I have always been an advocate for the Brighthouse cause. Providing excellent cable, internet and phone services. Fast speeds, and what I thought was above-average customer service. Well until now. My 9 to 5 job requires me to provide remote customer support and service via phone, email and chat daily. Often, delivering service to in-home subscribers, I have to deal with some of the major bundled ISP services, and often hear about the giants out there, delivering the worst possible service available. One of the biggest I see and hear of, has always been Comcast. I took a recent trip to North Carolina, and read an in-flight article, an excerpt from a best-selling book titled ‘Your Call is (not that) Important to us‘. An interesting read with some very explicit and amazing tales dealing with this network providing giant, and the customer service nightmares that have unfolded. And I was thinking as I read, how lucky I was to have Brighthouse. Although they had laxed some over recent months, I thought Brighhouse was offering better service than others, at least here in Central Florida. I was content and secure. I was wrong….
A few months back we moved only a few miles from our old place. I went online and used the Brighthouse ‘Moving | transfer of service” web form which states ‘We make moving Easy!’. I didn’t receive any form of confirmation that my move would be made easier. I submitted the form and heard nothing. So a few days before the move I hit up the chat session for customer service. I had used them before for technical support and was pleased then. Unfortunately, this Brighthouse representative seemed more focused on up-selling and cross-selling me service, then the actual task at hand, which was scheduling my disconnect at the old location and reconnect at the new location. I had to guide him through the process. I also never received a transcript of our conversation, and had to type the summary of services we discussed for him to say, (paraphrased) “ummm yeh, that’s what we are doing”. At this point, I think the only thing he really guaranteed was that I would be getting a 30-day trial of Turbo High-Speed Internet. My repeated concerns were to ensure no interruptions of service since my income depended on it, and that we would be receiving one more regular digital box for upstairs and that I would be bringing the modem, router and DVR box for downstairs. I had to make him say (again, paraphrased), “YES, that is what we are doing!” Again, no solid, professional, confirmation.
On service hook-up day, our Brighthouse sub-contracted technician arrived ahead of schedule, on moving day. Early is better than late, and late is better than never so no complaints, BUT, of course, no box in-hand. He did not have the additional box required for upstairs. Imagine that. So we worked through the nuances of getting said equipment, making the ‘transition easier’, calling customer service, finding out about the additional charges for transfer and deposits required and the like, and getting a total bill of $600 and something dollars, yes 600 and something. What? Sorry, come again, huh? How what why? Ohhhh.
So appears that I had a previous account with Brighthouse from a previous address. A total $469.01, and that was the new items appearing on my statement. Ok, fine, understood. A few years back I had a financial falling out, tied with a marital separation, and this financial obligation may have been over looked. Keep in mind, a year has gone by with regular payments under the new account. So I requested some form of written confirmation of these fees, and I would look at my balances during that time to verify that this account wasn’t previously settled. Basically to ensure that I wasn’t double paying Brighthouse Networks . I also stated that I would NOT pay this balance until I received some kind of confirmation from them. About a week later, I received a ‘Ledger’. Basically a piece of paper on a DOT-MATRIX print out showing “TRANSFER BALANCE TO’ with 5 entries totaling $469.01 among other transaction history entries. A bill. Not any form of confirmation. Well, my financial review showed tha I hadn’t settled any form of collection debt for that total amount, so be it, so called again. Spoke to a Brighthouse rep., and paid $290.00 and said I would continue to pay my bill plus any additional i could afford to, until settled. Agreed.
Almost a month goes by and I pay another $200.oo, above my normal monthly bill. 3 days later, my cable, internet, and phone go off. I call Brighthouse customer Service, only to be told that they can turn my service back on, but it would be shut-off again in a few short days when the next billing cycle hits the account, and they recommend I go to my local office and speak to them. So I head over to Brighthouse in Melbourne, off of Magnolia Ave and speak to a customer service representative. I explain the situation and circumstances. Well this particluar rep, I don’t think she really cared or understood. I don’t think she cared BECAUSE she didn’t understand to be honest. She went in the back to talk to a supervisor. She comes back out with a peice of paper in her hand with handwritten dates and amounts. Basically the agreement was I paid another additional $40 now, and then $300.00 on the 13th and then another $300 on the following 13th. Then the account would be caught up, and squared away and I would pay as usual.
