Complaint – Rogers – Escalation Flowcharts & Tips (/complaint)

Rogers has a genuinely helpful SWC page at rogers.com/complaint – it’ll lead to the cx being able to fill in a form for email contact to, among others, the OoP.

Usefulness:

The rogers.com/complaint page is fairly ‘witfully’ setup if you have a garden-variety inquiry/complaint and want to email even either just a regular CSR rep to seek resolution or information, or the OoP: the form forces you to enter in required info like phone number, name, etc, so that Rogers can actually look into your account and get back to you. (The destination email addresses are all contained in the webpage if you want to look for yourself, but again the form format is useful for forcing required information so I’ve not bothered to list the actual addys here.)

Having said that I detest email correspondence since I rarely if ever get an answer to the question I ask and thus a tedious game of information cat & mouse would typically ensue.

HOWEVER: In terms of contacting the OoP, this form is the easiest official way to so do (you can fill in the form and ask them to call you back, of course). (BTW: written letter & fax are the other official ways; more info is available on my /contact page). Yet the most easy (and unofficial) way to contact OoP is to see if I have a direct phone number for the OoP on that /contact page and if so, just call them.

Nonetheless the rogers.com/complaint SWC page is helpful to know about.

General Info About Making & Escalating a ‘Complaint’:

Knowing the escalation path will help you get resolution to your complaint since IME you often don’t get a complete remedy without some kind of escalation. (Fido’s flowcharts are located on page /complaint_fido, but this page has all the ‘details’ since they’re so similar for both ‘companies’).

Above: 'standard' escalation flowchart

Above: escalation flowchart including shortcuts

Click on ’em for larger, readable PDF versions.

The second chart differs from the first only in that it shows some possible (non-‘standard’) escalation shortcuts.

IOW: If you want to (try to) escalate things more quickly than is the standard (or quasi-official path suggested/req’d by Rogers) then you can try the red paths. (My primary raison d’être for describing the shortcuts is that IMO the quality of reps that one gets at OoP level is what a cx should receive at the CSR level, and also that one does not have to follow the Rogers-provided escalation path – especially when involving outside parties like CCTS, arbitration, or the Courts.)

Notes About The Individual Escalation Steps:

A1: Call rep, document rep’s name and get a “reference #” for the call (AIUI you can get this # right after the rep pulls up your account and you do not have to wait and remember to do this at the end of the call).

D1: Shortcut to D5: Theoretically you don’t have to follow Rogers’ steps for problem escalation when it comes to involving an outside party like CCTS, an arbitrator, or the Courts – you can conceivably give Rogers one thorough chance, at the CSR level, to remedy your situation before, for example, making a a complaint to the CCTS (who require only the vague “allow[ing] your provider a reasonable opportunity to resolve your complaint” [emphasis mine]; more weightily articulated in s. 8.1 of the CCTS’s PC ).

Managerial Bypass: What I’ve termed a “Managerial Bypass” is simply contacting the OoP (directly after an unsatisfactory handling by a CSR) who normally wouldn’t deal with a complaint unless it had been already handled by “a manager”, and indicating that if they don’t handle your complaint then you’ll just escalate to making a CCTS complaint since the CCTS requires that mere ‘reasonable opportunity’ to resolve with Rogers be effected before contacting them.

IMO, making a single, thorough call to a CSR to resolve an issue, and getting stonewalling or duplicity, certainly qualifies having “afforded [Rogers] a reasonable opportunity” to remedy your issue.

I’ve never tried this shortcut but IMO it’s definitely worth a shot if you want to bypass the often-annoying-and-useless “manager” step.

Of note: If the CCTS accepts your complaint then it seems that it’s the Rogers OoP who handles all of these, so in a way you’re simply saying to the OoP – have your office deal with my complaint or I’ll have the CCTS force your office to deal with my complaint.

I would only bother with this short-cut in 2 situations:

– you got brutally incompetent, or repeatedly-unsatisfactory, or outright dishonest treatment at stage A1, or
– you know that the manager will not be co-operative so you don’t want to waste your time with that stage (e.g. complex legal/contract disputes as was the LCA dispute) and you are largely willing to file a complaint directly with the CCTS if OoP won’t in fact accept and deal with your complaint

 

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A2: When first speaking to “a manager” ask for and make note of their name. If you end up escalating to OoP they’ll ask you the name of the manager with whom you spoke. (It’s also a smart idea to get a “reference #” as soon as you start talking to “the manager” anyway.)

If you got promised a callback but from “a manager” and it doesn’t arrive within 4 hrs that’s ok, you can still legitimately escalate to OoP. If using the online form to contact OoP enter “never got promised callback in 4 hrs” in field for manager’s name and submit. (IME not getting callbacks from “managers” happens very frequently).

