Rogers is Evil

We have our home internet service through Rogers. While it usually works reasonably well, when it doesn't, it is really hell trying to go through Rogers customer service.

Here's what happened this weekend. I arrived home, back from Oberwolfach, and our internet service was down. So we tried to call Rogers 24-hour line for internet problems. However, their voice mail menu was also acting strangely. First, it asked me to enter the digits of my postal code, and when I did this, it then said "That was not a valid response." After a second go-round, it then connected me with the Rogers credit department -- not the Internet problem line -- which then provided the helpful message "The Rogers credit department is now closed. Please call back during regular business hours".

Pushing 0 at any point did not help. Either it said "That was not a valid response", or it transferred me to the credit department. We tried over and over again, trying to enter different numbers, etc. We also called other Rogers numbers. Nothing worked.

We eventually got through by calling Rogers from a different phone. So somehow it is recognizing my home phone number and then acting strangely.

Then this morning I tried to explain to Rogers that their voice mail was not working. What a waste of time that was! They seemed completely uninterested in the fact that it is badly broken, and several people I spoke to did not even believe it. Nor are they willing to give me a call when it is fixed. So here I am with no internet and no direct way of calling Rogers from my home phone to report it!

Still not convinced? How about the way they handle distribution of the iPhone 4? Since I'm back from a sabbatical in the US, I'm in the market for a new cell phone. Rogers had a website where you could sign up for iPhone 4 updates. But then it arrived in stores with no notification to me. And now, if you want one, there's no waiting list you can join. If you want one, you just have to show up at a store when they open, hoping this will be your lucky day. There's no rational basis for this kind of crappy product distribution.

How does such a billion-dollar company survive with such lousy customer service?