Tuesday, August 07, 2007
A few quick reviews:
1. AT&T customer service has been amazing. I don't if it's just the iPhone 800 number (which goes straight to an agent) or the fact that I get transferred to business support since I work for Apple, but AT&T has been solid. From the initial sign up, switching plans mid month, adding services, and now combining my dad's iphone onto my family account, it's all been friendly and painless. I think they are actively trying to help their support ratings.
2. I took the China town bus to Baltimore this past weekend. Such a nightmare. The bus to Baltimore left 2 hours late because they wouldn't leave until the bus was full. The return bus arrived 45 minutes late, which was worse since we were standing in a dangerous truck stop in Baltimore at 1am. And we didn't really know if it would even show up!
The people running the service straight up lie to you and tell you what you want to hear just to sell more tickets. You can't really believe anything they say. And when you call them on it, they conveniently can't speak english.
3. My mom has Verizon FIOS which in theory is amazing. It's fiber optic internet and phone, and has an incredibly fast theoretical top speed (30mbps, or 5x a cable!) Unfortunately her service cuts in and out all the time. After she tried calling them 5 times, I tried myself. I instantly knew I had been tranferred to someone in India who knew nothing but to read from a screen. They were worthless.
This week they came out to see what the issue is. They took the FIOS wireless router and plugged it directly into my mom's imac (instead of relying on the iMac's wireless for internet). So that fixed the iMac, but what about other laptops in the house? If they are using shitty wireless routers, why don't they replace them?
Unbelievable. I can't stand stuff like this. I want to kill someone!
On the international thing: China and India are clearly growing and doing very well with export of goods and services. But I've always felt the quality from those countries is incredibly poor. Software engineers in India might be able to hack up a product, but it won't be well designed or bug free. Outsourced customer service to India is always terrible (think of Dell). And make sure you don't put any of those toys from China in your mouth since the paint may have lead in it!
They think one day I'll be buying a Chinese built car or flying in a Chinese built AIRPLANE???? Yeah right.
1. AT&T customer service has been amazing. I don't if it's just the iPhone 800 number (which goes straight to an agent) or the fact that I get transferred to business support since I work for Apple, but AT&T has been solid. From the initial sign up, switching plans mid month, adding services, and now combining my dad's iphone onto my family account, it's all been friendly and painless. I think they are actively trying to help their support ratings.
2. I took the China town bus to Baltimore this past weekend. Such a nightmare. The bus to Baltimore left 2 hours late because they wouldn't leave until the bus was full. The return bus arrived 45 minutes late, which was worse since we were standing in a dangerous truck stop in Baltimore at 1am. And we didn't really know if it would even show up!
The people running the service straight up lie to you and tell you what you want to hear just to sell more tickets. You can't really believe anything they say. And when you call them on it, they conveniently can't speak english.
3. My mom has Verizon FIOS which in theory is amazing. It's fiber optic internet and phone, and has an incredibly fast theoretical top speed (30mbps, or 5x a cable!) Unfortunately her service cuts in and out all the time. After she tried calling them 5 times, I tried myself. I instantly knew I had been tranferred to someone in India who knew nothing but to read from a screen. They were worthless.
This week they came out to see what the issue is. They took the FIOS wireless router and plugged it directly into my mom's imac (instead of relying on the iMac's wireless for internet). So that fixed the iMac, but what about other laptops in the house? If they are using shitty wireless routers, why don't they replace them?
Unbelievable. I can't stand stuff like this. I want to kill someone!
On the international thing: China and India are clearly growing and doing very well with export of goods and services. But I've always felt the quality from those countries is incredibly poor. Software engineers in India might be able to hack up a product, but it won't be well designed or bug free. Outsourced customer service to India is always terrible (think of Dell). And make sure you don't put any of those toys from China in your mouth since the paint may have lead in it!
They think one day I'll be buying a Chinese built car or flying in a Chinese built AIRPLANE???? Yeah right.