syd@dsi.com (Syd Weinstein) (06/16/89)
Tonight I had the need to call Sydney Australia, and as a US Sprint
customer (they give me free accounting codes), I dialed the call
myself but I had a digit wrong so I got the US Sprint operator who
redialed the call for me. It got connected wrong, so I hung up
after a few minutes of trying to find the person I wanted and finding I
had a wrong number. I called their operator and they told me to
call customer service, and they would redial the call for me.
Again, I got the same wrong number. I called customer service,
listened to their tape of advertisements for about ten to fifteen
minutes while 'all reps were busy' and then got a rep who would credit
my account, and told me I had a 0 in the phone number that shouldnt
be there, and to dial it again. By the way, it would take about
37 days for the credit to make it to my bill. (They cannot cancel a
billing, just issue a credit, still...). Total time on hold and
working with the rep: about 20 minutes.
Ok, I redialed the call and it went through fine.
Ok, I wanted to see how AT&T would handle this problem, in the pre
divestiture days, I would have called 0 and the Operator would have
given me an immediate cancelling of the call. Now:
First I called the 800 number in the phone book for AT&T Business Long
distance, after all, I was calling from a business number. I got a
voice intercept on the first ring, press 1 if calling about residence
service and 2 if calling about business service. Neat, I call a
business only number and I hit a redirect. Ok, I hit 2 and I get a
ring and an answer. I ask my question, and totally flabergast the
person on the line. They wanted to give me a credit, not just ask
about one. I asked how to do it, they replied: I don't know, you have
to call xxxx (a different 800 #), but its only answered from 8:30 to
5:00.
I hung up and then tried the 800 number from my phone book for the
residence users. I got a live person immediately, asked the question
and was told to call them and they can issue a credit, or immediately,
dial 00 (102880 if not primary) and the operator can still intercept
it, sometimes.
Total time to get the info from AT&T about 5 minutes.
My overall feeling, I liked it better before, when all I did was call 0
and it worked, however, although AT&T answers faster, their people are
often no better trained than the others (I have run into this AT&T
problem before). US Sprint just needs better billing controls, as they
have needed for several years, and more reps to answer the phones.
(Perhaps I should start billing them for my time on hold...... :-)).
=====================================================================
Sydney S. Weinstein, CDP, CCP Elm Coordinator
Datacomp Systems, Inc. Voice: (215) 947-9900
syd@DSI.COM or {bpa,vu-vlsi}!dsinc!syd FAX: (215) 938-0235
[Moderator's Note: For credit from AT&T for a wrong number, you need merely
to dial the operator. She will put through a credit then, and it will cancel
the call just dialed. It helps to call the operator *immediatly* following
dialing a wrong number. PT]