Breezeline answers customers' questions about WOW! transition

Breezeline has acquired WOW!'s operations in Columbus and Cleveland.
Breezeline has acquired WOW!'s operations in Columbus and Cleveland.

In the following note to The Dispatch, Breezeline internet, cable and telephone service addressed questions and concerns about the transition from WOW! in the Columbus and Cleveland markets. 

We are in the process of transitioning WOW platforms to Breezeline. Our goal is to deliver a transition that is as smooth as possible for customers. While the transition process is not yet complete, we have made significant progress and already have successfully migrated many customers.

With a transition of this scope and complexity–where we are moving customers from multiple WOW platforms to Breezeline–issues can arise. We continue to take steps to minimize the impact of these changes, while working to resolve any issues as quickly as possible.

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We are aware that some customers experienced difficulty trying to access their Breezeline email mailbox before their WOW mailbox was migrated.

We have started to migrate customers’ email mailboxes to Breezeline. However, some customers attempted to access their new Breezeline mailbox before their WOW mailbox had been migrated. Customers should continue to access their WOW email mailbox until their migration occurs. We will notify each customer after their email migration is complete. Once the migration is complete, customers can access both their old and new mail in their Breezeline mailbox (even as we maintain their WOW mailbox for at least six months).

We are aware that some customers had issues with their passwords.

For customers who had a WOW email, passwords have not changed. However, the password must be entered when accessing email, TV Everywhere or My Account for the first time. Because passwords typically had been saved on the WOW platforms, many customers did not recall their password, so they could not easily gain access to their Breezeline accounts. This generated a much higher than normal volume of calls to Breezeline agents. In addition to the assistance provided by agents, the process for resetting passwords has been shared with customers via an email sent last Thursday and has been posted to our website at breezeline.com/wow-faq.

We know that some customers had difficulty accessing “My Account.”  

To view their account information, customers will access the “My Account” portal at myaccount.breezeline.com. Customers will use their new Breezeline user name/email and their password to log in. Some customers inadvertently accessed a different, legacy account management portal that requires the additional step of providing an account number (which, for Ohio customers, will not be provided until they receive their first statement by mail starting this week). We will work to address questions about this by providing additional explanatory information on the portal page.

We are aware that some customers briefly experienced issues accessing certain TV Everywhere services.

In some cases, these issues were related to the password issues described above. In other instances, this was due to issues involving our authentication platform that have since been resolved.

Loss of service  

There have been no service outages due to the transition. However, some customers temporarily lost service on May 16, due to loss of commercial power to Breezeline nodes serving several neighborhoods in Gahanna, Ohio. Damage to AT&T fiber created an outage for some customers on May 9-10. Service was restored after A&T repaired its damaged fiber.

Equipment issues

We are aware that some customers have experienced issues with their equipment. Customers should attempt a modem reset by unplugging the modem, waiting 60 seconds, then reconnecting power. If issues persist, we stand ready to troubleshoot until the problem is resolved.

Billing and service discounts

Customers will begin to receive their first bills this week (via paper billing sent via postal mail for the first month). In the process of verifying customer billing statements, we discovered that for a small subset of customers, promotional discount(s) were not applied on their first Breezeline statement that will be received by mail later this week. We have already generated a revised bill that will also arrive this week with the promotional discount included and customers are being informed of details before the statement arrives.

The vast majority of Breezeline customers continue to experience a seamless transition from their previous WOW service.  That said, we recognize that for customers who had questions, but couldn’t easily reach us, the experience was frustrating. This is not what we want our customers’ experience to be, so we are quickly taking steps to address hold times by increasing the number of agents available to assist customers, and to provide customers with the information that they need via our website (breezeline.com/wow-faq)  and social platforms.

In the meantime, we apologize to those customers who have been inconvenienced in any way and appreciate our customers’ patience as we work to respond to their questions and resolve any issues they may be experiencing as quickly as possible.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Breezeline answers customers' concerns about WOW! transition