Thursday, March 22, 2012

WOW! Cable wins the Worst Customer Service Ever Award!

This is purely a personal case study, but it is my second really bad experience with WOW Cable and Internet service and their really awful customer service. In this economy, you'd think that supervisors (or at least that's what they claim to be on the phone) would learn just a little bit about how to treat a customer, even if they aren't always right.

I was lured back to WOW with a really great deal in December 2011. Okay, admittedly, my other really great deal with Comcast Xfinity was expiring and they were going to begin charging me 74 gazillion dollars per month to maintain  my service, but WOW got me to come subcribe to their service because they were offereing me a phenomenal package and would honor it until 2014.

I know many people say that WOW Cable sucks and that WOW's customer service is rude, arrogant and on a good day condescending, but I was going to give them another chance. [Note: I'm going to keep saying things like WOW Cable has terrible service so that the major search engines find this article and I can inform other unsatisfied WOW customers to find another cable and internet alternative to the really lousy customer service provided by WOW employees.

So, anyway, my deal with Comcast/Xfinity expired and I called WOW. I told them about my previous deal, and here's what they offered me:

Three HD/DVR boxes at no charge (my bill indicated that each one was $13 per month, and right below was a line item that said: "100% off for 12 months" for each box. This is their bill! This is their acknowledgement that they offered me the deal.

Then, after only three months, they sent my new bill with no credits for the HD/DVR boxes. Okay, probably just another in a long line of WOW billing screw ups, but a phone call should fix it. Wrong!

When I called and the issue was looked into by the snotty, pompous customer service jerk, he came back and told me that it expired because it's been a year. Hold on. Let me get my calculator out. December 2011 plus 12 months should take me somewhere in the vicinty of December 2012. Not March 2012. I always try to be nice and let these people know that I'm aware that the problem probably isn't their fault, but this guy was really pissing me off with his piece of crap attitude. I politely informed him that I just came back to WOW at the end of the year and that my deal (although originally was to be good until 2014) should at least be honored until December 2012 as it states RIGHT ON THE BILL THEY SENT ME.

He said he was sorry, but he couldn't approve that deal because no one could authorize giving away three HD/DVR's for 12 months. Excuse me? Someone DID authorize that deal and it's right there on the first three bills they sent.

I was pretty astonished and calmly stated, "So, what you're telling me is that the deal you offered me to get me to cancel my service with another provider, which I have in writing from you, will not be honored." He said, "Yeah, that's right. Sorry."

Unbelievable. Even if for some reason he had to convey awful news to a customer who is willing to spend about $1,500 per year for their inferior service, they should at least be trained to treat the public with decency and respect.

So, I asked to speak to a supervisor. He said he was a supervisor, but he'd get another one to verify what he told me. After again waiting on hold (after already investing nearly an hour) Jason came on the line. I think it was the same guy. He told me the same thing. Again in the awful customer service manner that I've grown to know and hate from WOW!

I might as well have been talking to "Peggy" from those credit card commercials.

So, the bottom line is this:

WOW service is sub par. They couldn't get my wireless router to work (other providers had no problem) and "forced" me to use theirs or not have wireless service.

They screwed up my billing and erroneously threatened to disconnect me after they changed my billing date BACKWARDS making me immediately delinquent. For that mishap, I was promised two vouchers for free On Demand movies. Never got them.

Then, after constant complaints about Internet speed by my family, I did an Internet speed check. Less that 1 meg. That's 30 times slower than what was promised. That time, when I called I spoke with a very nice and helpful rep who got me back to an acceptable MPS.

Please forward this page to anyone who is looking for TV, Internet and phone service and advise them to stay away from WOW.

After my first really bad customer service experience with WOW a number of years ago (that time their rep argued with me that there was no way Comcast was going to offer me the deal that I told her they were offering, even though I was holding the offer right in my hands and reading it to the witch), I cancelled my service. After contacting Comcast and getting their service turned on, I got a call from a really nice guy at WOW offering me the farm. Too little, too late.

I should have learned my lesson then and stayed away, but I was lured back, then summarily bent over and...well you get the picture.

All I can say is WOW!

Here are some questions you may ask:

Is WOW a good cable service provider? No.
Is WOW a good Internet service provider? No.
Does WOW have good customer service? No.
Does WOW have high customer satisfaction? I doubt it.
Does WOW employ rude, arrogant, pompous customer service representatives? Absolutely.

