Our telephone company mistakenly disconnected our DSL line, and the problem lasted three weeks. During that time, we suffered inconvenience and a loss of productivity. Our office manager, who was also an attorney, sent this complaint letter. As a result, we received a year's free service.
From: David Clay [dclay@careerlab.com]
Sent: April 16, 20— 8:53 AM
To: Maria Perez
Cc: Bill Frank
Subject: disconnect of service and credit of bill.
Maria,
This is a response to your direction that I e-mail a formal request for you to credit our account (number 8157 10 020 0007753) for the error your company made in disconnecting our service. That error left our company without email service from Feb. 28, to March 20. It affected not only our 11 career consultants but also the outplacement clients who normally use our offices and equipment for personal business-related activities.
We receive from 1.5 to 2.0 million hits per week on our web site, with 100,000 users per month. The internet is our window to the world. We estimate that we suffered losses of over $10,000 in lost time and productivity of our staff. We also had to hire a consultant to reprogram our computers and get our phones running, because your service man incorrectly connected our lines when he rewired or reconnected the DSL line. This doesn't include the problems this caused to our client services or the lost business that we normally get through our PhysicianCareerNetwork.™
I have not had the time to calculate our loss exactly: I am still today trying to solve the problems that the lost service caused. To estimate, when I divide the monthly service charge into our loss ($10,000) in client services we could not give and productivity we could not generate, it appears that you owe us between 4 and 5 years of FREE service for us to break even.
I hereby request you authorize two years of free service and that any current balance be zeroed out. I would appreciate a quick response, so I can determine our course of action. I want not to spend any more time or lose any more money on this matter.
Thank you,
David Clay, J.D.
Office Manager
P.S.—Speaking of frustration and lost time, I had a great deal of trouble getting through on your phone lines. One time, I was on hold for 21 (clocked) minutes!!!! I must say once I got through, your employee was always very apologetic and professional. I think she was doing the best she could with what he had to work with!!!