Customer Care Insanity -- the wrapup

After nearly six weeks, our Internet service has been restored. In the end, our provider, Swift Global, switched its ur-provider from Kenya Data Networks to Access Kenya, a process which took about five minutes.

The reason things got fixed so suddenly is pretty simple. We share internet with Mario, an insane older Italian guy who lives upstairs. He'd been away for most of the first month of our Internet blackout, and when he returned, he called Swift Global and blew his stack. When they failed to correct the problem, he blew his stack about 50 more times.Then they corrected the problem, probably just to keep him from blowing his stack again.

I have long resisted using the shouting tactic because it strikes me as brutish and disrespectful. But my approach -- lots of cajolery, efforts to make Swift Global feel guilty, trying to build friendships and foster sympathy -- just relegated me to the low-priority list.