20 comments:

  1. I had awful experiences with them for years. everyone I knows says the same thing, yet they have the nerve to say in their commercials, "We're not satisfied til we her the word WOW!" as if they give good service...

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  2. I said "Wow!" more than once while talking to their "supervisors." When I asked, "Let me see if I've got this straight: you gave me a one-year deal to come on board but you're not going to honor it after 2 months." He said, "That's right!" I said, "Wow!"

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  3. Wow sucks.
    I was getting pretty sick of what passes for television these days, so I opted out of cable, but kept my internet service. They then told me that since I was disconnecting my cable tv, they no longer offered the 8mbps speed I had, and now my only options were 2mbps and 15 mbps. 2mbps alone was now going to cost 50 dollars a month, since it was "unbundled"...

    yeah... no.

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  4. We never had a problem until we were practically forced to have to get their dvr box just to make the cable come in, because they "just couldn't figure out how to connect our vcr so that we could record". I'm thinking they knew exactly how to do it, but were withholding that info, so they could push their dvr's.
    Ever since we've had this thing, it's been screwing up more and more frequently, and now, tonight, it just 'suddenly" gave out and the screen is totally blank, can't even change ch.'s. I had to switch it over to the regular 'tv' source just to be able to 'hear' the program, but the picture is unviewable! After coming across this article, I am seriously considering finding another company. But here's the million dollar question: WHICH cable or dish company is the best or at least pretty good, because they all seem to have some kind of issues. Especially Time/Warner. Everyone I've known who's ever had them, has had problems. Can anyone recommend a good cable company so this part of my life will be hassle free?!

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  5. Thanks for sharing your comments. I'm currently a Knology Cable customer in the Southeast region and heard Wow communications bought out Knology. There's not any information about Wow here in the southeast. With your comments, I feel I can make a more informed decision about my choice for bundled cable service. I'll pass this information along to others here in the Southeast.

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  6. no cable company is responsible for your router, unless they provided it.

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  7. I've had to put up with the bull shit service for two years now. Ever since they upgraded (use term lightly) to digital. it glitchs everyday. its horrible. i don't have time to have some butt hole come to my house. switching immediately. WOOOOW!!! its that kind of experience.

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  8. WOW!... which stands for "Wide Open West"... took over our cable company several years ago and are STILL blaming the previous cable company (whom we had no problems with) of causing all of their problems! Well the problems yesterday were of their own making! I saw a guy sneaking around my front yard. He just identifies himself as an "auditor" for WOW. Upon further questioning, he finally spills the beans that he is there to shut me off... for stealing cable! What the x!@#$%*!!!! I just got my bill yesterday, too! I showed him that bill, and the bills for the past four months!! I was so mad, I called the company to see what was going on. To my surprise, on the automated message of account status, which is given before you talk to a rep, the message said I owed $600!!! When I asked, why... I was told that last Monday, I had purchased $600 worth of HD cable!! (Now see why I NEVER use ANY company's auto-pay??) I don't even have any HD channels!! Plus... I would NEVER buy any coaxial cable from my cable company! I'd go to one of my own commercial suppliers.

    Well, we got the guy to reverse the disconnect, but the $600 is still up in the air. I sent e-mails to every corporate executive at WOW. How do they even win JD Power customer service awards? You should see their BBB stats. Hundreds of filings and only about one-quarter of the cases have been closed to the customers satisfaction.

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  9. BTW, WOW! has a "Refer a Friend" plan, where they give you $25 for getting a new customer to sign up. I am tempted to offer a "Quit WOW!" for $25 plan...

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  10. Woway is constantly getting hacked causing numerous outages. Nightly outages are common.

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  11. lately it seems all of wow's customer service hails from the hills of west virginney or tijuana - bad grammer/poor communication skills.2 get a tech out 2 fix something u take a number and wait 2 weeks. after the tech leaves the problem still is not resolved - mainly because to cut corners wow really has never really trained this person on how 2 do. the bottom line - with wow u r paying u the anus 4 urinary poor service.

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  12. They suck in Knoxville TN. Bait and switch on the offer. Stay away. Going back to comcast which is just a bad but I'll get an introductory deal since I just cancelled service due to them jacking up my price.

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  13. And the suck in Michigan. It's my only high speed choice living in the boonies.

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  14. Did anyone else lose most of the channels for TV on demand?

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