Complaint Review: Cox Communications

It's great your area had good techs on all levels Lori, unfortunately that is not the case out here. I learned about the difference from Cox in house employees personally, when I commented years ago on the different levels of service, after their phone techs insisted on sending someone out to my place cause 'it was on my end', which of course it wasn't and he screwed up both our computers and took them offline where they had be up before he touched them. (Where's your hubby when I needed him? LOL. Since then I learned all I needed to know about NIC's and cable modems in order to do it all myself and never have to rely on their techs for anything via phone or inside my house again.)

Sorry if I confused you ... Cox calls all their phone and road techs, 'techs' and have a separate choice on the phone to be put thru to the phone guys for 'technical support'. Other calls for TV and phone go thru to those divisions or customer support.

Their level one techs read from a sheet of paper that tells them what to tell customers. This has been confirmed by their in house techs I've dealt with when I asked about it. They are fustrating to say the least, trying to get past them in order to get to level 2 so you can speak to someone who will talk to you without treating you as if you were a total newb online. The in house guys also told me to always specify I want to deal only with in house techs, due to the amount of errors the outsourced companies do that they end up going back to in order to fix correctly. Of course my new neighbors didn't know that and it affected mys service last month.

Here is another example you should enjoy. When the node down the road blew out a couple years ago after it filled with water after a bad storm went thru, I called them and told them what was going on. I was told it was on my end and I needed to reinstall my OS by two different level 1 techs. It took me a half hour to get the 2nd level 1 phone tech to put me thru to level 2. After another half hour to 45 minutes I finally got him to get me thru to a supervisor.

Keep in mind I called before everyone in this area went down. I noticed the packet loss and knew from experience with this flaky node, what was coming next. I was trying to help them. I was treated like a moron.

Finally I got the supervisor to realize they weren't seeing or hearing from the 23 modem owners on this node, because it was after 5 pm and those businesses in the neighborhood were closed. Then he checked further and realized some of the other modems weren't returning pings that should have been online, including my own, from residences and more were slowly dropping off.

He still wanted to just send a tech to my house and said he had to wait until at least 10 or 15 (forget exactly the count) other customers from the neighborhood called for help before they could send out anyone with more knowledge to check out their equipment in the area. This wasn't going to happen on a weekend with businesses closed and we who live and use the same node would have been out of service for the entire weekend. I pressed the point and he finally transferred me to Data Soc.

Data Soc listened. The head engineer sent his engineers out and was kind enough to call me back later to let me know they had to replace everything from the motherboard down inside the node. He thanked me for my persistence and help. While I was more than happy to help, I just wish it wasn't so damned fustrating to get up their ladder to talk to someone that's knowledgeable. I'm aware I know more than the average customer, they should take advantage of that, note my file and not treat me like an idiot who knows nothing about her computer. Of course they refused to do this when I asked.

A work order would have saved our latest epidode. Again, it was not an in house tech, so he didn't leave any paperwork with our neighbor as they are supposed to, with his cell phone number and the work order number on it. When informed of that they could have cared less and only say 'oh, well he should have' and wouldn't look into it further. They only would set up for a tech to come out 3 days later to hook me back up and fix their mistake and put us on standby if they would happen to get an opening before then. Of course they never get those. (I wasn't charged for any of this, so it was only the downtime and attitude on the phone that I had an issue with.)

I build our computers here and maintain the network. I don't normally have much need to call Cox, but on the rare occasions I do, it's always an experience to say the least. That's what prompted me to reply to Mike in the first place, when he mentioned he was a geek too. Even when you tell them you know what you are talking about, they don't 'get it' and treat you like it's all your fault first. While that may in be their job description, it's very insulting to those of us that call in an attempt to get help and to help them troubleshoot. Mike was treated as I have been in the past and I could relate as to how fustrated he is.

OK, geek joke for ya Lori, since you got such a cool name. :) The going line here I tell others is: I do the hardware, my hubby does the software. Always fun to watch their expression, as they try to figure out if I'm truly joking, or if I'm serious and it just came out wrong. LOL. Tell your hubby if he ever wants to move to the desert, Cox could use a really good tech to make up for the bad name their outsourced ones have given them since they took over home.com. We customers would love to have him if you will share him with us! Been nice chatting with ya lady. :)

Lorraine. But really, it doesn't matter whether you get in house or contract techs. There are good and bad in both situations. I happen to be married to one of the contract techs that you're speaking of(supervisor now), and he is exceptionally knowledgeable and expects the same from the techs that work under him. When you call for tech support you're getting just that, someone who sits in the office and tries to help you fix the problem that you're experiencing. A true tech is the one that comes out and fixes what can't be done over the phone. Most of these guys are very good at what they do, and most are willing and able to call in the 'big dog' when they can't get the problem fixed on their own.

