This review is of HughesNet customer service. First off, I've been a customer of HughesNet since 2007. As a rural customer, satellite is my only “fast” Internet option.in our neck of the woods HughesNet internet speed edges out WildBlue by a bit.
I’m a network technician by trade, so I work troubleshooting computers and other electronics day in, day out. I’ve had the dish long enough that I know when an outage is being caused by heavy precipitation, snow blocking the dish, or if the modem needs to be reset.
Recently the remnants of a tropical storm came through and blew the dish off target: it's pointing right at the ground. I thought this would be an easy case - but it was not to be.
I called the toll free number; got a voice mail automated assistant that wasn't too bad - it understood my speech well, and I can mumble with the best. But when I answered that I wasn't at home I was told that the system could not help me unless I was at home because HughesNet couldn't troubleshoot the issue unless I was at home. Uh, the dish is pointing at the ground. How hard is that to troubleshoot, and since when do I have to be at home for that to make a difference? It will still point to the ground whether I'm at home, at work, or in the Bahamas.
I couldn't get back to the main menu, so I hung up and tried again. This time I lied when it asked if I was at home. Then the automated assistant asked me some troubleshooting questions for some of the basics, was there heavy rain (no), did I already try rebooting the modem (yes), were there any obstructions to the dish (yes, planet Earth, but I answered no).
I was then connected to a polite woman called "Anne" with an Indian accent. The line had some static and she sounded a bit like she was at the end of a tunnel. She of course asked me again for all my account info and then asked why I was calling. I told her right off the bat that I needed a technician - my dish was pointing at the ground because of a recent windstorm. But she didn't understand me, despite several different phrasings of this. Apparently she only knew a script. I had to go through the entire troubleshooting routine, AGAIN! Despite the fact that I already knew what the problem was. During this she told me that my modem had failed and I needed a new one to the tune of $120. I wasn't sure how that would make my dish point back up in the sky so I refused and eventually convinced her that the problem was the dish.
Then she couldn't even schedule a technician directly! She took my number, only to tell me a technician will call me within 5 days to schedule a visit.
I've worked in a customer service call center myself, so I understand the need for operators to start with the basics. A lot of customers do not have experience with the product or technical knowledge in general. But at the same time, your technical support should be able to understand fundamental basics about the technology and there should always be a fast track for when a problem is obvious.
This call wasted 45 minutes of my time, and I still don't have an appointment to get a basic flaw fixed. Even worse, for HughesNet, this call should have taken no more than five minutes, and then "Anne" could have gone on to help the next person on the line with a more complex issue.
0 comments