As submitted to http://acanac.org/blogs/geek/

I've had my ups and downs with Bell over the past 20 years.  Well to be honest, it's been mostly all downs.  Bell, as a company, fails in two key categories.  The first is customer service and the second is infrastructure renewal.  What they fail to recognize is that these two areas are critical to the success of any service oriented organization. 

The infrastructure renewal is easy enough to tackle.  I read somewhere that Bell never spent a dime for the telephone infrastructure in this country.  It appears that the government subsidized the entire thing, as it was a benefit to the country to have such marvels of modern technologies.  That being said, Bell doesn't spend a dime renewing that infrastructure either.  Sure, they replace lines when they have to.  That's the problem - when they HAVE to.  They only repair lines whenever a line is deemed completely broken.  That means that the customer suffers because the customer isn't as important as the almighty dollar.

So, what do you do when you phone line breaks?  Call customer service.  Now here is where I drop the unexpected, positive bomb.  Bell did one thing right in the last 20 years - they created Emily.  Emily is the beautifully crafted voice who answers the line at 310-BELL.  She is the ultimate customer service agent.  Always friendly and very knowledgeable, she will provide you with the vast majority of the customer service that you require.  Her only shortcoming is that she can only take you so far, then you need a real person to talk to.  Ugh.

So, of course, the conglomerate Bell only has regular customer service agents available from 9-5.  Why would they provide service beyond that?  Everyone is home from 9-5 everyday, to make sure they take care of their Bell needs.  *Sarcasm*

For the past few days, my telephone (analog) service has been getting flaky.  Static and distortion has plagued the line.  This isn't a new venture, last year at about the same time, we experienced the same problem.  At that time, a Bell technician replaced the lines from the main line to the house and the demarcation box.  I replaced all the lines in the house and all of the jacks.  We still had trouble and he eventually attributed the problem to an issue in the neighbourhood junction box.  He told me that Bell should replace that and all of the neighbourhood lines, but that they wouldn't.  He was right.

At 9pm this evening, the telephone rang.  I picked it up on the third ring and the line went dead.  I hung up the phone and it lit up 'Extension in use'.  This happens if you unplug the phone from the line as well.  Great.  Checked all of the phones, no dice.  Check the Internet.  My Acanac (shameless plug) DSL is working fine.  hmmm.

I call bell on my work Blackberry (Telus) and talk to Emily.  She is delightful as always, but needs to connect me to a repair technician, since nobody else is working.  Imagine my surprise after waiting for 30 minutes to get connected to somebody and they have a heavy Indian accent and have trouble with the English *heavier sarcasm*.  I'm not ripping on people of other cultures, but customer service in a primarily English market will require a strong grasp of the English language.

I feel sorry for this poor woman, but I had to share my concerns with her.  She informs me that she can have a truck out to the premises in two days.  Two days?  Are you out of your mind?  911 is a critical service and with young ones in the house, I expect it to be available.  It seems the technicians are all busy because they have to repair broken infrastructure that could have been avoided through infrastructure renewal projects.  What really stuck me was the required disclaimer from the agent: "If Bell comes out to the house and finds no trouble, or that the trouble is inside, they may charge you $90 for a call out fee."  uh huh.  My response went something like: "Here is my standard disclaimer to you.  For each day that I am without service, I will send you a bill for $90.  If the problem does turn out to be inside my house, I will EAT every telephone wire in the house and cancel my Bell service, as I don't deserve to own it."

Harsh?  Maybe.  Explain to me how I became responsible for the lines in the first place?   30 years ago, when my house was built, Bell was responsible for the installation of EVERY phone line.  You put it in, you take care of it.  Thieves is what they are.  No, drug dealers!  The first one's free... after that you have to come to me to buy more.

What can I say?  It's disgusting how pitiful the service is that we, as customers receive.  I'm seriously looking into the VOIP side of things, I don't want to see another Bell bill in my house ever.  $55 per month for a basic phone line that rarely gets used.  That has got to be a 95% markup.  I could rant about Bell and it's subsidiary companies for days.  Maybe another time.  I'm sorry to all of the Bell lovers out there, but the world needs to know the truth.