Shaw customer service

[Sr. Mints]

Is it just me, or is Shaw sucking big time?!

I realize it's September and this is one of their busy times, but I am completely fed up with Shaw.

I've had wonky internet since last weekend. I am connected for a few minutes, then lights start blinking on my modem and I can't make a connection. Sometimes I have a connection for an hour or two, but the problem always starts up again.

What is really pissing me off is the fact that I can't get in contact with Shaw! On monday I phoned, waited on hold for 30 minutes, but I had to do other stuff at work. Their call back feature wasn't working. I tried the online chat, but nothing was happening for a half hour.

Tuesday I was swamped, but on Wednesday I had the afternoon off for an appointment and called, waited on hold for two and a half hours! While on hold with Shaw, I called Fido for an unrelated issue and was done with them in 10 minutes--that only fueled my towards Shaw. After bitching on Twitter about Shaw a few times while on hold, someone from @shawhelp tweeted me and asked me if they could be of assistance.

I hung up the phone and tweeted them my account number. They looked into my account and said there's definitely a problem with my modem; they had me do a few things like change the coaxial cord and make sure there wasn't a splitter between the wall and modem. My connection worked for a few hours, but the problem began again. I contacted @shawhelp again, and they said they want to wait 24 hours to monitor my connection.

Thursday afternoon I phoned again, and huzzah: the call-back feature worked! Four hours later I got a call, and dealt with a friendly fellow. Blah, blah, we went through what the Twitter folks told me, and he said they want to swap modems. But I have to drop mine off and pick up a new one, and they booked a service call for me for Sept 24--a ridiculously far away date.

If swapping the modem works, it is then *my* job to phone them again and cancel the service call. I asked him if I could tell the Twitter folks to cancel the service call, he put me on hold, and came back and told me no.

He couldn't give me an email address to contact them through, either. He suggested I try the online chat if I need to cancel the service call, but I informed him how ridiculously long of wait it is for that; in addition, I politely took this opportunity to tell him what a difficult time I had trying to phone them; I informed him that the call back feature doesn't work most of the time, and that I am, quite frankly, ready to pack everything up and drop it off at Shaw HQ and cancel all my services (phone, net, cable) on the spot. And this was not some flimsy threat, I am that fed up.

He asked me what number I phoned to get ahold of them, and I told him it was 403-716-6000. He said 403-310-SHAW works better and that the call-back feature should <?> work with that number.

I am going to swap modems tomorrow. If that doesn't work, I'm done. I'm not going to wait two weeks for a service call. I've been a Shaw customer since their internet was called The Wave, and have never had any problems until the last year. Had the guy who helped me (and he was very friendly and helpful, I wish I got his name and rep #) been sassy or pissy like the lady I spoke with a few weeks ago regarding a billing issue was, I would have canceled then and there.

Telus has never looked so appealing--that's kind of scary.

My, what a long rant that turned out to be.

[Daradon]

I've had wonky internet lately too! In fact today I had a complete outage for 30 mins! Phone, internet, TV, everything! I was flying blind! Couldn't even call in to see what the trouble was.

[Rathji]

Yeah our TV went out for 10 mins as well. Shaw's phones circuits were overloaded at the time so no idea what was up.

[KTrain]

I thought this was going to be a thread about how awesome their customer service is and how quickly you're able to reach someone helpful over the phone. Colour me disappointed.

[Top Shelf]

It is brutal, I am trying to call in and get Voice Mail added to my home phone, and I've been on hold for 20 minutes already, and they just started accepting calls on this line at 8:00!

That used to be the one thing that really separated Shaw from Telus, the great customer service and low wait times for tech support. It is beyond ridiculous now

[Buff]

I haven't had a problem with Shaw for nearly 12 years now. Until recently.

I have the digital box and channels wouldn't show up and they'd give me the message that it is unavailble or something like that. I'd power cycle the cable box and things would work fine. Unfortunately this would happen every two or three days. Then eventually it was permanent. I had three channels that just wouldn't show up at all, and sometimes a few dozen channels would kick out.

So, I called Shaw. Did you know that when you call Shaw and chose the option for TV support, you get sales? Well, I waited on hold for a couple of minutes when the choice to have them call me back reared its ugly head. I decided that since the wait time was an hour and a half that I'll wait for them to call me back. They did, an hour and a half later, except it was the sales guy, who immediately said "Oh, I'm sales, you need technical support, I'm transferring you now". I didn't even get a word in. This time the call back was 2 hours long. Fortunately I was at home working on stuff and was able to take the call. When I got the call back from tech support I was on the phone with him for barely a couple of minutes and he arranged for a service call.

