AT&T Customer Service is horrible

[Landsharkk]

Hmm, was hoping for a chance to report a positive experience with AT&T, sadly I cannot.

Call 1) Placed yesterday. I called AT&T to inquire about upgrade eligibility. They tell me I'm eligible and they will waive the renewal fee for when I choose to upgrade. When I ask about the Windows Phone 8 (specifically the Nokia Lumia 920), the sales rep immediately changed the subject to Android and Samsung phones and didn't seem to understand that I was asking about Windows Phones and the Nokia Lumia 920. Odd, but ok.

Call 2) Placed today. I called AT&T to place an upgrade order for the Lumia 920 (Yellow) on one of my family plan lines that was eligible (actually all my family plan lines are eligible). Anyway, the sales rep (although very friendly) said he could only sell me the phone for $199.99. I told him the phone was listed for $99 on the website, which he replied to by saying "that is the online only price". He told me he would make a note on my account that the phone is $199 (I don't understand why he would do this?). That was the end of the call.

3) Attempt to Order Online from AT&T and the promo website. First I have to create/register an account (apparently this was never done?) so that I can access my account online and log in. Ok, a few minutes and that process is done. Now I go to order the phone which does show up for $99 on the 'check out' page, but the wireless charging plate insists on being $24.99 (50% off). I know I have 50% off all accessories due to an employee discount (not AT&T). So it seems the company discount attached to the account is overriding the promotions (odd, shouldn't their system realize the promotion is cheaper and offer that first?). Order placed, for $24.99 more than it should be.

I plan on contacting customer service tomorrow (I'm out of energy for this right now) to get that $24.99 taken off the order.

It seems like this whole process is designed to screw over any potential customer or existing customer trying to upgrade.

I'm REALLY hoping we get lucky and my local store has yellow in-stock at the store on Friday. I'm picking up another Lumia 920 (black) in store anyway. If they do have yellow in-store (crossing fingers!!) then I'll just buy it there and cancel the online order.

Customer experience? Pretty dang ****ty. Oddly, all of the customer reps have been very friendly and polite. The problem here is obviously a HUGE lack of communication within AT&T.

 

[Laura Knotek]

I've never had issues with AT&T. However, I've always visited a corporate store. The manager knows me, and he is usually the person who takes care of me.

The AT&T store manager even helped me with a school project when I was still in school. He took the time to give me pricing for a hypothetical business contract for a capstone course project. I told him that this was not an actual purchase, but just a project for school. He still took the time to give me pricing on 100 devices and voice/data plans, as if I were purchasing products/services for a business.

 

[Landsharkk]

I've never had issues with AT&T. However, I've always visited a corporate store. The manager knows me, and he is usually the person who takes care of me.

The AT&T store manager even helped me with a school project when I was still in school. He took the time to give me pricing for a hypothetical business contract for a capstone course project. I told him that this was not an actual purchase, but just a project for school. He still took the time to give me pricing on 100 devices and voice/data plans, as if I were purchasing products/services for a business.

Normally I do all of my AT&T business from their store in Redmond, WA (near Microsoft campus), because they are generally more tech savvy and understand how to talk geek with their primarily geeky customers.

However, I went against my instincts and tried to order via the phone/online and was once again disappointed with the experience. If AT&T had communicated quite clearly which colors would be in the stores on Friday I think a lot more people would not have bothered with the online/phone orders.

 

[unboxfetish]

I wish I could deal with a company that actually gave a !@#!

 

[mattgrif]

I would like to provide an update to this post.

I received a call last night from Pedro who is the Social Media Manager for AT&T. I told me he had read this forum post and ask for me to summarize a bit more of my experience. I walked him though everything and he greatly apologized for my experience and thanked me for letting them know about the poor customer service.

I told him I was done trying to pre-order it because it was such a cluster, and that they needed to handle this release in a much better fashion. He informed me that the reason people are being charged is because the offer doesn't activate until tonight and that this was because of a miss-communication with the web team on advertising the offer. I ask him if I'd receive it Friday if I pre-order tonight and he told me he could not promise that.

My final question was what colors would be available in the brick and mortar stores; he included the disclaimer he doesn't know inventory for the stores however they will be receiving all of the colors.

 

[ky Phan]

I would like to provide an update to this post.

I received a call last night from Pedro who is the Social Media Manager for AT&T. I told me he had read this forum post and ask for me to summarize a bit more of my experience. I walked him though everything and he greatly apologized for my experience and thanked me for letting them know about the poor customer service.

