Changing name displayed on Caller ID

[Appalbarry]

It seems that we made a fatal mistake when switching from Shaw to Telus for home phone:  we didn't anticipate that Caller ID would show my name, not that of my wife, who uses the phone heavily.  

I have been told that Telus "can't" change the Caller ID name.  Assuming we can prove that we're married and at the same address that's obviously not true, so I'm now on indeterminate hold (30 minutes and counting) to be formally told again that they refuse to make the change.

What with re-marriages, name and gender changes, and a hundred other things I have to think that they get this call at a least a few times every day.  Not having a simple way to handle changes is just plain unprofessional and lazy.

And sure enough, Telus refuses to do it.  And has no interest in finding a way to fix the problem, except for cancelling the whole account are signing up a second time.

[Appalbarry]

I swear that I'm not making this up.  After being told in no uncertain terms that Telus absolutely, positively could not change the name displayed by Caller ID unless we closed our account and opened a new one, it turns out we either had a really incompetent employee, or one who just plain lied to us.

We called again the next day and talked to a very nice woman who said "Sure, I can do that" and fifteen minutes later my wife's name appeared on Caller ID instead of mine.

So the lesson is: No matter what Telus "support" claims that they can't do, call back later and talk to someone else. Maybe, just maybe it will be the one person at Telus who actually knows their job and cares about customers.

Any other company would be aghast at something likt this, but I'm sure that Telus, like Rogers or Bell, just goes "Forget it. We already have your money, so why would we bother?"

[loosemeat]

I wouldn't quite put it down to "we have your money, so why bother", but there are certainly some training difficiencies at the call centres. Sometimes things take 5 times as long as they should. Other times, agents won't be sure how to accomplish what you are trying to do or may not understand. Other times, things get accomplished very quickly and efficiently.

One thing I've noticed is that nearly every single agent I have ever spoken with a Telus is invariably polite, and willing to try and find an answer when they don't know how to accomplish your request. That doesn't make up for the sometimes collosal waste of time involved in getting answers, but never have I felt that my business wasn't valued.

[Appalbarry]

I'll be honest here: I have never, ever, had worse or more frustrating service from a company.  Thus far with that one exception I have not found anyone on Telus support who could or would do what was needed. I invariably spent at least an hour, mostly on hold every time.

My big frustration is that with most companies if the employee really doesn't know what they're doing you can request an escalation to someone who does, but Telus refuses to let you talk to anyone else no matter how badly things are messed up.  That, to me, in inexcusable.  

Really, this goes all the way back to trying to book the install for the phone change. Instead of the person I was talking to just doing that I was told I had to wait (a non-specific number of days) until someone at Telus phoned us back to do it.  That it was literally impossible for the front line support people to arrange an install time. That's ridiculous.  And when we had to change that date, dear God, that proved to be incredibly difficult.

These are simple, routine tasks that any other company handles with ease, or even on-line. With Telus your only option is to commit to a stupidly long phone call.

Incidentally, I doubt that anyone at Telus ever actually was off trying to find a solution while I sat on hold. I'm willing to bet that they were just ignoring me while they screwed around some other customer.