Time for consumers to speak up, take action

If you're not in the mood to read a rant about the sorry state of customer service these days — for example, if you're the CEO of a big corporation and couldn't care less about satisfying consumers — stop reading now.

If, however, you're as frustrated as I am, please read on. I think the two stories I tell this week will seem sadly familiar.

The first involves the company that provides my home with television, phone and high-speed Internet service. We've had pretty good luck with this company in general, and we were glad last year to get all three services under one umbrella, with one bill and one number to call if we have a problem.

But our luck began to change a couple of months ago. First, we were unable to receive incoming calls on and off over the course of several days. We called the company (from my cell phone), and the customer service rep said he would try to get someone out to fix it, but that it would take a few days. Then he asked whether someone would be home during a five-hour window on that day.

(As an aside, I hate the four- or five-hour window thing. I guess I understand the reasoning behind it, but it's very customer-unfriendly.)

We arranged to have someone home during the appointed time, though it was extremely inconvenient. But the problem went away before the appointment, so we canceled.

Still, that experience left a bad taste in my mouth that only got nastier when this company decided to take some of our favorite TV channels out of our basic package and move them into an added-pay package. Shortly after that, a promotional period ended, and my bill jumped 50 percent — and another few dollars the month after that.

AAAARRRGH!

I wrote the company an e-mail to express my growing displeasure and to remind officials there that we have other options for the services they provide. I received a lengthy response that included a brief, trite apology followed by a long-winded statement about how great this company's service is, how competitive its pricing is and how inferior its competitors are.

About what I expected, but not exactly satisfying.

This unpleasantness was still on my mind a month ago when, hungry for some ice cream on a Sunday evening, I sent my oldest daughter downstairs to retrieve some from our upright freezer. She soon bounded back upstairs to tell us the ice cream had melted and the freezer wasn't working.