Dumb Pipes – A RCN Case Study

I recently moved into a new apartment with a new roommate, after I had been living alone in Chicago for four years. I was an RCN customer at my last place, and my roommate was an RCN customer when I moved in.

After I moved and unpacked countless boxes, I was left with one box in my room filled with the equipment from RCN that came from my old apartment. It was the equipment that I still needed to return.

I had already hooked up my computer in my new room, but found that the wireless signal which originated from my roommates room on the opposite end of the apartment wasn’t strong enough to make it back to my room.

So I sifted through the box of RCN equipment that I had sitting on the floor, found the modem from my last apartment, and plugged it into the coax cable jack on the wall. Of course, it worked. Why wouldn’t it, it was already powering my TV and since I’m sure there’s one point of entry that then splits inside the apartment to the different room, there was no reason for it not to work.

This was an ideal situation. When I’m in the living room, or even the kitchen, I can hook up to the wireless signal coming out of my roommates room. But when I’m at my desk in my room (likely where I’m doing more internet intensive work on one of my websites), I can hook up directly to the hard line. I figured if I could just transfer the rental fee for the cable modem from my old account to my roommates account, everything would be fine.

I called up the RCN sales department to let them know that I had just moved, but that the wireless signal from my roommates modem and router just wasn’t strong enough to reach back into my room, so I wanted to transfer my old router to the new account and use it in my room.

The RCN sales representative told me that if I wanted a second modem, she could send out a technician who could hook up a separate line and she could add a “Roommate account.” No, I told her, I don’t want a second account, I want a modem that is added to the account that already exists so I can get internet in my room. She told me that she never heard of two modems working on a single line, and that I would need a second account that would cost me something like $32 per month.

“But I’ve already hooked up the modem from my last apartment, and it works, so clearly that statement is not correct,” I refuted. She knew I was right. She seemed to be relenting. “So you just want to transfer the old modem to the new account, for the $3 per month rental fee, correct?” Yes, that’s exactly what I want. “Let me forward you over to someone else who should be able to help you with that.” Great, thank you.

“This is RCN tech support, how can I help you?” Um, tech support? I didn’t think this would be a tech support kind of an issue, but whatever. Yes, I need to transfer a modem from one account to another. “Oh, um, okay, well…..so you want to add service, that’s more of a sales issue.” Wait, hold on, the last rep, who was a sales rep, was confident that you could help me, now you’re sending me back over to sales? Hold up. No, I just got sent to you from sales, she said you could help me. I don’t want new service, I just want to transfer a modem. “Okay, let me pull up your account.” Pull up my account, I just got transfered to you, don’t you get that information too? How long has your company been transferring calls? Forever, that’s how long, you should be able to transfer the account info too. But I digress.

“Oh, I see you already have an internet modem on the account. You would have to add internet service on a new account.” No, I don’t want a new account. I want two modems on one account. This can’t possibly be this hard. What do people in very large houses do? You can’t possibly be putting those people on two effing accounts. Get a grip. “Let me transfer you to sales, they should be able to help you.” They should have been able to help me the first time, but I agree that you likely can’t help me. Fine, give me sales.

“RCN sales, how can I help you.” I want to add a modem to an account that my roommate has, since I just move in. “Okay, what is the account info?” I give her the account info (I’m probably pounding my head on the wall at this point). “There’s already internet service on this account” Yes, I know. “You would need to add a second account to get internet service.” No, I just want to add a second modem. She clearly doesn’t want to deal with me. She’s much less polite than the last two.  Her answers are short, terse.  ”I can’t help you. Let me give you the number for your local support team.” Um…okay? What can they do that is different than what you can do? “They’ll be able to help you with your problem.” You didn’t really answer my question. “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with this.” Fine, give me the number. Click.

Okay, really RCN? I mean, what do you do if someone calls and they have a very large house.  Do you make them open two accounts?  Of course you don’t, because that wouldn’t make any sense.  That would be dumb.  But you figure if you have two unrelated people living in an apartment, oh what the hell let’s just gouge them, shall we?  I mean, one line would be more than enough bandwidth.  Because hey, most of us would just connect that one line to a wireless router anyways, and that works for pretty much everybody.  But if that doesn’t work, well you figure you can just hit us up for another $30 per month.

Really RCN (and all cable companies), I don’t mind if you treat your dumb customers like they’re, well, dumb.  But stop treating your smart customers, the ones who are smarter than your sales employees and most of your technical support staff, like they’re dumb.  Because we are the ones that tell other people, write about the situation, and the echo effect begins.

Update:  I got frustrated the more I thought about this, and I really didn’t think the Local Support team was going to be able to help me any more than the regular sales team, so I called RCN back.  This time they forwarded me just once, but brought an “internet” guy onto the call.  Um…okay?  So I talk to this internet guy, and he says the same thing, that I need an additional line.  He says “it’s our policy to add a line of service if you add a modem.”  Okay, fine.  I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you make the call.  I can either pay about $50 or so to buy my own modem, hook it up, and you get no money.  Or, you can rent me the modem for about $36 per year, and you get that money.  Do you want that money?  ”I’m sorry sir, but we have a policy.  This is your decision.”  Okay, fine.  In that case, my decision is to pay $50 for my own modem, or pay $720 over the course of the year with your solution.  In that case, I’m choosing to pay for the modem.  ”Alright sir, well is there anything else I can do for you today?”  No, you are unable to make a rational decision, to make money for your company, and to make my life a tad bit easier.  So no, there’s is nothing else you can do for me.  Goodbye.