Now at this moment, I was relieved and happy BUT….. and if anyone has ever had that feeling, the one where you question the validity of a circumstance, and want some kind of confirmation, well then, you would understand now, at this moment I should have listened to my instincts. I asked her if that was my copy in her hand, or to make a copy. With blatent annoying customer service attitude she stated (paraphrased again) “Umm, no00, this is my copy, you’ll remember what you need to pay. Pay it on time, okkkkk.” I should have demanded, but happy that an agreement was met, I paid the $40.00 and left. On the 13th, I paid $300. On the 16th, I read the article I mentioned earlier in flight to North Carolina. The 22nd, I came home. Today, the 24th, my cable went off.
Knowing what happened, I pick up the phone and just assumed it was some mis-communication between the automated system and the ‘arrangement’ I had with my local Brighthouse office. I was on hold for 56 minutes, calling the local 321-254-3300 number, before I decided to go online and attempt a chat session. Failed. No chat available, due to possible pop-up blockers. Nope not the case, IE prompts me for active scripting, I know systems, including my own. Chat broke. Brighthousecall failed. So I send an email via their web-based form. I stayed on hold for another 6 minutes. A total of an hour and 2 minutes, before giving up. I drove my fiancee to work and suspected (hoped) that when I returned, maybe, if lucky, service would be resumed after this grave mistake. I get home and I have no internet now either.
Needless to say, a short phone call hold later, and i’m speaking to a not-so-local-rep of Brighhouse who advises me I need to go to my local office to manage this issue. No, not gonna do it and while on hold for a supervisor, I decided to pay the $95.00 required by the automated system to get back online. During my last conversation with a Brighthouse supervisor I learned that the local rep. did not only fail to give me written documentation for the agreement, but also failed to annotate the account! And so I decided to write this blog about the breakdown between Brighthouses automated systems, now outsourced customer service, and the local customer service which failed to care about their local customers. I understand the concept of monopolization and corporate expansion. BUT
A /fail/break/loss is occuring which Brighthouse should not ignore. It seems to be in the realm of communication, internal communication, and communications between the automated system and the representative management, and between the internal and external customer service reps. This is having an impact on us, the end-user customer. This = bad business. So I am submitting a trouble ticket now, to Brighthouse Networks, to fix this or we will shop elsewhere. No threats, but if you loose customers in the technology market, the rest are soon to follow….cough cough remember AOL?.
Two author notes on this subject:
1. To the last Supervisor I spoke too, thank you Canadian Kim. Professional and courteous, and unfortunately not empowered. But thank you for the service. It was professional.
2. To the tech I chatted with, I never got my High-speed turbo trial you were so transfixed on pitching to me. Retard.
Thank You
Brighthouse Customer #3,434,567
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Update: Shortly after posting this post, I received a comment from a Brighthouse Representative, a few short emails later, and I received a phone call from the local Brighthouse manager in Melbourne. Although was a little late and not a lot to be resolved with my specific account issues, it was satisfying to get that kind of attention and they obviously cared about the issues at hand. A few things came from the conversation of note:
1. The account Rep at the local Brighthouse Office should have annoted the account properly, although not required to give me something about the arrangement in writing, the account should have been updated to reflect the exact details. AND, the account rep should have ‘taken ownership’ of my account to ensure that their would be no loss of service. Neither was done
2. The local manager also indicated that they were aware of a ‘disconnect’ between the automated systems and the personal customer service. This is an issue they are working to improve.
3. The biggest realization was that the external customer service reps, those that consistently informed me they were unable to make specific superviser level changes to my account, and then directed me to the local office (twice), in fact COULD ‘take ownership’ of my account and make billing and service changes on the fly. Whether they were not aware they could do this, or chose not to is unclear. But this little fact would have made a huge difference in the outcome.
The mananger I spoke to, as I mentioned, was not able to make any substantial retributions, mainly because there was nothing left to resolve. A couple of free movies and a guarantee that these issues would be addressed in the next Brighthouse Customer Service manager’s meeting(s) was the final outcome. Although this does not compensate me for my lost work, time, or frustration, it was an effective show of support. And somtimes, especially in today’s world of automated customer service, a verbal guarantee from a real live person is all we need.
