Telus Support Review: "We're sorry but we were unable to..."

Here's my Telus cell phone support story. To me support is a good opportunity to improve your company's image/brand with your existing (and paying) customers. So lets see how Telus did when their support team stepped up to the plate, after one of their sales reps crippled my cell phone service.

A Telus sales rep calls me trying to sell me on the idea of changing my account from a pre-paid set up to a monthly plan. He's telling me how I would save money and being a client since 2000 (a 12 year client) I can even get a small discount. After a few minutes, it all sounded pretty decent, but in the end I decided not to change my plan. End of story? Nope.

A day later I noticed that my cell phone was unable to send/receive any calls or text messages. If you called my cell phone all you would get is:

"We're sorry but we were unable to complete your request at this time".

When I finally get through to Telus support, the support woman asks me to hard reboot my cell phone. Fine. I do it and she calls me successfully. Next, I wanted to test my text messaging with her on the line. She sends me one, however it's clear that she's obviously trying to get me off the phone quickly (even though I mention other issues I am experiencing). At the end of all this she effectively hangs up on me without even a goodbye. Good job Telus Support.

So I test my phone seconds after the call, and the same message is there, "We're sorry but we were unable to complete your request at this time". Another fine example of Telus Support.

I call them again, not upset at all, but just accepting the fact that Telus Support can be less than impressive. This time I try a different approach...I try to identify the root of the problem for them. How? By strongly hinting that the sales rep probably screwed my account somehow (It was an educated guess on my part, since that was the only unusual thing that happened to my cell phone recently).

At least this time the support guy is sharp enough to follow me, and confirmed that I was right...Telus sales rep screwed my account. The sales rep messed up my account badly enough that the support guy had to escalate my issue to the technical team. He says my phone should work within 24 hours, and that he will follow up with me the next day.

I wait about 36 hours, with no follow up call, and my cell phone is still not working. So I call support again and finally they get my phone to work. So five days with no cell phone service (caused by a Telus rep) and they do not even offer any compensation for my troubles. Only after I asked for something, did they finally offer a week of free calls. Big whoop.

Lesson: Beware of Telus sales reps. They have the power to mess up your cell phone service and leave you hanging. Personally, I will not listen to what they have to say, and just tell them I am not interested in anything they have to offer. After this poor experience I'll have to look at Fido...People seem to say good things about them.