A great tech support experience, from the most unlikely provider

After ranting and raving about them so much when trying to cancel my TV service, I feel like I should also share the really great experience I had with Bell recently. We've been having intermittent issues with our Internet connection. It wasn't clear whether or not it was our router or an issue with the DSL modem or line. I was dreading calling Bell's tech support because of so many bad experiences with tech support from all companies in the past.

To my great surprise, the call was one of the best tech support experiences I've ever had. The level 1 tech was the normal "turn it off, turn it on", but the level 2 seemed genuinely motivated to help me. She did not freak out and blame me when I told her I had my own router hooked up (something that Bell discourages). It was almost a brainstorming session for a few minutes of where the issue may be. I explained that the connection seems to drop when doing high bandwidth things like Skype or other videoconferencing. She thought for a second and then wondered if it only happened on wifi. That was a great insight, because Netflix (via our media centre PC, hooked up via ethernet) caused no issues at all. It was pretty clear to me that the problem was with my own router at that point, but she still insisted on running a line test to make sure there was nothing there. After that showed no issues I told her I was pretty sure the issue was with my own router, so I'd replace that. Even at that point she was insisting that I call back if I continue to experience issues, to the point that her supervisor called me back a few hours later to follow-up.

I don't know if this was a one-off experience or if something changed recently, but that was amazing tech support - even better than I received from geek-oriented ISPs like TekSavvy. Thank you Bell, keep it up.