On July 1, my home, like all other homes in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, was impacted by Hurricane Beryl. Thankfully there was no major damage to the house. However, a single piece of facing board was dislodged and with it came down the FLOW connection cable.
In the process, the cable was severed, taking out my internet and landline phone service. I settled calmly into the loss of service accepting that with such a disaster, as it turned out to be, restoration would take time. It took me a few days to recognise that my lack of connection was not due to a widespread outage in my location but SOLELY due to the severed connection to my house. Thus began the saga of the struggle for the internet cable reconnection at my residence. It is a story that has me wondering about FLOW’s problem-solving approach, its technical capacity or lack thereof, the communication or lack thereof between Customer Care and the technicians employed to keep the system going and even some customer caregivers.
July 12 — 11 days after Beryl, I tried contacting FLOW on their 100 number. I didn’t get past the robotics. So, I headed over to Facebook and made contact. Someone behind that page apologised and asked for the pole number. I submitted it. On July 16, they responded confirming that the fault was reported and a fault number was generated and given to me. I never bothered much about the 24–48-hour timeline given. I waited.
By July 20 — I had confirmed that all of my neighbours had internet and that my lack of connection had nothing to do with Canouan, Mayreau and Union Island — the Islands on which they apparently thought I resided and the locations to which they constantly alluded, to explain their inaction on my issue. I again contacted FLOW telling them that my problem was not akin to that of the three Islands mentioned. I also informed them that neighbours connected to the said pole — 9089 — were all connected, so the downed wire at my house was the ONLY problem. Again, someone responded.
My report would be escalated, and someone would make contact. Two days later no such luck!
July 22 — I did my own escalation in reporting by taking in the FLOW modem, and asking the customer care agent to keep it until they were ready to look into the problem. The female agent who attended to me seemed more depressed than I was and carried a countenance of annoyance throughout my interaction with her. She carried me to a separate room where I was SUBJECTED to a long video call in which someone on the other side was convincing me that the scale of the problem was severe and they were even thinking of getting regional help in the rebuilding process. My complaint indeed plaintive cries that I COULD NOT be considered part of the great overall telecommunication disaster of which he spoke fell on deaf ears. The simplicity of the problem, i.e. my problem, was just me oversimplifying the matter it seemed.
July 31 — I told the person on Facebook that I had all but given up and they could wait until Canouan, Mayreau and Union, which, obviously, are simpler problems, were restored and then come to fix the mammoth problem of a downed cable at my home. I visited the central office that day but my conversation there was very short. I just didn’t want to prolong the suffering of the service agent I had dealt with just over a week before.
Not much needs to be said about FLOW’s problem-solving approach. It seems to be a holistic one. Not totally bad if you ask me. But while looking at the whole of a disaster is it not possible to divert some attention to fixing small parts of said problem while working on the whole? Have they ever heard about solving the small problems first then working towards the larger issues? All along, I have been taught about tackling the easier burdens first. Has FLOW ever heard of that approach? Based on my experience with them I am forced to say no.
Another thing that jumps out at me is the apparent lack of coordination between customer service/central office and the repair team (I am seriously wondering if there is only one technical team). I kept trying to impress on central office that my problem was just a case of a downed wire requiring a few minutes of work. NO ONE, absolutely NO ONE, was able to impress on the technical team that there was a simple problem at my home that could be fixed right away.
Someone somewhere should have had the authority to tell some technical team to pass by this house on the way from, let’s say, Georgetown. Or, is it that for more than a month no technical team went out along the Windward side of the Island? Or, is it that ALL FAULTS must be handled in the order submitted, one fault per day without any consideration of the different levels in the severity of the reported faults? As an aside during my five-week wait I kept seeing VINLEC vehicles until green the colour of VINLEC, almost became a permanent fixture in my sight. I saw a FLOW vehicle on July 22 for the first time since the storm. It certainly was not doing anything related to telecom restoration.
One other thing on this issue. FLOW needs some customer agents with the ability to make the visit to that department a little more pleasant even if the problem is not immediately solved/solvable. When I am suffering for the lack of service what sense does it make for me to go to see someone who is in a worse emotional state than I am? My problem has to do with FLOW and it’s not OK for the lowly desk worker to take on my complaint as if I were targeting her/him.
I continue to think of FLOW and that downed phoneline lying on the ground in my yard for five weeks. I continue to entertain the thought that my long wait ought not to have been. I think of their problem-solving approach, their technical capacity and customer service. Improvements are needed in all areas mentioned in preparation for what ere the future brings in whatever subsequent disasters.
Respectfully
Lariston Antoine
PS — The service was restored on Aug. 7.
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I too have experienced something similar however their Facebook team could not give me any answers, their customer service team could not give me any answers and it seems like the technicians just don’t care at this point. They called me on July 16th to schedule a time to visit and never showed up. It’s now August I have received 2 bills for service I am yet to benefit from, I was contacted on Monday 12th August only for them to tell me they don’t know when they would come. All my neighbors have internet service and there is no visible damage to my line.
Extremely well written precise and to the point, it’s a shame you had to wait so so long for a simple fix 😳😳 Forgive me unfortunately I give the Name as Slow nothing flows, but this is just my opinion. I would love to make comments about the other provider beginning with D but I know there’s not enough space in this box to state the facts. One thing I would like to say although I want more of our people in jobs to all the major providers Customer Service is your biggest failure and lack of common sense, the only ones who will be vex are those who know this is true. Lastly why send customer surveys when you know this is only lip service nothing more ..
I empathized with your woes. I too had a malfunctioned wire last year with one of the telecommunication company. After communicating with them for 27 days , to no avail, I had to terminate the service. Upon speaking speaking with middle management, I learnt that there is a technical shortage in SVG. They are now looking yo recruit technicians from neighbouring islands but our wage compensstion are comparatively lower and are non- incentive for growth and retention of skills in the sector.
From a government perspective, attention needs to be paid to manpower planning. The labour department needs yo conduct periodic labour market assessment to ensure we have and will have sufficient persons to help sector grow.