Thankfully it was only a couple of days away. The guy came in the later half of the 2 hour window they said he'd be there by. Checked the cables, and told me that a street crew would have to come out and adjust the signals and that they usually take about 2 or 3 days to arrive. During this time I had plugged the cable directly into my TV so I could at least get basic cable service. I checked 3 days later and my digital cable was working again... until the next day. I called and it was a 3 hour wait, and there was no option for call back so I hung up because I didn't have time that day anyway. I looked around online, tried the on-line chat, which didn't work and I found a feedback form. So I filled out the form, complaining about not being able to get through to a rep in a timely fashion, and that they come and fix things, but don't actually fix things. I gave the service as a whole a pretty poor rating.

Three days later somebody called regarding my feedback. They told me that the tech who came to my house forgot to submit a service call for the signal crew to adjust the signals. They have now done so and that it would be done by the following Tuesday (this was Friday). So the next Wednesday morning, I switch back from plugging the cable directly into my TV to back into the digital cable box. It works! They did say that they were going to call me when they fixed it but never did. How typical, I figured.

Yesterday morning (just over a week after they fixed the problem) my wife noticed that the three channels that we were initially having problems with were getting jittery and she feared that the problem was going to return. A couple of hours later Shaw called telling me that they just finished adjusting the signals and they want me to see if the channels are working again... What? They've been working for more than a week, I thought they fixed them 8-9 days ago!

Shaw used to have awesome customer service. I don't know how they thought that their current model is any better than what they used to do, but it isn't. Clearly they are understaffed and don't have a system that helps their current staff offer good service levels. They need to rehire all those people they let go, and also hire somebody who excels in customer service to revamp their current procedures.

[fundmark19]

I have to wait 2 weeks for a service call to fix a PVR box that won't come on after playing phone tag all summer with CSR's.

While new customers get install and gateway for 99 dollars for 3 years with no wait time for the install or wait time to call to set up services

nuff said

[sclitheroe]

The Shaw service I got upgrading to BB100 and home phone was nothing short of outstanding - I needed my modem reset to bridge mode after the phone was installed (it went back to router mode), which they said would take 15-20 minutes to occur after the call. 15-20 minutes later the modem did switch to bridge mode, and then, 2 minutes later, a call back from the CS rep saying they saw it switch on their end and could I please double check it was running the way I requested.

I think its the only time I've had a proper followup call with nearly any big service provider.

[darklord700]

They are rolling out the new Gateway system which may have caused all these outages. That and that they moved their call centre to some exotic country might have something to do with this.

[OldDutch]

You're not the only one, I have had different problems but same results with them. On average their hold times are 2 hours at any given point of the day.

That has me steamed too, since I have had to call in 3 times in the last week to fix issues they caused. I still need to call in to get my modem bridged, but I have put that on hold since I call after work and I get the over 2 hour, no call back message.

I think they rolled out their new products way too early, and a lot of problems have happened. With the gateway, I have to reboot the stupid server every few days because no channels show up. So you can bet some non-savvy users are calling in for that problem. Add in your Internet issues, and Other gateway issues. Now minus the fact they recently laid off a bunch of support staff. Presto, the perfect storm we are seeing now.

310-shaw doesn't work any better. The only thing I would do to lighten their load is to switch. I have promo pricing until year end. At this point I plan to sell my gateway, and switch to Telus.

[OilKiller]

Yup, 2 hour hold times, they screwed up my account, didn't give me credit for returned equipment, collection notices that should have never happened. Hours and hours of my time on hold and calling back over and over again, days to finally talk to a supervisor.

What did I get for all my troubles? Free Movie Central for 2 months. Thanks. D****.

[ShotDownInFlame]

I would also like to express my dissatisfaction with the wait times to call in for customer service support. At the end of August I called for technical support when half of my HD channels were not working and giving me the "One moment please" error. After waiting 2.5 hours on the phone, I got frustrated and hung up without getting support. Just this last Wednesday I called again and again had to wait over 2 hours on the phone before getting technical support. At that time, I inquired about upgrading my internet from high-speed to BroadBand 50, but I was told I would have to call back and speak to someone in billing. Calling back Thursday to inquire about the internet service upgrade, again I waited on hold for 3 hours but the system DISCONNECTED me without ever letting me talk to a representative.

Finally, this morning after waiting an hour I finally talked to a rep and have someone coming to my house Monday, surprisingly enough, to install the new modem.

So, in total, within the last couple of weeks I have waisted about 9 hours on the phone waiting for support, with the majority of that just to get access to channels I had been paying for but not recieving.

I remember when Shaw was an industry leader in customer service and I would never have to wait longer than 5 minutes for a representative. Honestly, the current situation is unnaceptable. During my last call I asked the service rep to pass on to the powers that be that the wait times for Shaw support is terrible. She told me management knew about it and was working to fix it. We'll see if it ever gets better.

[DuffMan]

ha

I posted this in the gear grinder thread a couple of days ago.

