My wife had an old Black & White 5” TV in the kitchen that she watched while cooking. With the transition to DTV, this small TV would stop working. To prepare for the DTV change, we purchased an under-counter HDTV. Now we needed to connect the new TV to a DTV antenna or to our existing cable service provided by Charter Communications. I checked on-line for antennas. The cost was about $35. I contacted Charter Communications and was told that I could have a new cable outlet installed for only $30.
This seemed like an easy decision, limited over-the-air channels for $35 or 100+ cable channels for $5 less. Needless to say, I scheduled an appointment for the installation of the cable outlet with the Charter representative at their customer call center. The technician arrived on-time. He was polite and friendly. He installed the outlet under the cabinets in the kitchen professionally. He cleaned-up the dust, and the TV worked great when he left. I was extremely pleased with the service until I received my monthly bill.
My bill included the $30 charge for the outlet, plus a $35 charge for a “wall fish”. Naturally, I called Charter’s customer service number to inquire about the extra charge. I was told the charge was valid because the cable wire had to be run through the wall to the under-the-cabinet location. I explained that I was told the charge would be $30 not $65. The explanation – Charter’s charge was only $30. The additional $35 charged was from the installer.
Unfortunately, this argument is not valid. To me, or to any other customer, there is no difference between Charter Communications and their 3rd party installer. I scheduled the service call through Charter. Charter selected the person that came to my home. Charter wrote the work order for the service. Finally, Charter billed me for the service. My contact and agreement was with Charter Communication and not with any 3rd party entity. The fact that a company chooses to use a 3rd party to perform a service is irrelevant to the customer.
The customer service representative to whom I was speaking kept telling me that I didn’t understand that the installer that came to my home was not from Charter but from an installation company. (This is another big customer service no-no. Don’t argue with the customer.) I kept telling him that I understood this perfectly. However, the manner in which Charter went about accomplishing the installation was not my concern. I asked to speak to a supervisor. When I explained the situation to her, the $35 “wall fish” charge was removed from my bill.
In this situation, every customer would expect the cable to be run through the wall. TV cables don’t hang exposed from ceilings or come up from the middle of the floor. If the customer service representative said that the charge would be $65, I would not care how it was listed on my bill. However, you cannot quote one price without letting the customer know that an additional charge will occur. All this accomplished was to take a good service call and make it a poor experience for the customer.
