Last week, “06880” featured a hard-hitting story about issues afflicting Optimum customers in several Westport neighborhoods.
What happened next?
Randi Nazem writes:
After our story was posted, a reader commented with contact info for the CEO of Optimum.
My husband reached out, told him our issue, and sent him the “06880” article.
The CEO immediately sent word to all the head honchos at Optimum, at the corporate level. Within an hour, the head of Optimum in our area called us. He sent a head technician out the next morning.
The tech did a ton of troubleshooting. He spent many hours testing each of our devices, to see what was causing the interference in our WiFi. They pinpointed the issue, and fixed it on Saturday. The same tech gave us his cell number, and said if there were any issues to call him.
All day Saturday all we had strong WiFi, with no drop in service. On Sunday, the same. S
On Sunday afternoon, the tech called to ask if all was ok. I told him all seemsed good, and that he fixed the issue.
But it didn’t stop there. He called again Monday morning, then stopped by to fix one thing he had forgotten to recconnect in my husband’s office. He went above and beyond anything Optimum had ever done for us.
After he left, the head of corporate followed up with a call. He said our bill will reflect a credit for the days we did not have WiFi. He also lowered our monthly bill by a few bucks. Did you know that if you have auto bill pay you get $5 off your monthly bill? We didn’t, and no one ever offered or told us🤣 )
Simply put, the service we have received from these top guys has been nothing short of top notch. We owe it all to “06880.” Thank you for taking time to post our issue — and to the reader who offered the CEO’s contact information too.
(“06880” is a full-service blog — and fully reader-supported. To help fund us, please click here.)
Great result from that call to Mr. Big.
Too bad, though, that the tech needed a kick in teh the ass from the head honcho to do what he should have done long ago…when one’s job is on the line, quick, polite response is not really a surprise…it’s what should have occurred in the first place.
Since it is unlikely everyone will get the same service response, could we get a hint on what device(s) they pinpointed as causing the interference and what the tech said they did about it?
1 Happy customer…4,799,999 to go. 🥴
Michael, that’s funny, but unfair. Having been a Cablevision/Optimum/Altice customer for 20+ years, I’m quite happy with their service. Most people I know are, too. For years, cable companies have been one of the companies people love to hate. I do hope that with the entrance of Frontier and GoNetSpeed into the fiber-to-the-home market, Altice will see that customer service, satisfaction and pricing give customers more options and that if Altice wishes to retain their current customer base, they will have to up their game.
Have to agree with Mark- We have had Cablevision for ages and have NEVER had a problem with phone, TV or computer unrelated to downed wires caused by storms. Not cheap but excellent!
I have to agree with Mr Katz … just a bummer that it took such a high level involvement for the issues to get fixed.
We had the same problem on Prospect Road last year with Aquarion. Terrible non-stop brown water from all the taps in all of the houses along the road. For months and many, many phone calls, no responses. Hundreds of $$’s of ruined laundry, stained toilet and sink fixtures. I got fed up, researched and found the home # of the company president. Once that happened, they all hopped-to and have seemingly fixed the issue. Now i have a manager contact to inform if it starts to come back. Aged-out piping along our neighborhood, nothing they seem to have the stomach to fix anytime soon. So now they occasionally come to flush out the pipes to keep the water flowing cleanly. All temp fixes, our infrastructure all thru town is aging.
The Town has a responsibility, in my opinion, to be working with these companies on long-term plans and solutions. Individual customers have no pull.
A company has no customer service if it takes hitting the CEO with bad news on social media to get some. No Optimum customer should take any joy in this story. Dan might.
Unfortunately, I’ve found MANY times that when an issue with any company seems stalled at a dead end and the frustration level is boiling over, contacting the company CEO usually gets fast and focused results. My old lawyer, Ron Sheiman (RIP) told me this trick many years ago. Happy to provide the contact info.
I’m guessing I would just get the bedbug letter. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/09/bedbug/
The fact that this was selected to be a written story is a bit troubling
to me. Why should a company be given a pat on the back for doing the right thing ONLY after the CEO was tracked down!
How pathetic is that? Seriously, give that a thought for a minute.
Optimum has the customer base that they have ONLY because there has been virtually zero competition for many years, and without competition Optimum has shown their true colors by offering HORRIBLE, almost non-existent customer service in dealing with service related matters as well as
billing. My statements are backed up by endless current and former customers of Optimum, all easily found online.
IF you are an Optimum customer who has had a smooth ride with them, I’m happy for you but please don’t think for a second that you are in the majority.