I am so over Brighthouse. I leave there after being a 20+ yr customer and go to Dish because my bill from Brighthouse creeps up litttle by little. My husband has been paying the bills. We discuss the issue and go to Dish. Of course they offer us the everything for much less roughly $60 per mth. Well we are there for a bit and are not happy because they start the same crap. In the mean time Brighthouse is calling me almost weekly tring to get us back. We will buy out your contract, give you free Showtime, and a few other things. Well we finally met with a Brighthouse salesman who quotes me in writing a 2 yr deal WHICH IS GOO UNTIL 7-9-2012. Well I lost my beloved husband to brain cancer and I am just now discovering that we never really got the correct price we were promised. I thought I was fortunate because I have everything in writing from the salesman who came and to avoid interuption of service I had better pay it. Is this a joke? into my home. I call him up on the 9th and explain the situation about the loss of my husband and how it was overlooked all this time. He assures me he will resolve this to my satisfaction by the end of the week. I called today the 17th because he did not respond to my e-mail and he says why did you pay your bill every month if you thought it was to high I wish you would have told me sooner, I can not go back 1-1/2 yrs and fix this. You should have told me. I said I told you already my husband paid those bills and obviously he had his brain cancer for awhile but I just took over paying things in July of 2011 and to be honest it took me awhile to notice. I am sorry I was a bit busy grieving the loss of the love of my life. i JUST NOW REALIZED THE PROBLEM AND THAT IS WHY i AM CALLING. Not once were condolences given. He has promised a call by the end of today he needs to speak to a supervisor. They are also charging me for an HDTV box that a tech brough in because he had no others and I don’t even have an HDTV. I want to know who I can elcalate this to becuase I am fed up. I will go to ATT or back to Dish if this is not corrected promptly. I am beyond upset at this point when I can’t get them to understand he was sick. Also my bills are always paid on time and when I call in now it says I owe $6.99
I found that almost immediately after posting this article I had Brighthouse managment reach out to me. I have always been satisfied with Brighthouse up to this point and was primarily dissapointed in the communication and overall explanation of charges. This was partially due, I believe, to the outsourcing of call center resources. After contact, I have been very satisfied with the level of service provided and hope you get remediation as well. Speaking of outsourcing, I will be drafting a new article on the US work-force and what appears to be a serious problem with potential US employees feeling ‘entitled’ to pay and benefits without the effort. Same can be said of the customer base. Basically a new learned perspective, coming soon
Brighthouse is such a miserable failure to many many people. Out again tonight. Can’t access my services. They never fixed problems in the past or credited me. I am switching tomorrow. Beware to anyone who has a choice do not choose Brighthouse
I can very much relate to the person who worked from home. A little over a year go I moved and I too work from home. About 6 months ago, for a period of over 6 weeks I called Brighthouse daily to complain that there were consistant interruptions in all 3 services. I would be in the middle of a process and the system would just go down, the phone would die and the cable was a blue screen. One day I was on a mandatory conference call and the phone went dead. How embarrassing. In the course of those six weeks I spoke to someone different each time and each time I got a different story, from someone will come out and check the lines to we don’t see any trouble. Finally, after the 7th week of this and having to get up all time of the morning and stay up at night to meet my hours got out of hand-I called and spoke to a gentleman who was more than wllling to help me-and then the phone went dead. After he couldn’t hear me (but I could still hear him), I guess they realized there was a problem, because within the next couple of days the issues were resolved. However, I am still fighting with them regarding my balance from my moving transfer as well. I received 3 bills in the same month-one a tunoff and there was no past due balance. I received a bill from Brighthouse dated June 1, 2010 stating I had a $90 balance plus the current month-okay. June 9th I paid the $90. June 16 I recieved another bill from Brighthouse stating balance was 234.+. June 26th paid 134.+, June 30th received bill from Brighthouse stating turn off July 7th if not paid. I called Brighthouse and spoke to someone name Al who didn’t speak very good english (not prejudicly speaking-he really did not speak good at all), I finally got frustrated and hung up. My question was and still is-how could I have 2 current bills issued the same month, 2 weeks apart and one ends up delinquent? I wish someone with some common sense from Brighthouse whould call me about this-it’s over a year old and still unresolved. Also, I thought one of the dummest things they did was to take payment centers out of reach and then take the payment capability via the TV off. Now each month, its a cast off-where do I pay. Not to mention if the pay stations don’t send your payment out for 8 days and you only had 5 to pay, Brighthouse could care less, they will still turn you off and charge you late fees-that’s outrageous. Why are the customers suffering because they have unreliable resources to handle their accounts. I had to come off vacation to save mine because the company didn’t post the payment for 8 days and it put my account in delinquency(per Brighthouse), even though I could give them the receiipt number, confirmation number, anything related to that payment, I literally had to come home from vacation to keep them from turning off my service. I like the features of Brighthouse services, but they can push you to the limit with the “I don’t care” attitudes. My next move, I’m still considering going with Verizon if Brighthouse don’t get their act together-I have had this service for over 4 years and would hate to have to go somewhere else because of a “misunderstanding”. But my job depends on the internet-and I depend on my job.
