Wireless Providers Suck

So Alicia and I have been waiting patiently for her existing contract with Telus to expire. We’ve whittled her monthly bill down over the last year to be about $37/month as she typically only uses the phone once or twice per month. It’s for emergencies, essentially. We’ve been looking forward to ditching Telus and sliding over to a ‘no system access fee’ provider like Solo Mobile so we can bring her monthly expense down to $17/month taxes in!

Today, we decided to take the kids for a drive, hit the mall and go to the Telus store to schedule the cancellation of her service. What do they tell me?

“We don’t do cancellations in store, sir. Only sales. If you’d like, you can use that phone over there to speak with someone from Customer Service.”

Annoyed.

So I get on the phone with a Customer Service rep (while I’m standing in the bloody Telus store) and they proceed to tell me that… the system they rely on to perform cancellations is down so I’d need to call back in a couple of hours.

Right. More annoyed.

So I do exactly what they don’t want me to do… I call back in ‘a couple of hours’. Now, the system is available but there’s a special ‘team’ that apparently handles cancellations and sadly, they’re not available today. They asked me to call back tomorrow.

Remarkably annoyed now.

It’s an absolute scam. The service agreement with Telus says that we’re obligated to give them 30 days notice prior to cancellation. By delaying people from performing a cancellation, Telus is actually wringing out additional pro-rated revenue from the customer that’s forced to wait on initiating their cancellation for even another 24 hours. I’m sure they know the statistics - anyone calling to cancel their service is already committed to it, so instead of trying to change the customer’s mind through offers, they choose to just drag out the cancellation. Another statistic would probably show that when a customer is deferred in this way, it probably takes them awhile to actually call back and ‘get er done’ for two main reasons: 1) people are busy and 2) most people dread calling service providers for billing or support inquiries. Period. I’m sure 24 hours for me turns out to be a week or two for many.

The wireless business must be a tough one to be in - highly competitive… but this lack of interest in providing customer service truly annoys me. I’m now placing Telus into the Bell category… which is a pretty lowly category to be in.

I can’t wait for free wireless internet access to become so pervasive that the aging dinosaur telcos go out of business since we’ll all be able to rely on mobile handsets and VoIP applications like Skype for our mobile calling needs.

UPDATE: Alicia was able to successfully cancel her wireless service on Monday. They did transfer her from one area to another, they did try to convince her to either stay on with their unadvertised ‘emergency use package’ or transfer her service to a friend or family member. No thanks Telus. Another 20 dollars a month saved! It might not sound like a big deal, but that’s equivalent to a 60 pack of diapers for Emma and a single box of baby wipes!