switching from time warner to earthlink (2000):
- the promotion: $5 less per month for the same service
- phone calls: 1
- CSRs spoken to: 2
- real time: .25 hours
switching from time warner to earthlink (2008):
- the promotion: $29.95 for the first 6 months of 5.0 megabit, $41.95 thereafter
- real time: 1.75 hours
- phone calls: 7
- number of times i’ve given my home phone number: 13
- address: 9
- “secret word”: 7
- “last four of your social”: 2
- CSRs spoken to: 9
- whose first language was English: 3
- minutes of Bach listened to on hold: 12
- minutes of soft jazz: 16
- minutes of total silence: 8
- sales pitches for TW digital cable, movies on demand, and roadrunner while waiting to disconnect roadrunner: 5
- times promted to sign up for TWC digital phone: 2
- times disconnected from TWC service due to horrid voice quality: 1
- times asked to “continue to hold for the next available representative”: >30
- number of times i was told by TWC that i needed to call Earthlink to finish my transaction: 3
- number of times told to call TWC by Earthlink: 4
- number of times i was told i made a mistake in the process, despite doing exactly what i was told: 4