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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. P. who wrote (9298)	5/8/1999 4:09:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

OT - Sorry to hear about your misadventures with the help desk. I have an off-topic story to tell about an experience I had yesterday with BEL, along these lines. When I arrived in the Apple yesterday, I had occasion to call home. I dialed my auxiliary line, and received an answer, accompanied by a low volume dial tone. I hung up and dialed my main number and all was okay. I later had the same experience, and I called it in to BEL's repair desk. By the time I had finished identifying myself, and giving my address, the repair attendant almost interrupted me, and very matter-of-factly recited to me: "Mr. Coluccio, you are in a cable failure. The expected time to repair will be Sunday Evening." That almost blew me away. I live in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and although I didn't ask where she was actually located, i.e., where her call center was sited... she's part of a virtual call center, come to think of it, my guess is that she was either in Boston or Syracuse (but she could have as easily been someone working from home) from previous experiences I've had dealing with repair for some of my smaller clients. Two things have occurred here, which invert the scenario from where it was a few years ago. First, the subscriber cable records are automated to the extent that actual information is now available to the repair desk without them having to send a guy out into the field to do a hand trace and radio the information back in. A far cry from where they were just a short while back, demonstrating the benefits accrued through the use of automated links between switches and operations support systems, or OSSes. Secondly, whereas I was impressed with the level of response -I heard only two audible rings before being picked up- the thought of having to wait more than two days to have the line repaired, cable failure or no cable failure, seemed egregious to me. This would have caused the telco manager of yesteryear to undergo a stroke, in fact, because then the performance was measured strictly by PSC service index guidelines, whereas today's focus is on profit maximization. From a business angle, given their sole dominance in this space, this is no big sin. But it does shatter the illusory quality of public service that was once thought to prevail, and indeed, was once delivered. It simply was not done that way. A crew would have been dispatched immediately, and repair would have been assured in a day's time, at the most. Hey, I'm only three blocks for the CO. But, you know what? Because I have a second line (actually more lines in my home than I like to admit in public), and because I respected the immediacy of the response I received, I walked away from the experience not really all that upset as I would have been, as if I had gone through the same kind of experience that you received with ATHM's desk. Service, as it were, is not the all-important thing that it once was, yielding to higher returns fostered by matrix management of staff, and other profit maximization measures. While service itself may no longer be the all-important attribute to the telcos that it once was, giving the appearance of being on top of all things at all times, is. And so it goes...

To: J. P. who wrote (9298)	5/8/1999 6:34:00 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Respond to of 29970

My impression is that the individual employees care, but they are set up in a no win situation by the totally customer unfriendly @Home company, because @Home does not set up the facility to properly service their customers. That's also an exact description of my multiple experiences with Road Runner. --Mike Buckley

To: J. P. who wrote (9298)	5/8/1999 6:55:00 PM
From: red_dog	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

J.P> where are you located and what cable company are you with. Every now in then I see post such as yours and can't understand it. I go with comcast @home, and have had on problem!If you remember we had a bad storm last winter and I was down for say 4 hours at most. The system I am on has been going for about 18 to 24 months. I did have some trouble on one of my computers and had to call there tech support and waited for about 30 minutes, which seems to be the norm. If you have ever called Dell,Gateway, Compaq,ect. They even called me back the next day to see if everything was all right.