I told him I was done trying to pre-order it because it was such a cluster, and that they needed to handle this release in a much better fashion. He informed me that the reason people are being charged is because the offer doesn't activate until tonight and that this was because of a miss-communication with the web team on advertising the offer. I ask him if I'd receive it Friday if I pre-order tonight and he told me he could not promise that.

My final question was what colors would be available in the brick and mortar stores; he included the disclaimer he doesn't know inventory for the stores however they will be receiving all of the colors.

I wonder if Nokia should know about this horrible "LAUNCH" ATT did for their phone.

The 920 seems like a saviour for Nokia.

I wonder if this blunder will affect sales.

 

[Duvi]

I would like to provide an update to this post.

I received a call last night from Pedro who is the Social Media Manager for AT&T. I told me he had read this forum post and ask for me to summarize a bit more of my experience. I walked him though everything and he greatly apologized for my experience and thanked me for letting them know about the poor customer service.

I told him I was done trying to pre-order it because it was such a cluster, and that they needed to handle this release in a much better fashion. He informed me that the reason people are being charged is because the offer doesn't activate until tonight and that this was because of a miss-communication with the web team on advertising the offer. I ask him if I'd receive it Friday if I pre-order tonight and he told me he could not promise that.

My final question was what colors would be available in the brick and mortar stores; he included the disclaimer he doesn't know inventory for the stores however they will be receiving all of the colors.

That's definitely BS (or misinformation) on his part, unless that doesn't apply to premier.

It gave me my normal premier discount and the remainder was then discounted to make the plate $0.00! I'll post a pic when I get a chance.

 

[aximtreo]

Update

My story of AT&T in a hopefully short post. Just after WP7 phones came out, I purchased a Samsung Focus on eBay. Since it GSM and I was on Verizon, I activated it on AT&T. After a few days, I decide WP7 was no where close to being market ready.

Time passes and today I decide that I want the Lumia 920 so I hop online and start the process. That was at midnight and I didn't realize that Premier customers had priority ordering. That's fine, no problem. Went to bed and got up at 5 and decided to try the process again.

I enter what I want and hit the place the order button. A few seconds later I get this sorry can't complete your order because of some credit issue. I have excellent credit so I started the process again and again mixed in with multiple calls to Customer Service and Sales at AT&T. 3.5 hours later I finally got an agent to tell me that my credit was holding things up. I asked what credit bureau they used and contacted them, paid $16 for a combined credit report and score. The score was 763 by the way with no burps on the credit report.

Back to AT&T I go. Now almost begging them to take my money. Another few calls and they still could not find what kicket me our for credit. By the way, they said if I put a security payment of $1000, yeah $1000 for security, they would place the order.

LOL is what I did.Now mind you, I placed orders multiple times online thinking it would go through. Nope, went to Best Buy site and got the same problem. Best Buy customer mimed the AT&T people and said they had no idea what the problem was.

OK, I go back to AT&T(I'm a glutton for punishment) and they find that all the orders I placed placed a flag on my account and it would be February before they expired. I could call or place an online order then. Are you ******* kidding me. I hung up. 20 minutes later a rep calls me and tell me they are trying to figure out how to erase all these calls but until they find the thing flagging my original order, I still could not order.

I ask you, would you give these idiots another chance?

After I calmed down and slept on it, the solution sort of came to mind. I tried one last time to order online with no luck. I then used my wife's name and info and the order was accepted. Along with the confirmation, I got a separate email saying that my order had been sent to the warehouse for shipment. So, I have a Carolina Blue Lumia 920 on it's way.

One slight hitch was I was not offered during the process any way to add the charging block so will call on Friday to see what the situation. I ordered off contract so I may not qualify for the freebee. Anyone care to offer and updated info on whether the off contract buyers get the charging block. Thanks for all the kind words I received on my initial post. I'm just an impatient old fuddy duddy.

 

[theeboredone]

While I've never been an AT&T customer, I've always got the feeling that it's their customer service that tends to bring them down as opposed to just going to a corporate store.

Honestly, it just takes stable communication in the chain of command. I'm just shocked how it can constantly get mixed or gone astray.

 

[Laura Knotek]

While I've never been an AT&T customer, I've always got the feeling that it's their customer service that tends to bring them down as opposed to just going to a corporate store.

Honestly, it just takes stable communication in the chain of command. I'm just shocked how it can constantly get mixed or gone astray.

I really cannot say. I've never ordered online. I've always stopped at a corporate store to buy a new device. The folks in the store have always been knowledgeable, courteous and professional.

Whenever I've called customer service when I've had problems, that's been hit-or-miss. Some reps have been terrific, but others have been clueless.