(If CSR rep says “a manager” will contact you back within 48 hrs simply tell the CSR that you’ll wait no more than 4 hours before escalating to OoP and hope that a manager can find the time to promptly deal with your matter).

D2: Shortcut to D5: IMO you can most definitely make this shortcut if it serves you – you’ve now tried twice to resolve the issue with Rogers, to no avail.
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A3: Eventually I’ll put something useful in my /OoP page and link to it. For now: just explain your issue to an OoP rep and get them to try to fix the issue to your satisfaction.

OoP reps are pretty ‘responsible’ – good at meeting deadlines & commitments – and fairly knowledgeable though not infallible even in simple things, so skeptical caution is, as always, recommended when it comes to believing what you hear from even these Rogers employees.

Note that OoP reps can issue large one-time credits, recurring credits, implement any RET plans or add-ons and make exceptions to normal terms posted about any plans. One of my mottos is “Everything’s negotiable” … even if usually it isn’t.

If contacting OoP by phone and you get voicemail I’d recommend a brief message, but do include:
– really brief summary of the issue, and maybe the remedy sought (the more vague yet inviting “hoping that someone in your office can help me find a solution to this” is one of my faves)
– reference # of the call to you had with the first CSR
– name of “the manager”, or that manager didn’t callback within 4 hrs
– a good day/time to call you back and the callback phone number (or email addy if you prefer email interaction)

AIUI: Normally OoP will contact you back within 24 hrs (rogers.com/complaint says so!) but in reality I believe that it takes longer on (esp long) week-ends, maybe 48+ hrs.

IMO: This stage of problem resolution should take from a few days to a week, generally.

D3: If OoP didn’t remedy the issue to your satisfaction then you’ve got to decide if you want to try the Rogers ombudsman step, or file a complaint with CCTS. Ombudsman is not by any means mandatory and myself, I’m inclined to give Rogers no more than 3 strikes at the issue before I’d go to CCTS so I’d skip the ombudsman step.

One day I’ll maybe have some useful info in my /ombudsman page but for now consider it largely uncharted territory (even though on Oct ’09 that office was handling 100 complaints/month per the Ellen Roseman article below). AIUI the ombudsman is not an official Rogers employee so they don’t necessarily have full access to account or usage info that even OoP would have.

FWIW Ellen Roseman had a good Rogers ombudsman experience to relate:
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/719073–rogers-ombudsman-already-making-a-difference
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A4: Dealing with ombudsman. If you go this route maybe relate how it worked out for you – in comments or to RogersWatch@gmail.com?

D4: Your two choices are give up, or file a complaint with CCTS (or ‘shortcut’ to arbitration/court if you prefer). Normally a cx would just escalate to CCTS at this point.
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D5: By the time you get here you’ve exhausted all the ‘internal’ Rogers escalation (that you’re willing to endure) so your decision is whether to try getting resolution via the CCTS or go to arbitration/court. In almost every case a cx is wise to try to get resolution via CCTS before getting into the (quasi-) judicial processes.
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A6: File your complaint with the CCTS! One day I’ll have useful info at my /CCTS page, for now just follow the instructions on the CCTS website since it’s pretty helpfully laid out: http://www.ccts-cprst.ca/en/. This CCTS-complaint process can take anywhere from a few days (esp if CCTS declines to get involved) to approx 60 days if your complaint goes all the way to “Decision” stage.

D6: If you didn’t get a satisfactory resolution from CCTS and you’ve formally communicated your non-acceptance of both the CCTS’ “Recommendation” and “Decision” to the CCTS then you can still purse the matter in a binding, (quasi-) judicial venue: arbitration or court.
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A7a, A7b: These are the end-of-the-line opportunities for a cx to receive their desired remedy.

A7a: I have no information arbitration experiences, but will one day I hope in my /arbitration page. For now just be sure to be aware of this Rogers page called “Arbitration Protocol”:
http://www.rogers.com/web/content/support-terms/arbitration-protocol

A7b: Small Claims Court – a venue available to only residents of ON, QC & BC (because AIUI those provinces have provincial legislation that voids any ‘arbitration-only’ clause in a consumer contract like Rogers does in s. 34 of the ToS). Note that this means that 75% of the Canadian population is not encumbered by that Rogers arbitration-only clause!
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Good luck! Take notes – dates, times, names and reference #’s. And record your own calls with Rogers if possible (more info: /recording).

Making an Effective Complaint:

– intro, prep for making a complaint
– largely RFU for now but I’ll provide the notes on the Escalation Flowchart Diagram, above

OoP (or