I recently experienced a total inability to access my web-based customer account. I could not recover password, nor could I open a new account. No matter the alternative I attempted, the result was failure (try again). On several occasions I contacted support by phone, and each time, the techie dispensed with the usual "by the book" responses, tried the login himself , and confirmed that the problem was Shaw's, not mine. For some reason, shaw's servers were rejecting my account details. Each of them put me on hold and, after a few minutes, told me that they could not repair the problem but would send details in a "ticket" up the line to escalate the issue.
After two weeks of unrequited waiting, and in frustration, I decided to try the "customer service" route and finally found a young man who, upon hearing my tale, replicated the problem for himself, put me on hold, and returned to inform me that ALL "tickets" had accurately described the problem, and that all had been "closed" at the higher level with no action.
Curious, and committed to helping me out, he decided to track the case to ensure that it got handled properly and, indeed, it finally was corrected.
I have written to Shaw to commend this young man, but that is not the point of this story. If anything, it illustrates that we frequently are forced to lay blame for poor support at the feet of the first responders when, indeed, the less common issues (in this case at least), are simply blown off at the higher levels of the support heirarchy. If there's a "loop" that connects to those higher levels of support, there is no way for we proles to enter it. This "iron door" treatment of experienced users really pisses me off sometimes, and I'm writing this in hope (doubtless futile) that someone in authority will pay it some attention.
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