How Wide Open West Screwed Up Customer Service
I recently and reluctantly signed up for cable service. The bottom line was that I needed better Internet, having suffered at the hands of DSL for 8 years. The nice thing for me was that Wide Open West just installed in our neighborhood and was offering a great deal. So I signed up.
Two months in and WOW! informed me that they are making a switch to all digital service and that I would need to get a converter. They kindly offered to give me two for free and will not charge an additional fee (for the time being). If I had more than two televisions, then I would be on the hook for additional hardware rental fees (don’t get me started on the $4.99/month modem fee).
We lost the top twenty or so channels on Monday, so I reluctantly connected the boxes and we were up and running. It is a disaster. I have been in touch with WOW! for the past three days, filing complaints wherever I can. I started a thread on their Facebook page that has gotten some traction with other upset customers. The moderator there asked that I send him an email off list explaining my issue. Below is that letter
Because you asked about my issue.
The WOW! digital conversion in Cleveland is terrible. No matter how you paint this, this is about your company having more control over your service and finding new revenue streams and in no way serves the customer.
Our service was adequate, not great, with analog. Now it is just plain awful.
The volume is close to 50% lower, forcing us to turn up the volume on the TV which adds noise and is an issue if we switch to a device with normal volume output.
Changing channels is miserable, with a significant lag between the switch and the channel becoming active. My wife is a surfer, and this is no longer possible as we have to wait for each channel to update.
Currently, the channel we were watching has begun jerking, showing perhaps 15fps and is quite out of sync with the audio. It is unwatchable.
I realize that there is nothing that you can do about this, I just want my voice heard. And I know I am not alone. Please let your management know that your company is pushing me to choose to drop my cable service as I can have a much better and more personalized experience with an IPTV device like the AppleTV.
Yours truly,
Tobias
