Grrrr! I've just spent a fruitless 20 mins trying to navigate their labyrinthian customer support automated telephone service (in German) and each time I keep getting through to this hapless tech support woman who babbles away in very fast Swiss German, refusing to pass me over to someone who can at least speak a smattering of either English or French.

I've stuck up for Cablecom on many occasions but now I'm really starting to lose my rag. They have an excellent English language website, all correspondance and installations instruction are in English and yet they have mono-lingual tech support people who show no willingness to at least transfer you to a colleague that does speak English/French.

This isn't a rant at the Swiss or their language skills, but merely the non-existant cross-over between Cablecom's written and spoken support. I wonder, why bother offering the options of 4 languages when you're only prepared to support in one? If this was a governmental department I would understand that, but not a commercial enterprise that seemingly looks to offer its services to an expat community.

Weren't you given the choice to request it in English? I called them just last week and that was the first set of choices.... It is frustrating, but after hearing all the complaints in this forum, I had expected the worst. got great service though. Cannot complain.... good luck....

I called their tech support line on 0800 668866.. didn't hear an option for English. Perhaps it was the sales line you called, they obviously have an interest in keeping that multi-lingual.

They're not having a good time of it at the moment by the sounds of it:

http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wirtscha...story/23865031

(Sorry, I know it's in German, but I figured you might be able to read it better than speak it?)

Not perfect, but here's a translated version in English:

http://translate.google.com/translat...-8&sl=de&tl=en

Oh hell, I know what it must feel like to be completely demotivated and pi**ed off with management, but thats still no reason to take it out on customers.

Its bizarre, I've called 4 times today and each time I keep getting through to a Swiss German woman (not sure if its the same one) who I can't help but feel, gets a certain grim satisfaction to being as unhelpful as possible.

With regards to my problem... I'm getting random green flashes on my Cablecom digital TV service, which have been there for months but have increased dramatically in frequency and number. Its now virtually unwatchable, hence why I've decided to try and do something about it. <sigh> and I thought cable would be simpler than satellite

If you call from a landline you get automatically the language spoken in the area you call from. If you call from a mobile you can choose the language.

That's good to know, thank you. I've not braved their customer service hotline yet because of all the horror stories but I probably will have a try now, once I've put a load of credit on my mobile.

I have never had a problem when I call them, but know many others that have. I had a friend request service and she never received. After 3 months they sent her a bill and she still did not have service. Then she had someone call and speak German to cancel her service that she never got and to cancel the bill also. She is still receiving the bill. Now she has service with Swisscom within 2 days of asking and great customer service..

I had no choice but to lose the entire prepaid credit once and still not be able to speak to a CS officer! I don't have a fixnet line, only a VOIP service that is dependent on Cablecom's internet.

Thankfully, the service improved and I never lost my phone service and didn't mind waiting on speakerphone for over 20 minutes when I next ran into some technical and account issues.

That would make perfect sense.. I was wondering how their Italian and French customers were coping since both language websites list the same 0800 number.

Thanks

Today I was on hold for 25 mins (on my mobile to the French speaking CS) before I hung up on the grounds of futility.

Now if I were to report the fault by registered mail, not hear anything for 30 days. Would I be within my rights to cancel or refuse to pay for the television component of my package since I am not receiving the service for which I have paid?

Cheers

Ah the infamous Cablecom customer non-service.

We have a tale of our own on this one. We just moved into our new flat and ordered pretty much all the services, i.e. phone, internet and HD tv incl. recorder. In addition we ordered one wireless phone and one wireless router.

Now, all services are great (sorry did not mean to punch you while you are down), but what cablecom actually delivered, was three phones and two routers..., which we after holding for 15 min, agreed with them to send back.

But of course, once we got the invoice it had all the extra phones and routers on, which we had shipped back, using their return box and sticker.

So what I did was to send a fax (to have written proof) and also send an email to admin@cablecom.ch - which is on their website, basically telling them, we were deducting the returned items from our payment. Surprisingly we received an email back fairly quickly with a caseID number, so at least we now know it is in there system... But what happens from here is anyones guess....

Good luck

hmmm, might just have posted my previous post too quickly. Emailed cablecom, and guess what, they have now given me a second case ID. Seems like every email they receive gets a case ID and then gets transfered to their spam folder.....

heyho....

When we set up with Cablecom we were impressed and couldn't see what the fuss was about.... the we upgraded to the media recorder.

That request was proceesed on Friday evening, and a box arrived on Tueday morning. Set it up and it didn't work, left it for 5 hours still didn't work (error message " insert viewing card"), emailed them (as I've wasted chf 35 on one call and just listed to crappy music) and got a response in 10 minutes to say leave it over night. I did and it still didn't work, sent an email, and again very quickly a mail came back to say we'll send a new box. Then the thing burst into life, so I mailed again to say it's working, and they replied saying ok. As I was clearing the empty box away a small switch fell out, so, emailed them again to say box still working but founs a switch and had attached a photo, they came back and said" take out your viewing card, out it back in and that should fix it . Next day another box arrived so contacted them again wasted chf 15 on more crappy music, and sent them a mail to say I have 3 boxes and a switch what should I do.... and silence for 6 weeks untill they sent me a bill for CHF137 . I've emailed tech supprort, admin, customer services and billing all with them same stoney silence..... I promise I'll never complain about BT or Sky ever again.

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How do you know if a Frenchman has been in your garden.... your rubbish is gone, your dog is pregnant.... but at least your cabbages are pest free

Internet, digital tv and phoneline from cablecom are actually good products once you set them up. But you will dread the day when you have a technical or payment problem or if you want to change something because then (excuse my language ) you are very seriously f*%ked! Most large service provider companies in most countries have poor customer services but there has been none in my experience that even comes close to the incompetence of cablecom. No matter how many times you call them, you have to wait yonks before you actually get a human being on the other end. Then they tell you something about it being the wrong department and how they cannot transfer you and how you have to go through the whole thing again with another new number. Once you get to the new department they then tell you that the first number was actually the right number after all and this ping pong of sending you from number to number may continue for a while. Then once you actually get to the right person they then don't know their head from their ass. You explain yourself a dozen times and finally they fob you off about how they have to investigate and they will call you back. They NEVER will!! and if you call back yourself you will have to explain all the same stuff you explained to the last person another dozen times to this new person.....and then they tell you they will call you back and the never ending cycle will continue until you finally give up from frustration. I have some colleagues who used to work at cablecom and they confirm that the administrative department is an absolute mess....total chaos reigns, so I know it isn't only me who has experienced problems. This is what happens when you have a monopoly and there is no other competition to keep them in check....ADSL service doesn't count. I think this is a disgrace and since it has been like this for many years, it seems like they are not even trying to address the problem.....I guess why should they? they don't have any incentive!!

I would follow up on the earlier discussion and recommend you always use your mobile to call Cablecom. This gives you the choice of language. (For better or for worse, I've always had to call from my mobile since my Cablecom phone connection goes out along with my Internet so I don't have a choice...) I've never had a problem getting someone to speak English to me (calling from Zurich). If the first one doesn't speak English, they transfer me to someone who does. Good luck next time...

(Side note: I didn't realize it, but the internet and phone connection is closely connected to the cable box connection - if you have one - so if your internet and phone go out, reboot your cable box. This will possibly re-initialize your connection and save you time and frustration.)

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Something witty.