[29062] in North American Network Operators' Group
RE: Interesting DSL anecdote.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Medwid)
Wed Jun 7 18:59:55 2000
Message-ID: <271DE2625FD4D311949B009027F43B9F010A3D00@US-MTVMAIL2>
From: Michael Medwid <Michael.Medwid@ariba.com>
To: 'Steve Sobol' <sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net>,
nanog@merit.edu
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 15:57:14 -0700
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Reminds me of Concentric's inane auto-attendant system. I was
trying to reach tech support as my DSL line had gone down
(Covad/Concentric.) Concentric's voice prompt says "To find
out about our technical support please visit our web site
at www.concentric.com." Ahhhhhhhhhhgh! I wrote them and
complained. They apologized. Nothing changed.
It's all part of a vast call-avoidance conspiracy. If there
were truth in some of these auto-attendant systems there'd be
two prompts:
To buy stuff from us press one.
To get out of our face and stop costing us money press any other key.
Or stay on the line and we'll disconnect you shortly.
-Michael
-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Sobol [mailto:sjsobol@NorthShoreTechnologies.net]
Sent: Wednesday, June 07, 2000 3:43 PM
To: nanog@merit.edu
Subject: Interesting DSL anecdote.
Apropos of the recent DSL discussion:
I'm looking for a DSL wholesale provider so I can resell to end-users.
I called both Covad and Rhythms today.
There are exactly two menu options on Covad's auto-attendant: sales
and customer service. I didn't think either was appropriate, as I'm
looking for the department that deals with resellers and channel
partners (and the sales option was to "become a Covad customer",
implying that that option was for end-user sales).
But that's all there is. There isn't even an option to be forwarded
to an operator.
I hit the number for sales, waited five minutes, decided I didn't
feel like waiting and hung up.
I then called Rhythms, dialed zero for the operator, asked for
someone who handles resellers, got a human within thirty seconds
of being transferred, and started chatting. He asked me a couple
questions, found out who the sales rep is that handles my
territory, and I expect to get a call back from the sales rep by
the end of business tomorrow.
I guess Rhythms is more interested in my business than Covad is.
--
North Shore Technologies, Cleveland, OH
http://NorthShoreTechnologies.net
Steve Sobol, BOFH - President, Chief Website Architect and Janitor
Spammers and Net-abusers: Don't bother asking me for service. See
http://NorthShoreTechnologies.net/go/policy/ for more information.