Seems Strange but I have this package deal with BrightHouse that includes Roadrunner lightning but most importanty. My home phone service. Since Day One of the install I have had the most piss poor Phone service availiable anywhere’s. We call we complain but they say if it isn’t disconnected we can’t fix it then an hour later the phone drops off line. I can’t tell you how many times we miss calls because these people can’t fix an issue with there phone service. I pay almost 200 a month for a service that is less than descent. I am patiently waiting for Verizon to creep into the neighborhood and offer a descent package.Bright House will not be on my monthly bill pay after they arrive.
Hello, I’m a manager at Bright House Networks and would like to discuss this further. Please send me an email at Chris.Berry@mybrighthouse.com. Thank you.
I can’t even begin to explain how much I agree with this post. I went through an absolutely ridiculous ordeal today trying to get their new Road Runner Lightning service up and running. Basically to cut things down to size, I was told by a corporate sales woman that I had a confirmed scheduled appointment for today (same say, imagine that) between 3pm and 5pm. Of course I had other things I was planning on doing today but I was really excited to get this new service because I work from home and anything that can make my work easier is OK with me.
So when 5PM comes around and I haven’t received any word from any Tech nor have I had anyone show up, obviously… I decided to give this corp. service rep a call to confirm that my appointment was still happening and that there wasn’t some mistake. She assured me that the tech was just hung up with another call and would be here ASAP. OK, understandable, things happen.
So I called the regular customer service line for an unrelated question and that rep asked me about my appointment and I told her no one had showed up yet (6PM) so she says she’s going to find out why. I sit on hold with her for about 30 minutes, mind you she stayed on the line with me and was cheery and seemed enthusiastic and willing to help, after a while she comes back to say that unfortunately no one grabbed my appointment (uhm, what? it was already CONFIRMED) and that I would have to reschedule for tomorrow.
So, those things that I put off today? They were put off until tomorrow, now I have to put them off AGAIN and sit around and wait for a tech to *hopefully* show up inside of their 2-3 hour “window”? No way jose, so I told her I was going to talk to the corporate service rep I had previously talked to and likely just cancel the whole thing, as frustrated as I was at that point.
Now I get on the phone with the corp rep and she puts me on hold (horrible hold music, of course) and comes back to confirm that no one would be showing up today. I express my disgust with their lack of common courtesy, if no one was going to show up at all, why wasn’t I informed in any way? It was no 1.5 hours AFTER the end of the appointment “window” and I hadn’t heard a peep, the only reason I even knew a thing was because I was calling THEM.
She is kind enough to offer to waive the $50 service charge for installation and I give in and ask her what time the tech would be here tomorrow (mind you, I really still want this service) – She puts me on hold again only to come back and tell me there are no available appointments tomorrow. UGH!!!
So here I am, after putting off my plans, waiting around for 3 hours for this tech to show up, having NO ONE inform me that there was any issue or that he/she would be late, only to find out no one is coming at all today and they can’t even find someone to come tomorrow, when I had a CONFIRMED appointment for today… How the hell does that work?
I don’t know who these guys outsource to do their installation work but if they want to continue to boast on TV about their “awards” for customer satisfaction, perhaps they should look into some new contractors because this experience was absolutely ridiculous. I told her never mind I am no longer interested in this service and am completely disappointed in your horrible customer service, said bye and hung up.
Now I know I’m just being hard headed and I really do still want this service but the way I was treated today, I’ve honestly contemplated cancellng ALL of nearly $200/month in Bright House services. If they didn’t have a monopoly on this area for TV and Internet, I’d be jumping ship to someone, anyone else at this point.
I’m glad you got your situation fixed but I just wanted to let you know that their customer service is still sub-par, as is their service because my TV likes to go pixelated and the sound cuts out probably 50-100 times a day.
Bright house is a complete joke.
BrightHouse Customer Service= FAIL!!!!! As we have already discussed…their customer service has seriously down WAY down hill from previous years. It used to be fairly simple and QUICK to get a hold of someoone and resolve a particular problem. Obviously not the case anymore. Customer service means you DO have to give a damn about about the customers needs. Unfortunately I do believe that too many of us lately have been left feeling very “needy”. Bright House needs to step it up and realize this is an important issue!
Great article- I think that they need to know that they are just as awesome as Time Warner and the like
its just a different box same contents.