I've had Comcast Digital Voice for over a year now and I love the service. But for the first time tonight I found a problem with it. I received a new credit card in the mail today with the automated phone number to activate it. First thing I did tonight was call that number from my home phone.
The wonderful automated system asked me to say or enter my 16-digit card number. After entering all 16 digits, while many foreign languages were being spoken in the background, the system notified me that it didn't recognize my number. So it repeated the request in many languages. I in turn repeated the 16 digits and again it didn't recognize my number. This time I was going to test its voice recognition so I spoke all 16 digits and again no luck. At this point all I wanted was a customer service representative, so I entered all zeros hoping that might bypass the bad loop I was in. No luck... but after the 10th attempt, it kicked me to a different menu. Finally!
This menu was slightly different as it asked me to speak my request... 'representative' to speak to a representative, 'activate' to start up the activate menu again, 'credit card' to check my credit card balance and a few others I ignored. So I began to say 'representative' and I got nothing but repeated options. By this time, all I can think of are the Citibank commercials that are out right now wishing this was a Citi card. After cursing, screaming and making many other 'unrecognized' comments, the system thanked me and sent me to a customer service rep. Finally!!! Rebecca answered in a very pleasant voice and as I spoke to her, she kept repeating herself. She couldn't hear me and finally asked me to call back if I could hear her. UGH!!!!!!!
Thinking it might be my phone I called a friend and they could hear me without any difficulty. They thought it was odd I was calling to say 'can you hear me now?' But I was on a mission.
So knowing my phone was fine, I called again. Same exact deal... and after the 2nd try... I wasn't about to try 10 times... I hung up. Thinking I was smart, I tried the normal customer service number from the back of my card. A different automated system, but again one that asked me to speak commands. And once again, the system didn't recognize anything I said. Fortunately this one only took about 2 minutes before it sent me to a customer service rep. And once again the rep couldn't hear anything I was saying.
At that point I'm thinking that the telephony system from Comcast isn't compatible with the automated phone system this unnamed major bank utilized. So I figured I'd try my cell phone. Bingo, I was able to speak the commands and get to a customer service rep. The rep was able to activate my card, but when I asked about the difficulties I was having with their automated system, she stated that the company wasn't aware of any, but that recently they were having a large number of calls come through where customers weren't saying anything. I asked if there were any limitations to their phone system and first thing out of her mouth was "You have to call from a LAN line." Well there you go!!! Explains why my Comcast Digital Voice line wasn't able to communicate. But doesn't explain why my Cell phone (obviously not a LAN line) was able to access the system.
So if you have Comcast Digital Voice, be prepared to be frustrated with automate phone systems.
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4 comments:
Now that is funny! Yes I am laughing at the thought of you yelling at the phone.
I have Vonage and haven't had any problems like that. Although I don't like the Indiana Call - Phone Number that appears on the caller ID when I call someone. But it is better than 'Vonage' that used to appear.
Hmmm... "LAN line" -- I would think she meant "landline", as in a fixed line phone. That's one of those things operators say like computer gurus say "oh, try rebooting your computer" -- usually fixes the problem and gets the customer to go away for a while. :-/
That's why I made sure I spelled it out the way she said it. I even asked her do you mean "landline" thinking she was just mispronouncing it a bit and she said "No LAN line, L-A-N." I laughed.
comcast phone service is a land line. it doesn't go out over the internet so is also not a LAN-hahaha-line. if the bank was having lots of calls like this, the problem was probably with the phone lines in their area. there are a lot of comcast phone customers, but not enough to be noticable to a big bank like that.
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