New customer - Vonage site unavailable

Posts: 26 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Dec 29, 2005 Posts: 26

I understand that some folks are perfectly happy buying products and services and not expecting 100 percent of what they are paying for. However, I do expect everything I pay for just as Vonage expects to get paid 100 percent.

I was not sold a ticket to try out an unstable, partially functioning service. I was sold a service that could replace my land line with loads of features designed to entice me to move over to Vonage. My decision was not based on a Vonage representative telling me up front to expect that the services would work sometimes or be available sometimes. No one announced that this technology might be "flakey" at times or that you would have to schedule an appointment to get to the features that you are paying for. No one related that for days I might have to stay up half the night waiting for a chance to log in and check my settings, salvage a mess or use the features I was sold. No one told me that when service was down I would have to guess about it because the service announcements are really a sales pitch.

I pay for this service and I am not getting it. Now some folks may think that because they accept partial service or don't use them then everyone else should be happy. Some folks may think that a customer complaining when they are wronged is whining. Everyone has an opinion, but by gosh when it is my money I have every right to complain when I don't get the service I am paying for.

The idea that it is a great deal, even if it sometimes works, just amazes me. This is not some promotional toy that folks pay to play with. It is represented as a credible, solid service with great features. The idea that it is less expensive than a land line is enticing to customers, but Voip should be much cheaper than a land line. Most of the infrastructure already exists and is already being paid for by consumers.

There is no requirement for me or any other paying customer to sit around in the dark with no explanations or positive customer interaction. This especially holds true when there are catastrophic events and service issues that effect the masses and last days. I understand that some issues are related to end users not anticipating the additional knowledge required to deal with their unique network, hardware or software configurations, but this service outage is not about those issues.

At a minimum Vonage owes it to their customers to communicate the nature of these service issues on their web site instead of leaving the impression with the public that things are just rosey at Vonage. Paying customers should not be expected to wonder how many days or weeks until there is a resolution or if there is really going to be a resolution. Every business on earth has challenges, but in the end they either deliver what they sell or they pay the price. Surely Vonage knows the statistics on what happens when customers perceive that there is disaffection towards their issues.

This is not about bad customers. This is all about bad service regardless of the events that brought about the outages.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 27, 2005 Posts: 2

is that godforsaken website. It's pig slow and unreliable. Getting voicemails via web, which would be a great selling point, is UNBEARABLE. And why don't they use mp3 instead of wav??!?! It would at least cut down on the server load and maybe solves some of their problems. I wish they would do an overhaul on the website and do it right.

Posts: 83 · Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 10:31 am Post subject:

You Said It All......I hate to even use "call forwarding" because I may not be able to log back in and change it....

There are 10 pages on this post and we still have the same problem.

Maybe we need to all send them an email about it ,to make sure they are hearing us.

http://www.vonage.com/help_contactUs.php?lid=footer_contact

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 29, 2005 Posts: 9

riddler wrote:

Maybe we need to all send them an email about it ,to make sure they are hearing us.

http://www.vonage.com/help_contactUs.php?lid=footer_contact

Yes, I think we should all send Vonage many emails regarding the problems. I'm not sure if they're monitoring this web site much--if at all, right now.

I have sent Vonage three different emails since Tuesday regarding the dashboard problem. Can you guess if I received a reply? Of course not. But at least they were sent directly to Vonage.

I even quoted a few comments from this thread in my third email to Vonage, just to show what other users are saying. I think everybody should send emails directly to Vonage and maybe they'll take us more seriously?

Posts: 476 · Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 12:53 pm Post subject:

eriq wrote:

I even quoted a few comments from this thread in my third email to Vonage, just to show what other users are saying. I think everybody should send emails directly to Vonage and maybe they'll take us more seriously?

I'm not defending Vonage nor the web page outages, but at the same time I don't think they're just ignoring the situation. I don't think anyone at Vonage looks at the account management website, sees that its down, and thinks, "Oh well, screw them if they can't manage their accounts." Yes, the lack of communication about the situation from Vonage is frustrating. Yes, being unable to manage critical aspects of your account is frustrating. Just because they are not on these forums posting doesn't mean they're not working on the situation. They are a victim of their own success when it comes to the web site, but in all the time the web site was down I don't believe I lost actual phone service once. I think (hope) once they get their infrastructure shored up the web site will be much more stable.

Posts: 10 · Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 1:08 pm Post subject:

eriq wrote:

riddler wrote:

Maybe we need to all send them an email about it ,to make sure they are hearing us.

http://www.vonage.com/help_contactUs.php?lid=footer_contact

Yes, I think we should all send Vonage many emails regarding the problems. I'm not sure if they're monitoring this web site much--if at all, right now.

I have sent Vonage three different emails since Tuesday regarding the dashboard problem. Can you guess if I received a reply? Of course not. But at least they were sent directly to Vonage.

I even quoted a few comments from this thread in my third email to Vonage, just to show what other users are saying. I think everybody should send emails directly to Vonage and maybe they'll take us more seriously?

believe me, they're well aware......got one of them (you know, one of the friendly representatives based in the Philippines)(after 30 minutes of the CS number going straight to a busy signal) to actually admit there was major problems with dashboard and voicemail, and the best she could tell me as far as an ETA for the chit get'n fixed was in the next 2-3 days. when i told her that at least I was able to experience a working Vonage for about 2 weeks after signing up, but felt really sorry for anyone who just got the service during all this downtime and absence of voicemail functionality these last couple of days, and that i hope they are compensating people for the problems......she said that "several" issues have been "forwarded" to their CS managers regarding people getting credited for all the problems and she was "sure" that we would be compensated, but I couldn't take her word for it, and she couldn't guarantee me anything. it really sounded like they've already been handed a script to spit out at us and then hurry up and get us off the phone to get the next call. real encouraging.......lemme tell ya!

Posts: 60 · Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 2:07 pm Post subject:

what the...? i've been a customer for a very short time (2 weeks-ish) and I just got into the voicemail page! woo-hoo, i better take a screen shot just so i can remember what it looks like!

Posts: 61 · Full Forum Member Joined: Dec 29, 2005 Posts: 61

Dashboard is down again.

You know, I'll bet the problem is as simple as a patch cable looping back into the same switch. After looking at the video of the call center that someone posted, and watching that guy go through his list of connections in front of a rack, looking somewhat perplexed, I wouldn't doubt this is the problem.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 31, 2005 Posts: 4

You would think an Internet based phone company would know how to keep a web-site up. It really is a joke, and I do regret having signed up. Do we all really expect the "service" to be any good?

And as for calling CS? To get help forget it. But select prompts that you want to add or sign-up for service......and WHAMO, somebody answers right away...go figure.....

Posts: 2252 · Posted: Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:39 pm Post subject:

dmesser wrote:

Dashboard is down again.

You know, I'll bet the problem is as simple as a patch cable looping back into the same switch...

It is a major Dashboard rebuild.