How Are You Promoting Your Business Today?

My technical expertise, or lack of, is a well-documented fact.  Part of it is a lack of interest and the rest, well I admit a big part of it is due to my laziness.  I hate reading technical manuals.  Really says a lot for someone who used to write those manuals.

Recently I was faced with a technical glitch.  Our DSL service through AT &T kept going on and off intermittently for a minute or two at a time. Really made it a challenge to download and upload files.

Now I’ve learned through the years that intermittent problems are the worst.

The technicians can’t tell what to fix, because the problem doesn’t hang around long enough to tell.  The intermittent hiccups in service went on for about 2 ½ weeks.  Long enough to drive us buggy.

Oh, by the way I forgot to mention. I’m married to a bona fide techie. Probably card carrying for all I know.  Well, he called and talked to Tech Support and they jointly tested and tweaked. New cables, new wires… Still hiccups…

My patience grew thinner.  I went online and tried the online checking system.  That system told me I didn’t have a problem.  Great then why couldn’t I transfer a file to a client? 

So I called one day and spoke with Customer Support.  Transferring to Tech Support I was greeted by a friendly voice. I explained the problem and Friendly Voice said I should have done the test online. I told him I had, but the system still was having hiccups.

After a bunch of diagnostic tests nothing was found. (The service did not hiccup while I was on the line-surprise!) Friendly voice then gave me this great, (it sounded impressive) explanation of what may or may not be happening.  He explained in great detail and then paused.

I took a deep breath and then said, “Friendly Voice, I appreciate your explanation. Unfortunately I didn’t understand a single thing you said. Could you please translate that explanation into people talk?”

The “Well…” explanation followed. Bottom line, I was supposed to call back again when it happened and maybe they could do something to fix it. That was it!!

I very nicely explained, ok it was pointly explained. But I didn’t yell…I mentioned we had inside and outside wiring contracts and wanted a service person to check it out. We paid for it and I wanted to use my service. 

Friendly Voice grew very quiet and then told me he had to put me on hold.  I paced…

Friendly Voice came back on the line.  A service appointment was being arranged.

Less than two hours later Sam showed up at my door and introduced himself. He asked questions and then changed out my modem.  Sam told me this might not solve the entire problem, but there were minor issues with the modem.  Sam talked people talk!! I understood his explanation.  My husband came home and Sam explained the process to him in tech talk.  (I understand parts of the language)

I made sure I got Sam’s name and called his supervisor to compliment her on his performance.  But the story doesn’t end there.  The glitches continued, less frequently but still there. 

Calling Tech Support I held my breath. Would I get Friendly Voice again?  I lucked out and got Mark. Mark also spoke people talk. He scheduled an appointment and apologized for the inconvenience.  Wow!

Next appointment I got to meet Roger.  Roger also talked people talk. He decided to implement phase 2 of the Fix.  Very quickly I had my solution up and running. 

I called the supervisor again and told her how pleased I was with Roger’s help. 

Well, it’s been 3 almost 4 weeks without a hiccup in the DSL service.  My sincere and grateful thanks to Mark, Sam and Roger. 

What did I learn from this?  Your online presence is either strengthened or broken by your offline support. 

AT&T does a lot of outreach, advertising and promotion of their services.  Living here in its headquarters hometown of San Antonio, AT & T plays a very visible part of the community. 

No matter how much you promote your business online you and your staff can either make or break all your promotional efforts.  It’s all about how you interact with your customer—online and offline.