Rogers Wireless: How many (x) does it take to swap an email address?
Comments(0) 11 Techs
6.75+ Hours
1 Data Specialist
2 Managers in the office of the Rogers president
? Promises.
A little bit of background…
A client had a blackberry. She loved her little blackberry, but as with all technology, it got old quickly. Feeling rather adventurous, she decided to try out this new-fangled Curve thing. You’d think, it being 2008, the mobile market would be far enough advanced that making a switch to a new phone would be simple, pain-free.. some might even say “seamless”! You’d think.
For reasons I can’t fathom, when she switched from her dear old BlackBerry 8700 to the BlackBerry Curve, they created her a new BIS account.
BIS is basically an easy to use, feature-sparse portal, which allows a user to add email addresses to their blackberry. I have no qualms with it: when you add a new account all you do is put in the email address, and the password. I could be wrong but I think it figures out the incoming server. It will validate that all the information so that if you enter the wrong password, you know right away.
Anyway, back to the story. So for some reason, switching from the 8700 to the Curve meant they had to create a new BIS account. Well as it turns out, associating an @rogers.blackberry.net email account from one BIS account to another is no small issue.
Yesterday I was on the phone with Rogers Wireless BlackBerry/PDA/Smartphone support for no less than three hours (!).
I spoke with 7 different people;
4 techs - techs one and two told me I wasn’t authorized to make changes to the account. Which is funny because I was added to the list a month or more ago. Okay, so someone forgot to commit the changes or what have you. No big deal. Tech one told me the change would be made right away. It wasn’t, so I called back and spoke to tech two. He refused to do anything because I wasn’t authorized. On to tech three. Now I was getting a bit angry, which seemed to be motivation enough not to bring up the fact that I (still) wasn’t authorized - they were willing to make changes anyway.
Tech three told me to open a ticket with RIMM because the email gets locked for 90 days after the BIS account is deleted. As it turns out, if I register foo.bar@rogers.blackberry.net, then close my account, the email gets locked for 90 days so that if Joe Blow comes along and registers the same address two days later, he doesn’t get a ton of email destined for me. Fair enough.
… wait. So, Rogers wants me to contact RIMM, give them my credit card number and have them try to unlock the account, all because Rogers is too f!@#ing lazy to do the thing properly? Why did they even create a new BIS account in the first place - and why did they close the first one instead of just suspending it, and why couldn’t they just transfer the address, or contact RIMM and have them do it? There’s no way in hell they could possibly be telling me I need to pay for RIMM support. Rogers is the service provider, but they’re certainly not providing any useful service here. The point of a service provider is to resell a service, add value, and support your own damn customers. VAR, people, VAR.
On to tech four. He tells me, after I complain about what I was just told by the last tech, that I need to be speaking with someone in data. I’m feeling now like there might actually be some hope - was it an oversight by the first three technicians, could it be that they just don’t know how to do it, but someone in data does?
In steps the data specialist. This time it’s a female. She hears me out, lets me blow some steam and tells me politely and with great empathy that all of what the previous techs told me is ridiculous. She agreed wholeheartedly that what the tech said about having to pay RIMM for Rogers’ shortcomings is laughable (actually I felt more like crying.)
She tells me reassuringly, “I don’t know why they transferred you to me. I’m going to put you on hold, and I’m going to find someone who knows what they’re talking about.”
She made me feel good. What made me feel better was (ironically), I was on hold long enough that I knew she was actually doing what she said she’d do. She was talking to a tech and describing the problem in enough detail to convey the problem, and making sure they understood what they were about to undertake, before handing me over.
Tech Five. This tech listens to my problem, and decides it needs to be escalated.
In steps Tech Six. This one is special. He is a Tier-Two tech. He listens, and tells me it will be dealt with tomorrow morning.
I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing my problems are in the hands of the competent Rogers support personnel. (Ha, ha.)
This morning I am (unpleasantly) suprised (not) to find that the email address hasn’t yet been released. And I’m recieving edgy emails from the client.
I get on the phone with Rogers (oh, I forgot to mention, nobody would give me an alternate number to call so I could stop messing around in the hold queue. On that note, why doesn’t Rogers Wireless employ the same system as Rogers Internet does? I’m not sure if they still do it any more, but they used to have a call-back system where you’d enter your phone number and a support tech would call you back as soon as it was your turn in the queue. Brilliant.)
I don’t even bother explaining the situation to Tech Seven. I just tell him to put me through to someone who can actually see to it that something gets done. Obviously these guys are filters because he downright refuses to help me until I give him a brief description of why I’m ripping my hair out. After a quick rant in an angry tone he puts me on hold. An important sounding guy comes back on the phone, and rattles off his title, but he also throws in that he’s working in the office with the president. I’m a little taken aback as I didn’t catch all of what he said, and it sounded to me like he had said that he was the president. Sheesh, I didn’t know I was kicking up that much dirt.
So I raise my voice a little. I’m really quite angry by this point. I’m pacing around, telling him I don’t give a damn whether I’m on their stupid list or not - okay, I admit, I got a bit childish with him.
If there’s one thing that impressed me about these people, it’s that even though they have come off as being less technically competent than a freakin’ doorknob (which I’m sure is in no small part due to Rogers’ employee policy tieing them down), I was actually impressed by probably half of the people I spoke to in how they handled my (lack of) manner.
The manager stays on the phone while I speak with Tech Eight - I was going to get the issue resolved first, and then talk to the manager later, about my dissapointment in the (lack of) service being provided. I wanted him on the line to ensure that things would actually get done.
As fate would have it, my VOIP phone was feeling dizzy, and not getting along at all well with a newly installed router. We were disconnected, and unfortunately when they called back, I didn’t manage to pick up in time. That one was my fault - however the tech left a message, with no callback number and no ticket number. Before being disconncted, I was assured that the issue was being escalated and that I would be contacted later by the escalation department.
As I started typing this blog entry I was on the phone with Tech Ten. By no fault of his, we were disconnected. I didn’t recieve a call back despite having given him my phone number.
I’m back on the phone with them forty-five minutes later. Tech Eleven is now seeing a note on the account - apparently we have to wait 48 hours for a response from RIMM. Unacceptable.
Back to the office of the president, then.
Except apparently they’ve been closed for an hour.
Rogers - as a customer, and as an IT guy having to do business with you on a day-to-day basis is driving me crazy. If I had a choice I’d tell everyone I know not to use any of your services, ever. The only reason I am a Rogers customer is partially because of my own stupidity in getting locked in, and partially because some of the other guys have even worse service, if that’s possible. So thanks, but screw you. Rant over.