As for the OP, I can't speak for Cox, since my husband works for another major cable company. Within our own Company I can tell you that when there's a problem, someone is rolling out very quickly and they don't leave until the problem is resolved. Rude behavior and inept repair is NOT tolerated! Whether in house or contractor, the techs are all held to the same standard of behavior (my husband has been on both sides of this fence), the sub is to be taken care of in a timely, professional manner or the tech is called on the carpet. Please take the time to write a letter to the management of your local Company explaining the situation in a calm, non offensive manner, asking for resolution of the situation, INCLUDING not only the trip charge but complimentary cable/modem service for a month to compensate you for the inconvenience that you've been caused. Look at your work order, note the techs name, the resolution to the problem (correcting the MAC address), and your expected compensation, as well as the steps that you have taken to date to resolve this situation. If this happened around here, an escalation ticket would be out in a hot hurry, and people would be scrambling to 'make you whole'. Hopefully, Cox will take the same stance with you.

Good Luck and we'll be watching for an update with a happy ending!

After 8 years of cable I've had many occasions to deal with Cox myself, Mike. Some good, some bad, some totally mindblowing.

Use the knowledge you have to confuse their level one techs when you must call and deal with tech support. It's not all that hard to do, then you will finally get bumped up to level 2 and get someone who at least knows what MAC, DNS, node, NIC and other such terms mean.

I've learned that their level 1 techs can only do about one thing, say it's all the user's fault and they aren't computer literate enough normally to really help you with a problem, EVEN if you know what it is. They insist on sending a tech to your home.

I usually have pretty good luck with level 2 techs, at least they understand what I am talking about or if not, are willing to put me higher up to a supervisor (they don't call them managers I found out, so next time use the word supervisor).

If you must have a tech sent to your home, try to remember to ask them to send an in-house tech, you do NOT want a contract tech! I can't stress this enough. I found out the hard way that the companies they contract techs from, are the same as saying 'pleae come to my home and mess up my network 10 times worse than it already is'. I also refuse to let the techs touch anything inside my home, contract or in-house. I built these computers, I set up this network and I know how it all works. They do not. The 2 times over the years I did allow the contract techs to sit down at the computers they left us in a much worse condition and it took me a day to get it all back to normal and still didn't get the problem, which was on their end to begin with, solved.

Funny, about the same time last month we were offline for 3 days too. Our new neighbors ordered cable TV and Cox sent out a tech to hook them up on a Saturday afternoon. He hooked them up and took us totally down, TV, VOIP phone and internet. I called within a half hour once I determined it wasn't just a net burp occuring and asked them to call the tech on his cell and have him return to our apartment complex to hook up back up. I got nowhere with the level 1 tech, of course, they insisted they couldn't do anything till Tuesday. I asked for a supervisor, who would only agree to put us on standby and keep an appt for Tuesday hookup.

The tech that did this hook up for our neighbor was, of course, contract and not in house. I'm still trying to figure out how he managed to plug in their connection and take ours down. I've seen the box out front and know it's setup. The coax lines aren't even in a certain order, it's very messy, so he can't even claim he accidentally knocked ours loose when plugging thiers in. They aren't next to each other. He had to have physically unplugged us for some odd reason when he was supposed to be plugging their line in. Each line is marked with the apartment number though, so it's easy to tell which one goes to which apartment.

I'm homebound and very ill from a Crohn's Disease flare right now and at any point in time could have to call 911 to be taken to the hospital. (We can't afford a car, so I'd have to have an ambulance come get me.) I explained this to the supervisor, I wasn't whining about being offline, I needed to have my internet connection up and running in case I needed to use our VOIP phone to call for help. He wouldn't budge. His rudely voiced reply to me was, I should get a real phone, in fact Cox offers them. He had no further comment when I informed him Cox did NOT offer service on our street, even though they have been claiming they are getting ready to do so for the past 4 years. Lingo is also much cheaper at only 22 bucks a month and I have unlimited long distance. I'd be a fool to pay more for less.

Moral here I guess is, always tell them you only want an in house tech sent to your home. In a case such as mine that you have no control over, try to go as high up the food chain as you can to voice your complaint about the mess their contract techs make. Hopefully one day they will realize farming out their tech work costs them more than it saves.