Rogers Communications delivers terrible customer service!

As a long time Rogers wireless customer I feel my recent blowout with Rogers customer service needs to be vented via my blog. I feel as if my issue with Rogers is no different than any other customer "headaches" with this company, but for me it's compounded because I actually worked for this company 15 years ago when they were still known as Rogers/Cantel. (It wasn't any fun then either)

It all started a week ago when I discovered my son's phone wouldn't call out. Any phone number you tried resulted in the following message; 'We cannot place your call at this time, check the number and try your call again'.
My account with Rogers is in good standing and I was able to receive calls no problem. My son uses a crappy standard Nokia phone I purchased from Chatr and the phone has been working flawlessly for the past six months.

The first call I made to their technical support suggested I try the SIM card in another phone to see whether the problem is hardware related. This seemed
logical to me so I complied and tested the SIM card in a spare Blackberry curve I had lying around. Same issue. I called back to report my findings and the call dropped while the agent put me on hold to review the account. I called back again and was told an incident ticket was created and I should get a call back the next day when the problem is fixed. I received no call back the following day (as expected) so I called AGAIN to vent my frustration as I had to explain the entire problem once more. The thing is, each time you call you get a different CS rep who takes approx 10 min to review the account which the previous agent probably didn't update with details of your conversation.

This maddening cycle went on for an entire week with more false promises of call backs and "we're working on the problem" etc etc. In the meantime, my son cannot make calls on a cellular phone that I'm paying for monthly. My anger and frustration continued to grow with no call backs or resolution in sight. I suspected that the SIM card might be defective or something but I really wanted Rogers to confirm this with a call back from someone/anyone that knew what they were taking about.

FINALLY, today I was able to speak with a CS agent named Rocky (no really, that was his name) who proceeded to tell me that my Chatr SIM card should not be working on the rogers network. This, after a week full of CS calls and explaining the problem for the umpteenth time...finally something that made sense. Fortunately, I have a local Rogers store near my house and was promptly able to switch SIM cards (free of charge). Problem solved!

At the end of everything, no one at Rogers was able to tell me why the Chatr SIM was activated in the first place and why it stopped working all of a sudden.
The whole incident was an exercise in futility as not one Rogers CS rep I dealt with empathized with my problem or offered a solution, or followed up with my problem, or offered any incentives or credits.
Even after threating to cancel my account, I still felt as if I was talking to a pre-programed android on the other end of the line. Just reading from a script with no feeling or emotion.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it’s impossible to satisfy 100% of your customers 100% of the time, especially for a big business. Companies are made up of people, and people make mistakes, I understand that.  Often times, however, customers are not overly upset with the initial mistake, they get  more upset with the way it was handled. In this case, each time Rogers apologized for my “frustration” made me more frustrated.
Are my expectations too high? I know that Rogers is not known for their attention to customer care in the first place. Do a quick search for Rogers customer service issues, and you’ll wind up with pages and pages of complaints like:

• Disgusted by Rogers’ Customer Service
• Rogers Case Study: How NOT to conduct business
• Is it Time to De-Occupy Rogers Mobile (With a hammer…)?
• Rogers Rants
• www.boycottrogers.com
• www.ihaterogers.ca

The best part was that after all the hubbub, they still tried to upsell me on their Cable, Internet and home phone services...REALLY???

RPM