So this evening I received a telephone call from Rogers introducing me to their new home phone service. They asked me a number of questions including ‘Is your home phone service with Bell?”, they asked me which services I currently subscribed to.

They then proceeded to tell me that they could offer me 6 services and long distance within Canada for 5 cents/minute for $41.95, I would be able to keep my same telephone number, and the quality of service wouldn’t change. I told them I wasn’t interested, they told me there would be substantial cost savings, what they didn’t know is that cost wasn’t factor in my decision to switch carriers. I asked them what differentiated their service from Bell’s, they told me price.

I told them that I was happy with Bell, and that I have all of my other services with Bell. I also told them I know that Bell’s customer service is great, they then responded with ‘We have 24hr customer service’, and I then proceeded with asking how do I know that you have good customer service (the call centre rep was very good) and she told me that she has had both Bell and Rogers and that Rogers customer service is as good if not better than Bell.

I then brought up the objection of no longer having ‘One Bill’ – this was obstacle she couldn’t ovecome. She basically told me that its just another piece of paper, with different colours on it. HAHAHAHA.

She then tried to convince me that cheaper was better…and that I could use the savings to go on a trip or buy a new car. Honestly, she said this to me. Let me tell you, if by switching to Rogers Home Phone I would save enough money to buy a new car…where’s the dotted line? This was far from the case.

I then told them that I had a feature that converted my voicemail to e-mail…they had no clue as to what I was talking about, I spent a couple of minutes explaining it to them. At first she said she had a similar feature, she put me on hold and then put me on the phone with her supervisor. Her supervisor told me initially that any service I currently had with Bell I could have with Rogers so I once again asked her if they had voicemail to e-mail capabilities as this is a feature I use everyday. After being put on hold once again, the original rep got back on the phone and told me that she apologized for taking so much of my time and they didn’t have the service. She made no further attempt to sell me the service.

In all I spent about 16 minutes on the phone with Rogers. At the end of it what did Rogers accomplish – not much. I probably just cost them a whole bunch of money!