Customer Service

New Long Distance Plan And A New Riding Lawn Mower

I’ve spent the last two hours, trying to get in touch with a customer service representative from my long distance provider, MCI.  After 11 phone calls, six disconnections, and five transfers, I have decided to change service providers.  Our local phone company has begun to offer a bundled plan of long distance / local service / and DSL.  I might go with them.  I’ll run the numbers and do a little research and let you all know.  Ninety-five percent of our calls are made intra-state, so I need a plan that offers low in-Georgia rates.  The MCI plan is unlimited long distance.  I signed up with them more than five years ago – and they’ve steadily raised their rates.  I’ve been meaning to shop around – and this latest customer service issue has given me the motivation to actually do so.  I won’t go into the details of the issue, except to say that it could be resolved in less than one minute, should I actually be connected to the right person.  But, the financial department refers me to the customer service department – and the customer service depart refers me to the financial department.

Funny side note – After getting disconnected for the fourth time, I received an automated phone call from – MCI – asking about my customer service experience.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know which customer service agent I should ‘grade’, because, I’d already spoken to seven of them!

On a brighter note – I’m looking for a new riding lawn mower.  I had two older lawn mowers, and I sold them last fall at a yard sale.  The grass has just started to green and I need to make a purchase, soon.  It would have been great to have purchased a mower at the end of last summer, when prices were lower, but, I wasn’t ready to buy then.  I love spring-time and I can’t wait to get in the yard and spruce things up.

9 thoughts on “New Long Distance Plan And A New Riding Lawn Mower

  1. Do you really need long distance? We use cell phones for everything. To get local service only around here it was something like $16… no caller ID, no extra. I thought that was ridiculous, so we’re sticking to the cells.

    Then again we don’t make a ton of calls, either.

  2. I can recommend ECG. I get 2-2.5c per minute long distance from my home phone with no access fees at all. They have a great internet site with all the statements / call history and I can pay online with no extra fee. This sounds like an ad, but it’s not, I have been using them for years. http://www.ecg1.com/

    Re: Riding lawn mower – stay away from MTD/Yard Man, they have the worst ratings in consumer reports. Costco sells these, and I never had anything but problems with mine (luckily costco took it back with no problems, even after a year. I replaced it with a craftsman one from sears and haven’t had a problem since.

  3. My wife lives on the phone. Plus, I receive work-related calls on my home phone. As for ECG, they do not offer service in our area (I checked!).

  4. @SingleGuy We live out in the country and we can’t get cable. Yep, it’s 2008 and I can’t get cable. And, we only have one DSL option – through the local phone company.

  5. Skype FTW! Convince all your relatives and such to get it and you can even have video calls for free!

    -Russell

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