There's a crisis in this country. Well, actually, there are a lot of them, but this one relates to the quality of customer service provided by our telecommunications companies who apparently think:

1. We are a nation of idiots; and
2. That they have no competition.

There's no other explanation for it. But first a bit of back story. This is where everything goes wavy in a flashback.

I used to be a Comcast (News - Alert) customer. During the epic storm that pummeled the U.S. Northeast just before Halloween, dumping more than 18 inches of snow in places, my cable connection from house to pole was knocked to the ground. Once the power was restored a week later by Connecticut Light & Power (whose CEO was subsequently thrown under the bus by that company's management to appease the state's outrage), I began making phone calls to Comcast. Every day for nearly two weeks, which is how long Comcast took to repair the damage.

The storm was epic, and many people required reconnections. But it was the way Comcast handled the problem that was unforgivable: as if the company was suddenly very surprised to find that it had customers that did anything but quietly pay their bills. Prior to my Daily Phone (News - Alert) Calls of Comcast Telecom Angst, I waited up to 30 minutes for an agent, who – after taking a full five minutes to figure out who I was – would begin to tell me a litany of blatant lies and conflicting information. As in:

Day 1: “You're on the repair ticket for today.”

Day 2: “You're on the repair ticket for today.”

Day 3: “Who are you? We have no record of your account.” (My response: “Well, that's funny, since your bills always manage to find me.”)

Days 4 – 7: “We're very busy after this storm. We can give you no estimates for when your service will be restored.”

Day 8: “Who are you again?”

Day 9: “You're on our repair ticket for today. By the time you wake up tomorrow, your service will be restored.”

Day 8: “Are you sure you have an account with us?”

Day 9: “Wha ur vay beeezy, eeh kanno geev aystmite.”

Days 10 – 12: We are aware you are having problems, but we still can't give you an estimate.”

Days 13: “We have no information for you. Sorry.”

Day 14: “Your call will be handled in the order it was received...order it was received...it was received.”

By the time the cable service was restored, I was resolved to strike Comcast from my memory, the way I might try to erase the memory of, say...a chance sighting of Ernest Borgnine naked.

The first time I spoke with a U.S.-based call center agent who spoke English well was the day I called to disconnect my service. Existing customers can apparently be serviced by individuals in foreign call centers who have yet to get past the “Excuse me, which way to the bus station?” state of learning English, but the moment I became determined to break up with the cable company, I found myself speaking to a “customer retention specialist” based in the U.S. 

After I assured him that I would rather eat a bowl of dead locusts than continue to be a Comcast customer, I began my quest for telecom competence, turning to AT&T (News - Alert) U-Verse, which subsequently hooked us up with television and Internet service. (We were and still are scheduled for bundled phone service, as well, but AT&T failed to “find” our telephone account with Vonage (News - Alert), despite being given the correct account number and a phone number.)

For a few weeks, we put up with occasionally frozen, pixilated television viewing by comforting ourselves that...hey, at least it's not Comcast. When our Internet speed, paid for and promised at speeds up to 18 mgps, reached 1.56 mgps, it was time to call AT&T customer service. After climbing through nine layers of IVR clearly designed to encourage me to hang up and go away, I finally reached a heavily accented human, who scheduled me for service. (Or...that's the impression I got, since I caught only every fifth word.)

Service guy number two examined our system for about an hour when he began scratching his head. “Who installed your service?” he asked. “He's routed the television connection through the equipment twice, which is why you have no Internet speed at all.” After ostensibly fixing our problem, he departed.

Within days, our Internet speeds were back down to 1.5 mgps, and our wireless router – which I imagine should have been new, but in fact looked like it has survived the Battle of Verdun – heaved a disgusted sigh and died, leaving us with no telephone and no Internet. Upon calling AT&T U-verse customer support, I was informed that call traffic was heavy, and that I might experience wait times up to 30 minutes.

Did I mention it was early Sunday morning? I'm convinced that if you called telecom customer service a week after the Universe died from entropy, you would be informed that call volume was heavy and all agents were busy with other customers.

When I finally reached an agent – after another ten thousand layers of IVR menu tree choices – I explained my problem. Again. As if none of my previous interactions had ever even entered a digital customer record. (As a side note, customer relationship management software must be one of the most purchased but least utilized technologies on earth, just after those plug-in coffee mug warmers you see in the holiday gift aisle in CVS in December.)

“Haav yw onplagged rrowter and trat replag beck een?” asked my technical support specialist, who sounded like he was located on a far moon of Jupiter.

“Yes,” I confirmed. (I'd gotten very good at speaking “Foreign Call Center Agentish” by this time.)

As I write, I am scheduled for yet another service call for my AT&T U-verse service. But I have a few broad questions I'd like to pose to the telecommunications companies of the U.S.

• Why do you hate your customers so much?
• Does it not make sense that if you consistently have long wait times for customer support, it's time to hire some more agents?
• Would it kill you to hire some U.S.-based agents who can actually speak English?
• Why are you only solicitous of me when I want to dump you? You're like that immature boyfriend in high school who acts like a jerk up until the moment I dropped the, “I think we need to talk line” on him.
• Do you realize that it's actually more cost-effective for me to continue playing telecom company musical chairs, dropping one company to take advantage of another's introductory offers, then dropping that company and returning to company A to take advantage of their “customer win-back” offers and repeating this cycle unto eternity? Think of all the repeated connect/disconnects I can put you through before I'm done. Wouldn't it save you more money to just keep me happy in the first place?
• Do you really imagine that your competition is going to decrease in the future?

Finally, stop telling me that my call is important to you. It's the corporate version of a faked orgasm, and it's not fooling us anymore.