Birch Communications Purchased DayStar Communications Save Your Business, Stay AWAY!!! FREQUENT Phone Service Outages, Apathetic Customer Service, No Tech Support Employees on Sunday!!! Macon Georgia

Tim,

Thank you for your offer for communication.  We have since moved our business from both you and a couple straggler lines from Verizon, to a competitor, Windstream Communications.  Since the move, approximately 3 months ago, April 2014, we have not had any service outage issues or night answering service transfer issues.

In hindsight, when considering all things involved, Birch service was globally WORSE than I explained in my initial report above.  Not only were we having frequent service outages and reaching apathetic customer service personnel, as well as having long delays in transferring service to our contracted third party answering service, but the service and trouble shooting we did with Birch was sub-standard.  After troubleshooting on the Birch side they REPEATEDLY came back and suggested that the service problems were caused by our local phone system.  We researched and trouble shot our system as best we could, not being a phone technician, and nothing ever show as a problem.

I had some doubt when switching providers that all the work was going to be for nothing if there was a glitch in our system that we could not repeat or find. After switching to Windstream all of the problems ceased, not repeated again, NOT ONCE!  No outages and all lines transfer as programmed, it is like magic!

In addition to the above issues, it also does not seem like there adequate internal controls over who makes changes to customer accounts.  On multiple occassions, and especially in the last 6 months of our service with Birch, there were service problesm caused directly by Birch personnel and their programming.  We had lines going out and I would call in they would say, "That's strange, the line was turned Off..."  And our local call area programming would without notice.  If we were callingt from Tampa to Fort Myers as our local area, all of sudden it was cut in half, without notice, and we would have to change ourt dialing practice, in essence having to guess how to dial a customer that was nopt in our immediate area and pace the call two or three time, using either 7 digit dialing first, then 10 digit dialing to see if it would go through and eventually 11 digit dilaing to include a 1 to see of the call would go through that way.  Who has time to call customers threee times or fax them three times.  It is hard enough to get to everybody once...?!?!?

And the conversion to our multi-function printer/copier/scanner/fax machine would constantly have Unsuccessful Fax tranmissions sending and reciving, Constantly, ALL THE TIME.  Now, not another fax problem since the switch to new provider Windstream.

I can not even imagine and there is no way to estimate or calculate the amount of money, in terms of lost business, lost quotes, lost customers, the poor communications services we received from BIRCH COMMUNICATIONS.  ALL i CAN SAY IS THANKS, BUT NO THANKS, WE WILL NEVER USE BIRCH SERVICES EVER AGAIN!

DEH in Venice, FL,

I am a Marketing Manager at Birch Communications and I read through your complaint and just wanted to apologize for the trouble you have had.  You should be able to rely on your phone company to be responsive when there is trouble with your service.  We strive to be that company and we let you down.

It has been some time since you wrote this complaint but I did want to leave my direct contact information so that you may contact me if you have any issues in the future.

Thank you,

-Tim Phelps
Sr Marketing Manager
Birch Communications

Ph: 816-300-1456
tim.phelps@birch.com