When is the Frontier Technician going to arrive?

The Truth About Frontier Technician Appointments

Technician appointments occur between 8-5 pm M-F for residential services.

Here are a few tips to avoid a frustrating experience:

1.  DO NOT TAKE A DAY OFF FROM WORK
2. Do not cancel a medical appointment
3. Assure someone 18 years of age is present from 8am – 5pm
4. Make one call to Frontier after 5pm to advise them the commitment was broken and request a $25 missed commitment credit
5. Answer that weird number it’s probably the technician calling to confirm that someone is present for the appointment before he drives to the location (they sometimes have to travel up to 30 miles or more)
6. Understand that you may receive a specific time, don’t depend on it
7. If you call customer service be prepared to receive more offers of products, they are required to do so at the threat of termination
8. Patience, patience, and………….patience

If you have an appointment for service DO NOT DEPEND ON THE TIMES GIVEN. 

So why doesn’t Frontier just tell me when the technician will be here…………here’s why in a nut shell ( takes a breath )

Customer service representatives advise appointments which are not guaranteed nor are they accurate to the load of tickets handed to technicians daily.  The company has a shortage of available technicians due to budget constraints.  Field technicians are frustrated by an overload of service requests and a lack of physical commodities necessary to restore/repair line issues, which create less than favorable service.

When a customer calls to complain about a missed appointment something terrible happens.  The customer is greeted by a person that acts as a company filter for one call resolution.  Frontier designed these customer service representatives to catch incoming requests and provide solutions to prevent inter-department transfers of customers and therefore reduce call duration. Sounds good so far but wait for the punch line.  These employees can only perform limited functions and are mostly scrutinized for their ability to sell more products on incoming service requests. These customer service representatives must reiterate the request to the functional department via data entry into software.  As the customer service representative is halted by the slow software progress to resolve your reason for calling they probe you for further purchases.  This may sound unpleasant but it can be positive for the consumer for many reasons (see Customer Service Representative page for further expectations and perspectives)

The company needs a lot of money to increase the maintenance and expansion of their central offices. When those local central offices do not receive the budgets they need to operate then the general customer base suffers as a result.  Customers may experience repeat trouble with loss of dial tone, heavy static on the line, and frequent internet disconnects.  As a chain reaction the company must manage the failure of their network and resend technicians to known points of failure only for the technician to stand there without the necessary resources to resolve the issue.  The technician is resourceful and uses her knowledge to create temporary solutions, which are known will not persist, but serve the need of the immediate failure.

Frontier attempts to regulate the circulation of missed service requests through escalations but the success rate is small.  In some instances service tickets are being cancelled or closed to meet an internal deadline measured for department efficiency.  The effect looks positive to Frontier, someone gets a pat on the back meanwhile the real effect is a negative impact on the customer through a cancelled service request.  In plain English it means that Frontier wants to look successful to itself within its own measurement standards to the point that they are ready to leave you wondering “Where is my technician?  When are they going to get here? Is anyone going to call me and tell me”  Instead of meeting these issues with solutions the company instead positions itself to cope with the failure by offering credits once a billing account is created.  Potential customers are met with a common theme to Frontier’s billing infrastructure which is to bill first and answer questions later. 

There are many reason’s why Frontier will need to improve their infrastructure and how it serves the constituents of their coverage area.  The company is full of wonderful people that have inherited a degraded network which is as diverse as the United States itself.  They have worked very hard to accomplish an intense acquisition of Verizon land lines and much more.

My point is that these people do care about their customers, some more than others.  Something I would like to request of all consumers is the abandonment of the notion that the consumer is always correct, or the idea that any slight discomfort of a customer represents a poor product.  All of us have witnessed a terrible coworker that truly represents poor customer service and that person is the problem not the company or its product.  In the circumstance of Frontier on the topic of technicians meeting appointment times please follow the steps listed above and bear in mind most of Frontier consumer's receive a wonderful experience but if you don't then make it known and give opportunity for their infrastructure to operate.  

Remove the Feature Pack for $2.99

Frontier call center representatives have a terrible dilemma. They have the dual role of answering customer billing questions and selling new product to existing customers with every contact. 

With this knowledge as a consumer start each interaction expecting some type of offer and be prepared to answer clearly. Always scrutinize the following months billing statement after an interaction to monitor for unrequested products which may have been added by an ethically challenged and company motivated representative. An example of these products is called "Feature Pack" which bills for $2.99, it is a conglomerate of lesser used calling features which are programmed by the phone company. It's value is best met if you use 3 way calling, call forwarding, anonymous call rejection, or selective call rejection.  If you only want caller ID and call waiting then cancel the "feature pack" and save your money. 

If the representative gives you conflicting information hang up and talk to a different representative. If your caller ID or call waiting do not work after you have the "feature pack" removed it is because the representative turned off all features. Simply call and request the desired calling features be restored.

What is your Frontier Communications Complaint?

Welcome to a neutral platform for reporting complaints of Frontier Communications services.

This is an open forum to discuss Frontier billing, service issues, misquotes, refunds/deposits, missed technician appointments. The purpose of this forum is to provide honest feedback to a broken system.  We encourage a professional demeanor when describing incidents and will remove any comments containing profanity, abusive/threatening language, or hate speech.  Without an honest portrayal of the problem a sincere solution cannot be offered.  So please represent the circumstances honestly.