U-verse Billing Problems

In early February 2017, I extended my U-verse service for a year, but now I am questioning my decision.

Here is why.  On February 21st, 2017, I received an "Order Confirmation" email, saying:

But now, the $5 per month "Phone 200 Promotion" disappeared from the first and latest bill.  The chat agent was not able to fix this, and I got a call from that agent's supervisor, saying that promotion had ended on February 22nd, the day after my "Order Confirmation" email was sent.

Now, the "fix" is to credit my account $6 per month for the next 3 months, and then figure out what to do next.  I accepted that "offer" over the phone, because I did not want to spend more time on that unpleasant phone call, and then even more time with the "Loyalty Department" the next day, potentially disrupting my workday.

Speaking of "loyalty", I have been an AT&T broadband customer since 2003 (on DSL), and an AT&T phone service customer even before then.  As someone who has known AT&T for more than a decade, I want to share some points with AT&T.

<1> First off, I want my $5 per month promotion back, for 12 months.  Not just a "band-aid" approach for 3 months.  If anyone cares about customer loyalty, you should find a way to fix it.  Period.

<2> The word "confirmation" means, you should stick to what you have discussed, promised, and confirmed.  This is called "integrity".  With this many information systems, service reps, processes, and procedures, AT&T as a company cannot even deliver what it "confirmed".  This speaks volumes about the quality and reliability of AT&T's information systems, and how broken its processes and procedures are.

<3> If the "Phone 200 Promotion" were to expire the next day, shouldn't one of AT&T's information systems check it and stop it from going out on an "Order Confirmation" email that promises this discount for a year?!  Or rather, why was this order successfully processed on February 9th anyway?!

<4> Over the years, one of the biggest frustrations is the amount of time a customer needs just to deal with AT&T the company, including the time I am spending now on writing this post.  With all the IT advances, CRM, Salesforce, machine learning, what have you, shouldn't AT&T learn and adapt to customers' needs, and at least stop wasting their time?!  Instead, because AT&T's systems are lame and lousy, countless hours of customers' time and employees' time are spent on tracking down glitches, finding issues, communicating information, just to confirm what went wrong on a given day, and then try to find ways to remedy the situation, plus, annoying and alienating customers in the process.  Why nobody thought of doing things right the first time?  Case in point, make that $5 per month promotion appear, as promised and confirmed, and save everyone a ton of time, so that they can move on with their lives, and to more meaningful things.  Did anyone even try to do that?!

Sir Isaac Newton, a renowned physicist, astronomer, and arguably one of the greatest scientists ever lived, once said, "I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies but not the madness of people."  Well said, sir.  Me either.