BinaryWolf

Listen to an Elevator in Texas

Have you ever been riding in an elevator and then, out of nowhere, heard a voice on the elevator phone? It happened recently to a couple of Cisco employees in Texas.

This tale begins as I was trying to contact Linksys (networking for home and small business users) about a problem with returning a warrantied defective router to them. Even though I had proof via a tracking number that someone had signed for it, the Linksys website showed no record of receiving my RMA “bricked” router in their Texas warehouse.

Calling Linksys toll free customer support numbers resulted in long tedious waits on hold. When I eventually got through, it was to a script reading, clueless, outsourced customer support drone. A dead end. Emailing customer support resulted in no response at all. Another dead end. Frustrated with the process, I decided it was time for me to get my hands on a more “local” phone number. Of course, that number was nowhere to be found on the Linksys website.

The shortest path between two points is usually a straight line, but of course I had to do this the hard way. I knew that the Linksys warehouse was in Round Rock, Texas, but I was unable to discover a phone number for that location. In fact I was having a little difficulty finding any United States phone number for Linksys (later I found out that even Linksys customer support doesn’t have a phone number for the warehouse!) I expanded my search to the parent company of Linksys, Cisco Systems. They had an office in Texas listed online with a phone number displayed. I called the number I found for Cisco in Texas, hoping to be redirected to the Linksys warehouse. Imagine my surprise when I called that number and found myself talking with a couple of Cisco employees riding in an elevator! I could hear the indicator chime in the background as the elevator passed by each floor. The Cisco guys couldn’t help me and they had to get off the elevator. The whole thing was laugh out loud funny!

If you want to have some fun, call (214) 575-3192 for Cisco in Texas. Listen for the chimes as the elevator passes each floor. You might even find yourself chatting with some unsuspecting passengers riding in that elevator in Texas!

Oh yeah, eventually I did manage to contact an enlightened Linksys customer support rep, ironically located just a few miles up the up the road (that’s what I meant by the shortest path) from me. Even then, I still had to spend way too much time finally resolving the problem, but that’s a post for another day.

Tags: Linksys, defective router