Customer Service Complaints Soaring at PacBell
Local telephone competition may be arriving--albeit slowly--in California, but it doesn’t seem to be having the desired effect on customer service at Pacific Bell.
Complaints about the state’s dominant local phone provider, which has traditionally had a strong service record, have been soaring. The state Public Utilities Commission received 1,536 complaints about Pacific Bell’s service quality in the first seven months of this year, compared with 819 complaints during the same period last year, according to figures compiled by The Utility Reform Network, a consumer watchdog group in San Francisco.
Complaints about missed service appointments also skyrocketed, from 24 last year to 460 this year, according to TURN. Meanwhile, complaints about the state’s other big local phone provider, long-maligned GTE, have been on the decline, a PUC official said--although the agency has not compiled specific numbers.
PacBell admits it suffered a string of service problems earlier this year, when unprecedented demand for additional phone lines for fax machines and Internet connections had service workers scrambling. Then, repairing damage from floods in April and May put technicians on overdrive and caused more service delays.
But those were aberrations in Pacific Bell’s otherwise admirable customer service record, said John Britton, the company’s director of media relations in San Francisco. He noted that J.D. Power & Associates ranked PacBell second among 13 local phone companies in customer satisfaction in a poll released in August.
“We are no longer a monopoly,” Britton said. “If we don’t satisfy our customers, they’ll go somewhere else.”
Lonnie Lowther did. This summer, after moving to a new house in Martinez, Calif., she badgered Pacific Bell customer service agents for six weeks to get her phone service started. After a series of vague excuses and an unexpected and fruitless visit by a PacBell technician on the Fourth of July, she called AT&T.;
“The AT&T; lady gave me her name and number and said, ‘If you have any problem, call me,’ ” said Lowther, who works in the accounts receivable department of Crocket Electric in Martinez. “I couldn’t get that at Pacific Bell.”
AT&T;, MCI and other companies now compete in the local phone business by reselling Pacific Bell service, but they have not pursued residential customers aggressively.
Consumer watchdog groups contend the problems are the result of extensive layoffs at PacBell over the last few years, as well as the distraction of the $16.5-billion takeover by SBC Communications. The consumer groups don’t pin the blame on SBC, but say the situation has not improved since the Texas-based company took over in April.
The PUC required Pacific Bell to report customer service problems as one of its conditions for approving the merger.
Late last month, the PUC ordered Pacific Bell to revamp the estimates, bills and collection notices it sends customers. The action resulted from a complaint by Wilson Ogg, a Berkeley attorney who had a second line installed in his home. At a PUC hearing, an administrative law judge pronounced Ogg’s notices indecipherable, said commission spokeswoman Kyle DeVine.
“It says in big, bold letters that you have to pay the total bill or be disconnected, then way at the bottom in utility-ese it says you only have to pay for basic service,” DeVine said. “We want them to clean up their bills and get their notices right.”
Pacific Bell has 60 days to offer improvements on repair notices and 90 days to revamp its bills and disconnection warnings, she said. The commission also ordered a six-month investigation into whether the confusion causes PacBell to overcharge for repair and installation work.
Britton said PacBell would comply with the PUC’s order, but insisted that “we don’t think there’s any problem here or that any changes are necessary.”
The PUC’s action was followed by a complaint from two consumer watchdog groups. TURN and the Utility Consumer Action Network asked the commission to fine PacBell at least $13 million for failing to answer phone calls and meet service appointments at the levels required by the PUC. The company says it hasn’t violated the rules.
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Karen Kaplan covers technology, telecommunications and aerospace. She can be reached at karen.kaplan@latimes.com