It must have been a slow news day at 06880…..I’m guessing there must be
an Optimum gift card on its way to “06880”
No, Paul, there is no Optimum gift card on the way. I’ve had both excellent and poor experiences with Optimum. I posted the story because I posted the previous one. Many people wanted to know how it turned out. It’s a basic follow-up story.
What a stupid and thoughtless comment, Paul, about the gift card…further, it shows what a gap is there between you and the slightest knowledge of who is Dan Woog.
Paul, Not a good comment
I can see both sides, having been a former Cablevision/Optimum/Altice customer for 20+ years, I rarely had problems and any issues I did experience were all weather/storm related. However, as many have noted, it shouldn’t take contacting the CEO and/or social media exposure to get customer satisfaction. This seems to be the new reality. Big corporations have millions of customers, so losing a few, or having a pocket of disgruntled users doesn’t really merit attention as long as the monthly fees keep rolling in. Contacting the CEO presents a special circumstance that can’t be ignored. Just an fyi to anyone this may apply to: most service companies offer a senior discount (sometimes an AARP membership is required). I called AT&T customer service because my cell phone bill kept creeping up these past few months and they told me I was eligible for a 10% discount that I was unaware of. Now I know to ask.
When any customer has to resort to getting a CEO involved – you’ve got deep systemic issues. The “special” service these people received is somehow perceived as “good” but most often the company response is tied to the public relations reaction response any CEO knows how to use. The true ethic of a corporation is the experience of customers that don’t call the CEO – what kind of service do they get? There lies the true ethic of a company.
If there’s a disconnect between the CEO’s office and the field technicians, it’s likely caused by the fact that Optimum largely relies upon subcontractors to fill these positions.
In my experience, when a company— or anyone for that matter —– no longer has direct authority over its workers, customer service is sacrificed.
Good customer service is hard to come by when employees are not part of the company.
Fortunately, Optimum directly employs an upper tier of their own well-trained and experienced professions that are dispatched when subcontractors haven’t resolved underlying technical issues.
Like the old game of “Telephone”, the message gets increasing more garbled the more players there are between the original message and the final result.
This should be a cautionary tale for American businesses.
Interestingly enough, the same analogy applies to wifi and cable transmissions. The farther away the source from your connection, the weaker the transmission.
Finally, beware of “new” modems & routers or combination system provided by Optimum. A number of technicians I’ve spoken with had negative opinions about some of these ancillary features.
If you’re wondering how I understand so much about Optimum’s field operation, it’s only because I always ask employees if the company they work for is a good place to work and why.
My advice to those of you with service issues is to insist upon an Optimum technician if the problem isn’t resolved the first time. It may take a few visits for the thornier problems, but ultimately there will be a resolution. And the technician will keep trying until there is.
Also, one more tip —– check the cable lines attached to your building. Often critters like mice & squirrels will gnaw on the coating overtime, wreaking havoc with transmissions.
We’ve all heard the story about the squirrel electrocuted when he breached a transformer and shut down the power grid serving millions of people for many hours.
All sounds good except that Optimum has the nasty and somewhat underhanded policy of pricing gamesmanship, time limited contracts and sudden outrageous jumps in pricing which cannot be resolved without telephone torture and being stuck with the higher price without adjustment while almost daily you get significantly lower Optimum offers in the mail which do not apply to existing customers. One single fair price for everyone would be a vast improvement
So the moral of the story is “if you don’t have the CEO’s number, you’re SOL”
optimum has an executive office escalation email. you can also find the executive’s contact information in about 10 seconds of google’ing. the problem is as much as i hate optimum, unless the actual modem is not getting service, 9 times out of 10 its user error. optimum should not have to deal with wifi interference or wifi issues in one’s home. they deal with getting the modem good and reliable signal and bandwidth. i still loathe them, dont get me wrong. i think their price games and corporate non-sense has left sour tastes all across the state. also, the $5 off for auto pay is only if your account is eligible. its not for all accounts. you would’ve been informed of it when you signed up or when you got your bill. it should not be a surprise.
After I complained to Optimum a technician came to the house and checked everything. He said nothing wrong-the problem is caused by the work being done to replace the “very old” lines that are now being replaced by Altice. That was two weeks ago. Still experiencing many, many wifi outages all day and evening. Very frustrating.
Great result from that call to Mr. Big.
Optimum performance is UNACCEPTABLE ! Constant intermittent connections. Now I’ve lost internet/Wi-Fi service altogether, could not be fixed remotely or troubleshooting over phone. Technician was scheduled with no fixed time(meaning any time between 11 and 8pm).
At noon, a call comes in stating “no technicians available please reschedule.”
Losing another day waiting for their service!
Looking forward to another provider that will create some competition and earn the switch over to reliable performance.