formed a new company. That company, called Origin PC, makes high end computers. Origin PC just announced a new product, the Eon18 laptop. There's only one problem. It looks suspiciously like another computer we looked at a few months ago.

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  • Apparently shady cable companies are still trying to con people in 2183, too.

    Apparently shady cable companies are still trying to con people in 2183, too.

    Posted on February 9, 2010 | No Comments
    From Mass Effect 2, “Customer Service. Sweeping up the store. Carefully explaining things to the technologically illiterate. It’s stunning how many people think light moves faster through expensive fiber optic cables than it does through cheap ones.” [via Consumerist]

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  • AT&T data outage in San Francisco?

    AT&T data outage in San Francisco?

    Posted on December 11, 2009 | No Comments
    Reports are flying in -- using WiFi, we suspect -- that AT&T's having a bit of a data and SMS outage in San Francisco. Our own personal experiences confirm the data, although text messages are sending and receiving just fine. According to a tweet found by TechCrunch, customer service is saying it'll take anywhere from 24 to 48 hours to fix -- sounds pretty extreme to us, and unfortunately we can't get ahold of anyone to corroborate. Let's put it to you, Bay Area readers, how's that iPhone working for ya?

    AT&T data outage in San Francisco? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 20:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • AT&T’s Data Connect overage rates much lower now, still too high

    AT&T’s Data Connect overage rates much lower now, still too high

    Posted on November 12, 2009 | No Comments

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    In a perfect world, we'd one day all be guzzling from an endless font of virtually free bandwidth, streaming 1080p video straight to our WXGA handsets with stereo Bluetooth beamed straight to implants in our ear canals. Turning our attention back to reality for a moment, though, and the situation is a little more bleak: carriers are plagued with crappy, overloaded networks, backhaul issues, and a 4G rollout that could easily span a decade. To that end, caps are still firmly in place on US carriers' so-called "unlimited" laptop data plans, and overage rates make the occasional slip-up nasty enough to bankrupt you if you're not offered clemency from customer service. The good news is that AT&T's data overage rates have dropped significantly as of November 6, going from 49 cents per megabyte to 5 cents on the $60 5GB plan and 10 cents on the (nearly useless) $40 200MB plan. That still means you're paying over $50 for each gigabyte of overage -- but as AT&T points out, it's a hell of a lot better than the $500 you were paying before.

    [Thanks, Kal]

    AT&T's Data Connect overage rates much lower now, still too high originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Sprint cutting up to 2,500 more employees from the payroll

    Sprint cutting up to 2,500 more employees from the payroll

    Posted on November 10, 2009 | No Comments

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    It's been a helluva couple years for Sprint -- new networks, new platforms, and new acquisitions have all been intermixed with a drawn-out recovery effort that's undoubtedly weighed heavy on the hearts and minds of staff at the company's dual headquarters in Kansas and Virginia. With more (albeit slower) subscriber losses in its most recent earning's report, it's still all but impossible to say whether they'll be able to survive in the long term as an independent operation, and we're not quite sure what to make of this latest move, either: a promise of 2,000 to 2,500 job cuts to be announced through the fourth quarter, many of which will be completed before the year's up. It gets a little weird here because Sprint's applying some hardcore spin in its press release, touting the fact that reduced calls to customer service -- ostensibly due to an improved experience -- have lessened the need for call center staff, but we're not really buying it; the business continues to shrink, and staff continue to be cut. The good news is that they're being cut at a much slower rate than before, so it's still entirely reasonable to believe that black ink is in sight -- particularly if they've got a killer 2010 lineup in store.

    Sprint cutting up to 2,500 more employees from the payroll originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • PSA: Sears charging $50 less for new DROID activations than Verizon

    PSA: Sears charging $50 less for new DROID activations than Verizon

    Posted on November 6, 2009 | No Comments

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    If you walk into a Verizon store today and pick up a DROID, you'll be out $300 (before tax) out of pocket, then you'll twiddle your thumbs for a few weeks while you wait for some mysterious PO box in Texas to send you your $100 rebate on a debit card. Wouldn't you rather just pay $200 upfront? Or better yet, $150? Sears -- which, we have to admit, we didn't know sold phones -- is charging just $150 without a rebate for the DROID today, a full $50 less than Big Red proper with rebate. We don't know how good these guys are with customer service (Simplexity is running the store on Sears' behalf, it seems), but truth be told, we can deal with a little incompetency for $50.

    [Via I4U]

    PSA: Sears charging $50 less for new DROID activations than Verizon originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • This is the problem with being charged to receive text messages

    This is the problem with being charged to receive text messages

    Posted on October 9, 2009 | No Comments
    Well it looks like my not-even-a-month-old new cell phone number is already out in the wild somehow. I received this unsolicited text message from a 718-area phone number, which Nicholas tells me is Brooklyn or Queens, New York (I'm in Boston).

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  • FTC gives Sprint-Virgin Mobile merger a thumbs up

    FTC gives Sprint-Virgin Mobile merger a thumbs up

    Posted on August 24, 2009 | No Comments
    Earlier today, the FTC announced that Sprint Nextel’s proposed merger with Virgin Mobile USA has received antitrust clearance, i.e. the deal can move ahead. While still too early to tell if this is a good move for the struggling number 3 carrier, at least it looks like Sprint won’t have to deal with any legal [...]

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  • T-Mobile, Alltel, and Verizon don’t suck at customer service.

    T-Mobile, Alltel, and Verizon don’t suck at customer service.

    Posted on August 13, 2009 | No Comments
    J.D Power and Associates just issued Volume 2 of their Wireless Customer Care report, which runs from January to June of 2009. It's a big three-way tie this time around, with T-Mobile, Alltel, and Verizon all taking a victory lap. AT&T follows behind with an "About Average" (3/5) rating, while Sprint stumbles with a paltry 2/5.

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  • Computer makers’ tech support quality compared

    Computer makers’ tech support quality compared

    Posted on August 7, 2009 | No Comments
    apathyLAPTOP recently pit the big computer vendors' customer service offerings against one another with two phone calls to each, one asking how to change power settings on a laptop and the other asking how to switch to an external monitor that'd been hooked up. Not that anyone who reads this site would ever, ever need to call customer support for any reason whatsoever, but at least you can tell your friends and family who to avoid.

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  • Verizon now offering free hotspot access to FiOS customers, I still can’t pay my bill

    Verizon now offering free hotspot access to FiOS customers, I still can’t pay my bill

    Posted on July 27, 2009 | No Comments
    Are you a FiOS customer? Want free access to Wi-Fi hotspots across the country? Of course you do! Starting today Verizon is offering free hotpsot access to new FiOS customers with the 25/15 package Mbps package. Those, like me, who joined before the increase in speeds and have the 20/5 Mbps package are also privy [...]

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