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Think of all the legal monopolies you do business with. Now, out of all of those companies, think about the one you hate the most.
If you’re like many people, you probably thought of telephone companies.
If you have broken down in tears or literally pulled your hair out while dealing with FLOW cable service, then you are not alone.
FLOW is the least satisfying cable provider in the Caribbean, based on my survey in the other countries they are operating, according to the latest ratings from St Lucia, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados.
Despite service disruptions, high bills, and awful call centre experiences, consumers are dependent on their services because there is no other competition presently.
This past week, thousands of Vincentian (lawyers, government workers, teachers, doctors, parliamentarians and more have signed a petition organised by concern citizens called (WE – Work For Everyone) for better service or for FLOW to pack up.
If nothing changes, ALL Vincentians will be asked to cancel their contract with FLOW by returning their boxes on a date to be announce very SOON, if the company does not respect the views of its customers.
What should have been a quick and easy call turned into a national cry/customer service nightmare. The customer service representative block us from their Facebook page everyday and most of all the customers care service is being answered in Trinidad and Tobago.
What it is that FLOW Customers Service doesn’t understand? Blocking us Vincentians and declining to provide a reason should have been the end of it, but instead it becomes a ridiculously extended back and forth about why on earth you all are treating us Vincentian with such disdainful disrespect, compared to the other countries in which you operate.
Based on the evidence here on these petition signed by Vincentians, I will never use their service, either. If we don’t stand up to corporate bullying, then companies like FLOW will continue having jobs while good people like us pay high rates for nothing.
Dominique R Stowe
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Why not go to the library and read some books? You can even take them home to read for free!
Stop staring at what many people used to call the “idiot box.” This is no joke or insult. Studies monitoring people watching TV show that their brain waves are very flat during the viewing process.
This zombification is not heathy, natural, or normal. Please exercise your brain for your own good and for the greater good of society. Go for it. Read a book.
My dear C ben-David
I read books all the time. I have a whole library of books of my own. The subjects range from trashy novels, that I read for relaxation, to biographies, history, various branches of sociology (theory, methdology, social structure etc) political science, economics, Caribbean writers, African writers, religion. In fact I have a whole wall of books with overflows on shelves in my bedroom. And I keep buying more all the time. But I still look at TV and I still find (a) Flow’s offerings ridiculous and (b) their “customer service” atrocious.
What else would you recommend me to do to get out of my habit of staring at the idiot box? (By the way I also read periodicals like The Economist and Atlantic Monthly and New Yorker – so those won’t help me get over my my idiotic habit either)
While I am all for quality customer care, I find it ridiculous that with so much other critical issues we are petitioning for cable, what about crime, child abuse and domestic violence?
Stupes use the library it’s free.
UWI girl – please read my reply to C ben-David. And yes, I am also concerned about crime and child abuse and incest and poor education and environmental degradation and poor parenting skills and a host of other issues. But I also like to look at TV. And being concerned about problems does not preclude a desire to have a decent cable service. Why do you and ben-David seem to think that having intellectual interests, or concerns about social problems means that you shouldn’t be interested in fun things as well? And that we should want quality in fun things as well as in the more erudite pursuits?
Apparently C.ben-David has been looking at a real “idiot box” for most of his life and has failed like many to see the way the world has been revolutionized by technology. Gone are the days when television simply showed only movies and game shows. Wait what is wrong with movies and game shows? Absolutely nothing! Research also shows that people with your mind set are people who have not been exposed to other cultures, C.ben-David. Maybe you should turn on your TV more often, turn to the BBC/CNN, History Channel, Discovery channel, TLC, Discovery Hub, and all the others and try to edify yourself before you come on the world wide web and make an idiot of yourself. Stop looking at shows that continue to do nothing for your intellectual capacity because there are so many free shows on television that could educate you. Do you know that there are networks available with televised classrooms? Obviously, you don’t because you are stuck in front of an “idiot box”. Idiot!
Anesha where in the article do you find the information that the writer has been looking at an “idiot box” most of his/her life (I use the his/her because Dominique is actually the female version of the name, but I know at least one male Dominique in SVG). The writer is talking about monopolies and the very real tendency for them to provide unsatisfactory service at inflated price – a problem we faced for years with Cable & Wireless/LIME. You are all guilty of a common false argument that is so often used by West Indians – you don’t address the issues raised. You attack the character/personality/ education/ intellectual ability of the person instead of dealing with the argument. This even has a name – ad hominem.
Nobody know what else the writer is interested in. Nobody knows what other causes he/she espouses. Nobody knows how often or when he/she watches TV, or what programmes are watched. What is being discussed is the quality of service by a monopoly company. So should I ignore poor service from a telephone company, or it that sufficiently important for me to complain? What about a shoe shop from which I buy a frivolous pair of shoes that fall apart – is that important enough for me to protest? Or perhaps I shouldn’t even buy frivolous shoes, given the state of the world today – as I’m typing this I’m listening to a discussion about the situation in Gaza.
Dear people. We can care about and work for lots of different things at the same time – viz my writing this and listening to something else at the same time. I can work for my Church, and look at TV and work with young people and shop and watch TV and notice that there are caterpillars on my fangipani trees that I must get rid of before they destroy the trees and assess a thesis for a student and a host of other things. No one issue that I am concerned about and may write about or campaign for is the whole of me – why should it be the whole of this writer?