Originally Posted by DuffMan

Shaw rant

Came back from holidays a couple of weeks ago and noticed about half my channels said "to be Announced" on the shaw guide. Power cycled the Shaw hd receiver and they all turned to "to be Announced". Now for extra gmg's the clock reads 12:00, it doesn't see the hdd for recorded stuff, and I can't get into settings.
Phone Shaw, call back time,,,2 hours, so I get in queue for call back. 3 hours later, they call.
We go through the usual stuff, she has me power cycle everything again, and check all of the cable connections etc. At one point during a power cycle she says, what do you see now, me, my tv says no connection.
So she checks a few things on her end, of course she cannot access my box from there, but then a few minutes later she asks again, what do you see now.
me- poker on TSN
her- so everything is working?
me- no only the channels work but the guide, clock, pvr, and settings still don't.
her- mumbles a bit for a while, does some more on her end and then asks me what I see. We repeat the same thing 2 more times of her trying to tell me it works.
her- the guide will be there in about half an hour.
me- what about everything else that doesn't work?.
her- I think everything will be working.
me- I think you are wrong.

So she finally says she will call back at 9 sharp to see if it is working.
She calls at 10:30 and I tell her that it is the same. OK, so she will finally schedule a technician to come out on Sept. 5 between 11 and 1, and puts in her note that they will call me half hour before they arrive.
Sept 5 rolls around and it is a holiday and I'm not sure if they even work that day. Whatever, I am at home all day until about 4, anyways. No one from Shaw calls or shows up.
So, last night I use support chat and ask the guy wtf? He says the call report has a code of no one at home. I said that was bs, and no one phoned, and for sure I was home between 11 and 1. He said they won't do that and the previous agent shouldn't have told me they would call first.
So anyways, now the next available time is Sept 20.
So that will be a month with a nfg Shaw hd receiver.
gmfg's

[Huntingwhale]

Never had a problem with them the entire time I have used them. I always found them prompt to return calls and good service. The last 2 days that changed. I had a problem with my TV wednesday night. I called at 930pm and it was a 2 hr wait! So I hung up and called again last night as soon as I got home at 5pm. Another 2 hour wait, but this time I got the option for a call back. Got my TV working around 1030pm and they still hadn't called back.

[Meelapo]

Three weeks ago Shaw charged me $25 as a service fee for no reason. After waiting on hold for two hours they said it was because a service tech came to my house and installed my modem which they didn't. It got to the point where I was thinking if it was worth it to get the $25 back or to wait on the phone for such a long time. I hope they credited my account because I don't think I can wait on hold again for these guys.

Also having Boradband 50 sucks in Panorama Hills. The fastest you get is about 10MB/s and that's on the off time. I called about this too (again 1.5 hours wait) and they said "Your node is saturated. We are investigating when to split it. There isn't a time frame.". Good to see they are offering a service that can't actually be supported.

[OilKiller]

I would tell them I was "splitting" their payment until they gave me the service I was paying for. Tell them your wallet is saturated.

[Icon]

I had a recording on my PVR that didn't work (couldn't watch it), and I couldn't delete it, and trying to do either froze the PVR so that I had to go unplug it just to get it to work at all... And talking to Shaw, the recording didn't show up on their end at all... they were going to send a tech to come look at the box / reboot it, but said that would wipe all the other recordings (which I have alot of). So I was just going to live with it on there taking up space, until they did their recent software update to them (noticed some new PVR menu features) and I was now able to delete it.

Was all very odd.

[OldDutch]

Originally Posted by Meelapo

Three weeks ago Shaw charged me $25 as a service fee for no reason. After waiting on hold for two hours they said it was because a service tech came to my house and installed my modem which they didn't. It got to the point where I was thinking if it was worth it to get the $25 back or to wait on the phone for such a long time. I hope they credited my account because I don't think I can wait on hold again for these guys.

Also having Boradband 50 sucks in Panorama Hills. The fastest you get is about 10MB/s and that's on the off time. I called about this too (again 1.5 hours wait) and they said "Your node is saturated. We are investigating when to split it. There isn't a time frame.". Good to see they are offering a service that can't actually be supported.

I can't stress enough to run the shaw speed test and see what plan you are on. Twice in 3 months I have found out they are billing me for higher service than technically they are delivering.

I was on "High Speed" for 2 years being billed for "Extreme" service. Only via speed test did I find this out. Then I switched to "BB50" and they told me I was upgraded only to find out via speed test I was still on "Extreme".

I think a lot of people are getting ripped off like I was, but have yet to find out. Make sure you verify via Shaw Speed Test.

[likwid888]

I was on hold for over an hour just to cancel a service call. No tech support or anything needed, just an appointment cancellation. It's freakin ridiculous.

[Raekwon]

So let me get this straight, everyone seemed to have problems one night and no one could get through to customer service quickly? Thats weird.