Good customer service does exist

By now, most of us have had the unpleasant experience of dealing with a customer service representative by phone who is obviously in a far-away country.

My wife, Wendy, and I have dealt with such situations on several occasions with the Internet and landline phone provider that now goes by the name, Brightspeed. Now, before I go any further, I want to emphasize that what I’m about to describe is no more than a recap of my own experience, and isn’t a general bashing of Brightspeed. I’m sure other people have successful and wonderful interactions with the company, and would recommend them to friends and relatives; it’s just that I have endured the opposite more times than I want to think about.

But there’s a flip side to this story, too, and that’s what this description is really all about.

Wendy and I have a couple of adjacent houses in the Houston area, and we’ve lived in both for extended periods. We have also had Brightspeed Internet and landline service in both, primarily because they’re the only ones who have lines run through the neighborhood.

In the past, we’ve had to contact Brightspeed’s customer service department several times to request some other sort of work or assistance, and each and every time it has been an utter nightmare. But the most recent occasion really takes the cake.

Wendy and I are moving from one home to the other, with the intention of selling the one we’re leaving, so Wendy called to have our Internet and phone transferred. What she was told is incredible.

“We no longer offer Internet in your area.”

I was like, “I’m going to call that a lie, because we have their Internet right now!”

She ended the phone call without any action being taken or decision being made.

I decided to call, to see if I got any other form of reply. Nope.

“Sir, you can transfer the phone service, but not the Internet.”

Mind you, the people Wendy and I spoke with were clearly on another continent and weren’t at all well equipped to be representing a U.S. company with a whole lot of clients. In fact, the guy I spoke with couldn’t pronounce Houston.

No, really; he couldn’t say it. And I’m here to tell you, I could hear in his voice that he wasn’t really engaged in helping me, and he pretty much didn’t care about my predicament. I hate to think so, but I kind of believe when these people take another call they’re like, “great, another spoiled, half-witted American.”

Anyway, even though I’m not quite sure the answers we were getting were accurate (because we use Brightspeed Internet in the house we were in when we made the calls), I didn’t care because I had reached a point where I absolutely, positively didn’t want to continue paying money to a company that never seemed to value our patronage. In turn, I asked a friend who lives “off-grid” in Texas County who he gets his Internet service from.

Now, I knew he wasn’t going to say Starlink (because of the expense) or Hughesnet (because of the lousy reviews it always gets), and I was truly interested in the answer.

Turns out it’s U.S. Cellular. He mentioned the monthly cost, which was about the same as what we have been used to, and he didn’t have anything negative to say about the service.

Here’s where the story really shifts.

I looked into it, and U.S. Cellular does in fact offer wireless rural Internet service via a router that basically transmits wi-fi via a phone number. But not only that, they have an actual store in Houston staffed by actual Americans who have no trouble pronouncing the name of the town. I went into the store and the actual American I dealt with was a kind and knowledgeable young woman named Lisa.

Imagine that: No lengthy hold period on the phone, no fighting with a language deficit, and no questionable (or ridiculous) information (or misinformation).

As I sat and listened to Lisa, I kept trying to hear the downside of what she was discussing or identify “the catch,” but I couldn’t.

I left and went home to let my wife know, and she was as amazed and pleased about the situation as I was, so I went right back to the store and had Lisa hook us up. When I sat down with her, she called me by my first name, and I was impressed.

She proceeded to set me up, and I left with a cute little white router and plenty of hope that our situation was about to change. When I got home, I followed instructions and we had working Internet in virtually no time.

Wow, what a relief, and what a revelation!

In dealing with Brightspeed, we’ve always been required to wait several days (or even weeks) to have something done at our house, and more than once been told a technician would arrive on a given day only to have no such person show up (which of course meant having to get on the phone again; ugh). It honestly got to the point where we very much dreaded having to call Brightspeed because we knew for certain that it wasn’t going to go well.

In U.S. Cellular’s case, it was like talk to the nice American, get informed (concisely and properly), go home with the sleek little contraption and presto, wi-fi central – same day!

It’s a miracle! Cue the Hallelujah Chorus!

Feeling that way was kind of weird, because we should never have received the terrible service we had in the past – but we did.

Almost comically, I asked my friend how long he has had U.S. Cellular Internet, and he said, “about three years.”

I was like, “of course.” When I told Wendy that, we were both like, “dang it, we could have had something better for all this time.”

The conclusion to the matter is we’re extremely grateful to have discovered that our Internet plight didn’t have to continue. We do still have the home phone to deal with (which we do desire to maintain), and as I write this, we haven’t come to a conclusion on how to handle that (largely because it would mean still having a connection to a company I can’t stand).

But you can’t always get what you want, right?

Again, this story is just about what Wendy and I have experienced; it’s not a blanket accusation that Brightspeed is 100-percent evil.

But I have a feeling there are plenty more like me out there who have gone through personal ordeals trying to deal with foreign customer service reps who are half-clueless and three-quarters detached.

Thank God that in some instances (like rural Internet), there’s a way out.

Doug Davison is a writer, photographer and newsroom assistant for the Houston Herald. Email: ddavison@houstonherald.com .

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