This may become quite long, so the "TL;DR" summary is: it's impossible to get anything from TWC in writing, and the customer service people hide behind excuses of what they're allowed to do by TWC management rather than making any genuine effort to help. (There's also a mild whinge at the end about TWC taking money without supplying service, but actually that's a minor complaint compared to the systemic problems I'm reporting.) I'm actually trying to become a TWC customer but so far have failed dismally.

I'll tell you my story as a narrative: we were TWC internet and cable TV customers many years ago, back in the early days of the Internet, but I left TWC as an internet vendor (I had business class and was trying to get an internet startup running from my home) because the tech support was just truly abysmal, in terms of no-one understanding about things such as reverse DNS delegation, subnetting, port filtering and other typical ISP issues. (We later cancelled TV service as well because I wanted some channel you didn't include at the time. Might have been BBC or Sci Fi - it's a long time ago and I forget.)

However it's many years later, and those things were to some extent forgotten about, and the speed of our AT&T ADSL connection was getting so slow in comparison to our needs that I decided it was time to switch back to cable. The Internet business was long gone (it was a success thanks to moving it to a local ISP, and we eventually sold the business which is now owned by Sony) and I just needed standard basic personal internet for the home.

Anyway, I decided to order basic TWC internet and run it alongside ATT ADSL, and if it performed better, I would cut off ATT and ramp up our TWC level of service.

I placed an order via the web site, appeared to have submitted the order OK ... and then heard nothing for some time.

I then called in by phone to chase it up and the gentleman I spoke to said that my order had somehow been completely lost - but he could assure me it was not in the system at all and I could place a new order with him and not worry about a duplicate order resurfacing. Apparently this was a common computer problem that was known about. He said he'd make 100% sure it was voided and I didn't have to worry about it.

Then I placed an order with him and paid for the first month in advance. He was kind enough to waive the installation fee to compensate for the delay caused by losing our online order.

(Of course the initial order wasn't really completely lost and I did get email reminders asking me to call TWC to supply some missing details, but when I called in and gave the reference number it was never found.)

Meanwhile the second order proceeded. I did ask for email confirmation of the second order (and the comp'd installation fee) but the call center rep explained that they have no access to email and are not allowed to email customers. (I did get some sort of reference number but I haven't been able to get anywhere with it. I'll come back to this later. It appears to have been a reference number for the payment, not for the order)

Incidentally I was pretty sure there would be problems with this cancelled order so I was careful to use a different credit card for the second attempt compared to the one I gave on the web site. Glad I did, it saved a lot of confusion when the card was charged as to which installation had caused the charge. (It was indeed the second one placed by phone that went through, not the failed attempt via the web page)

So the installation guy came round, and looked at our house, and said that we can't get service. There are trees in our back garden and the TWC cables go through the trees, and they're not willing to work on cables that are touching trees.

At this point there's a long digression as I explained to the tech that we had service before and it was tapped off your cable at a different point (the nearer end of the house, avoiding the run past the trees altogether) and that one had been run underground, and I encouraged him to get his toner out and see if he could identify which disconnected cable terminating at our house was the old one in case it could be reused - but we weren't able to identify it. He gave me a complicated story about how it was no longer possible to trench cables alongside our neighbours fence on their side of the property as had been done before, even with our neighbours permission, and that the only access would have to be at the far end of the house from the original installation because the cable now has to come in at the same place as power comes in to the house, and overhead from the pole, not buried. This entry point is entirely in the wrong part of the house for convenient running to either my TV or computer areas, but if that's the only option I was willing to live with it rather than give up on getting service. The entry point next to the power meter is a weird requirement but I'll take his word for it being necessary.

(Btw, it had crossed my mind that if I was asking for the full premium package with all services, perhaps they might have made more effort to find a way to get a cable to our house, but at least initially I was asking for just the lowest rate internet service only (As Advertised On TV), at least until we got it in place and saw how well it worked or not, and whether TWC's support was any better than our past experience had led us to believe. That may be an uncharitable assumption on my part as certainly no-one ever said anything to that effect but the installer did make a point of saying that none of our neighbours had TWC as if that was in some way a factor, ie it wasn't worth running a co-ax from the drop on a pole about 2 houses upstream for just one customer..?)

So I escalated the installation request to a local manager, thinking that perhaps all that was needed was someone higher up to OK a bit of minor tree trimming or a different point of entry - a supervisor called Marissa called me (I didn't get anything in writing or email - just the one phone call) and she repeated that they would not attempt an installation unless we trimmed those trees. I have now had most of the trees there removed or trimmed - it cost us $1500 although part of that was for tree work unrelated to the cabling that had to be done anyway (to make sure power cables were clear of trees in case of a hurricane) but the part that was solely for the benefit of TWC was not an insignificant expense.

We couldn't remove all the trees as some belong to our neighbours opposite, but I'm confident we've done enough that your linesmen can work there safely. The city had to send three trucks to remove about 8 tons of wood! If the installers insist on having the neighbours trees trimmed or removed then I'm completely stuck as they will not want to remove them and I'm not willing to pay to trim someone else's trees - my own ones were expensive enough!

Anyway, I'ld like the local TWC manager/installers to re-examine the situation now, and if you can help me get that underway with the people who already understand the situation and have seen the area before we did the tree work so that they appreciate just how much we did to accommodate them, I'd be very grateful. I have no idea how to contact that group again via the published channels.

There is one other issue though that I'd like addressed before we get back into bed with TWC: when I was told that you wouldn't install, I asked rep Ezekiel for my advance payment of the first month's service to be returned ($15.09 paid on April 9, auth no 00705Z, to rep Jacob, emp id #446), and I have waited over a month with no word. I am not going to ask for the installation to be re-considered until that payment is refunded as promised. Although I paid by credit card, they told me they would refund via a paper cheque, but none has arrived. And of course as usual there has been no email confirmation of any of this.

That's my story. There may have been a few more calls made during this sequence (ones that failed to get anywhere) but that's the main gist of it.

I have most of this documented in rough notes I took while on hold, but unless you're really interested it's not worth quoting those details and I'm not telling you all this to complain about individual employees, most of whom were polite and willing but unable to help - to me it seems that the problems I've observed are more high level, which are:

1) failure to communicate via email is a major limitation. It seems to be a deliberate policy in order to avoid putting any sort of commitment in writing.

2) employees appear to be given little to no leeway to make ad-hoc decisions to offer better customer service - I infer that there's a rule book and they have to follow it to the letter, and it's more than their jobs are worth to take initiative to provide better service; for example offering a free installation as compensation is in the rule book and easy to do, but sending an email with a summary of what was transacted is absolutely impossible.

3) Much like the telephone company, you seem to have an overwhelming preference for using the home phone number as your customer locator. Any time I've called they've been unable to find me by name, address, or email. I can see this being an even bigger problem for you in the future as people close down landlines and move from VOIP vendor to vendor. (I get so sick of junk calls that I change my phone number at least once a year.)

If you can get me back in touch with the local manager for the Rio Grande Valley who basically said that if we cut back the trees, they would resume the installation process, I would be most grateful, and if you could perhaps ask someone to track down that prepayment I made by phone and refund it as promised it would go a long way to improving my impression of TWC as an organisation.

Sincerely,

Graham Toal