I'm from the Uverse & DSL click to chat that you can find on the website, a password reset specialist. I don't know what it's like to be on the phones, and reading the comments makes me change my mind about going to the phones to assist.
I can completely understand that you guys can get so frustrated over the things relating to your services not working, but I mean you really have to sit back and think for a moment at what the situation can be;
I, myself, am not even 20 yet, and I work with AT&T, some of my coworkers aren't even 18, but we are obviously not able to say this.
I had training for a very short amount of time, and if a customer has difficulties that is past getting into their account, and it's something I'm unsure of, I have to ask our higher-ups who say "Look on the website's UFIX" or "Look here and give them the link, let them learn on their own." And then it usually results with a transfer, I'm usually getting sworn at or threatened by this point.
I wish we were able to personalize our messages to you all more, not in a negative way, but we can only vary so much before we are spoken to about it. I barely learned anything before I was sent out to the cubicle, and as another employee has mentioned, we are not allowed to have anything at our desk, so if the chats are slow for a while or our ONE application that lets us speak to you goes down for NO reason, we have no choice but to twiddle our thumbs. Soon we are being forced to put our bags in lockers so we can't have access to this either. We cannot have any pen or paper at our desk either, which is understandable, but when they give us our new shifts and we ask how we can write it down, they say "tough luck".
I adore assisting the positive customers, and it puts a smile to my face when I see "thank you!!!" but the amount of help and knowledge we have is so broken, I can only help so much before I have to put you through to a different department, and HOPE that the next agent is as caring as I. I read reviews for the customer service today and it's quite painful to read some of your reviews, but please keep in mind that we only are taught so much for our specific task, please do not be upset at us or swear at us if we must transfer you so you can pay a bill or have something fixed. I wish they put more care into hiring.