[Nfbc-info] escalating

Lauren Merryfield lauren1 at catliness.com
Fri Sep 20 02:57:35 UTC 2013


Hi,
In early July, I moved for the catzillionth time in my life. I had my u-verse service transferred to the new apt. The technician who came hooked up the tvs and made sure *he* had access to the Internet. But he did not hook up my phones or my computer, saying that that wasn't his job. He did as little as he could. I thought that since I pay the same as anyone else, I needed to have equal access to u-verse services--at least the basic ones. 

So I've been on the prowl trying to figure out how to reach someone high up enough at at&t to do something about making exceptions to the rules. Well, I was given a contact or two so I emailed them. 

Yesterday I heard from a guy in Sacramento who does have the authority to respond to my complaint! He agreed with me that rules are guidelines and can be bent, when a situation poses itself, which, in my case, it did. He said he would talk to the technician himself, to his manager, and to the managers in my area. When I told him I had gotten absolutely nowhere with customer service either, he said he didn't have as much clout there, but he would talk to someone to train their customer service people to be considerate of the needs of people with disabilities and seniors. And, at the end of our conversation, we talked cats--yea!

I told him that I felt that some of the at&t staff regarded me as a complainer but he said that this was a situation that needed to be escalated so that the problem could be rectified. He said this is part of his job and he can't help people if he doesn't know about their situations.  

He asked me how I found a way to get my point across and I said I am a member of the National Federation of the Blind and one of its members gave me contact info and I took it from there. I was aware, all this time, that it wasn't just my issue; similar lack of accessibility could be happening to other people who don't "escalate" the problem. 

So--yea!--NFB!  
Thanks
Lauren
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