As I write this I’m on hold with the fifth technical support representative at Vonage I’ve been passed to in a single phone call as they try to figure out why when people call my Oregon phone number they end up talking to a particularly disgruntled guy in LA who’s tired of taking my calls. This alone is a bad problem, but it gets worse.
The first person I spoke to at Vonage tech support was in India, and knew enough English to tell me they couldn’t help me and needed to transfer me to tech support (which I was diligent in picking from the automated menu in the first place). That person was obviously American, from the deep south. She knew enough English to tell me she couldn’t help me and said she needed to transfer me to tech support. The next person who answered the phone was in India. The pattern is getting pretty clear; I’m a buck that’s being passed across the planet because I have an atypical problem (I would assume, heaven help Vonage if I’m incorrect).
It’s really a shame, because I like Vonage for a lot of reasons. The price can’t be beat. They make use of an industry that I like to support in one way or another. They totally snub major phone companies that charge insane prices for something that is now a relatively simple operation (and for the most part, use the same technology as Vonage).
And then they go screw it all up by having terrible customer support that. As I finish this blog entry, I’m waiting for a call back from Vonage customer support, and I fear it’ll never happen for a particularly aggravating reason: he said “Can I have you cell phone number so I can call you back in a moment, my connection is bad”, though it was likely mine. I gave him my cell phone number, and he said “I’ll call you back at 502 740 9432″ and immediately hung up, even though the number he repeated back to me had the wrong area code, and 3 of the remaining seven numbers were completely incorrect.
I will probably cancel Vonage tomorrow if I can’t think of any compelling reasons not to.
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I signed up on May 6, and have had excellent quality on my calls but a terrible time trying to transfer my telephone from Qwest to Vonage.
Today I had to change my Qwest set up to a Virtual Remote Forward (or something like that) just so I could keep my Qwest transfer until this number gets ported to Vonage permanently.
Other than that, I’ve been happy. I haven’t had the problem you’ve experienced but that could be a dealbraker indeed.
Chris
I had a similar issue as Chris there when I tried to switch my number over. Vonage went ahead and refunded me the three months I couldn’t use my “real” number, even though it was MCI’s fault.
For that reason alone, I would encourage you to see if this problem can be resolved and to stick with them. I’ve been happy for all the reasons you’ve mentioned - cheap, and for me, efficient.
I have Vonage as well. You are correct, every person you talk to via customer support is from India. This is one of the negatives they don’t tell you about in the business magazines that hype off-shoring.
Anyway, I had no problems until the other day when somehow my VoIP router died (i don’t blame Vonage, I blame a faulty Linksys router)… so I had to call customer support. I talked to three levels of technicians. The first I could barely understand and it sounded like he was reading right out of a book. The second was a little easier to understand but had me do the same damn thing the previous tech did. Finally the third guy had pretty understandable English, he was well versed in the issue and tried some new things and quickly sent me a replacement router… how quick? I had it in like 20 hours complete with return shipping for the faulty router.
All in all, I like the Vonage service, it is more affordable than a standard phone line and I only had that one time problem so far.. I have had the service for about 3 months now, so I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
My advice to Vonage: stop off-shoring. Or at the very least fire all of your 1st and 2nd level techs, hire more 3rd level techs… and lastly, for the love of gawd, make choherent English part of the requirements for the job!
I’ve had Vonage for a couple of years now and haven’t had many problems. The occasional choppy connection is something I can deal with, but the customer service has always driven me completely bonkers.
I think today I will try to get through to a non tech support person and see what happens there. I think 3 months of free service could appease my wrath.
OH, so THAT explains the strange guy who said on his answering message, “You know what to do; you know when to do it!” That’s what i heard when i called you last night!
My advice is to have patience and attempt to work through the tech support heirarchy. I’ve worked in tech support for about 5 years now and as a manager, I’m an escalation point. Remember that you can always escalate. If the person you’re talking to doesn’t appear to be able to help, it’s your choice to ask for a supervisor or manager. Just please do it in a nice way…not that I can image you, Michael, to not be nice.
Based on my own experience working in tech support, I know there are people in at Vonage who care about getting problems solved and who are capable of doing it. It’s just a matter of whether or not you can navigate the phone maze to get to those people. Good luck!
Actually I wouldn’t be surprised if every single person you talked to was in India. I read a story on the whole outsourcing jobs issue and it talked about some phone centers in India that have people who speak english perfectly, to the point that they’ve been trained to speak with a specific US accent ie southern, bostonian etc. Some call centers even had rules that the rep was never to admit their nationality and were even suposed to tell callers that they were from some US city if the question ever came up. I swear i think about this everytime I call some kind of customer service.
That is exactly why we closed our bank account with Citibank - outsourcing. As you said it is not the outsourcing that I don’t like its a) the difficulty in talking to someone while trying to to explain my problem and then at the same time trying to understand each other and b) being passed around the world like I was some sort of air-ridden bacterial disease. My wife and I have come to the conclusion that if we come across a company doesn’t have English speaking representatives who have a genuine willingness to help your problem, then we can find some other company who will - just like our banking, which was switched to USAA and we couldnt be any happier. They are all in San Antonio, TX and are all VERY VERY helpful. Now I am no longer a worldwide bacterial epidemic.
Heh. I just today had to (needlessly) call Cox to work something out with a new cable modem install.
Having no landline or any phone at all except for a prepaid cell, I called to wait on hold (twice) for 15 minutes at a time to the tune of something like 12 bucks in charges.
So, resigning myself to a heinous Friday night wait time, I hied myself down to the local Qwest payphone and called the 800 number. And waited for 45 minutes. Only to discover that the username/password the sales rep failed to provide me with was useless unless I planned on installing Cox’s spyware and browser-hijacking software and using their email servers. All because their installation guide is written for muggles - and because I failed to heed my intuition to burn the thing and flush the ashes down the toilet. (Hey, it’s my first cable modem. I’m 18,000 feet from the phone co, so DSL wasn’t an option like I would have preferred it to be.)
The rep was quite American, knowledgable and helpful - especially when he discovered he was talking to a fellow geek that the script of “unplug the modem and wait 15 seconds, plug it back in and wait 1 minute” wasn’t going to work. But he was obviously insanely hurried and probably overloaded and obsessively watching his call turnover times.
But is that the common level of service you’re hoping for? I hope not. Holy cow.
So, when is it that we finally build that massive, global point-to-point grid network that no one actually owns and controls so we can do away with all this pay-for-access nonsense and get on with the blissfully anarchic free-for-all the ‘net should be?
vonage used to have excellent tech support people. however, do to a mass exodus (roughly 300) and then later from their stupidity in maltreating employees; the techs are now forced to work overtime and the quota is unrealistic in terms of providing quality service. Most of the best have left and the rest are jobhunting to leave. if any of u are looking for quality…look elsewhere. vonage is a company run by crooks and criminals only looking for the fast buck. The Securities and Exchange Commission caught them last time. The FCC should investigate them.
Well I got mine as I had AT&T Call Vantage which I loath AT&T now with every fiber of my beeing, which was bad, but I cant understand any of the technical support people, even had one hang up on me today..
JJ