MANATEE -- For Tropiflora, a Manatee County business of 41 years, Mother's Day is usually a strong weekend. But this year the mail-order nursery is struggling because of problems with their phone and Internet lines.
Tropiflora is one of many Frontier Communications Corp. customers impacted by the Frontier-Verizon merger. Frontier officially took over Verizon's land-line communications services on April 1 and since then, many customers have struggled to open web browsers and make phone calls.
Immediately after April 1, Tropiflora owner Dennis Cathcart said his company experienced no issues. But after Wednesday's storm, their 800-number phone, regular voice phone, fax machine and Internet lines were all down.
Without the Internet, the company is unable to access its shipping software and send out orders due for this weekend.
Some customers are doing shows and events, Cathcart said, and they won't have the necessary materials.
Cathcart understands outages after strong storms and he's experienced plenty of them while running his business. But he said outages usually last no more
than 10 to 12 hours; not the three days Tropiflora has endured this time.
"It's just an absolute nightmare," Cathcart said. "Our phones are busy all the time, not to mention the Internet." Cathcart called Frontier's customer service line multiple times, he said, but he didn't get a response until Friday. And he felt like it was a luck-of-the-draw response.
"I got a call and it was a gal down in Fort Myers who said she had seen the ticket and she used to work at a florist and she can imagine the nightmare on Mother's Day weekend," he said. "She gave it to a service person who was in North Port and he was supposed to be here sometime today." When the Herald called Cathcart back late Friday afternoon, he said the technician was still working.
"The everyday people that are in the trenches so to speak are doing a great job," Cathcart said. "Their hands are tied."
Bob Elek, Frontier spokesman for the Florida market, said the Tropiflora issue had been addressed and the company sent a technician out on Friday afternoon.
For other Frontier customers, the problems began days before Wednesday's storm. Phil Sterdt had trouble with several aspects of his Frontier Internet, land-line phone service and voice mail starting near the end of April.
He also encountered billing issues when he downloaded the Frontier app on April 1, he said. Sterdt also found long lines for customer service and technicians when he tried to call for help.
"Someone called and said 'How come you're not returning our calls?'" Sterdt said. "Apparently the voice mail indicators were out. So I called Frontier and I waited and waited." It's impossible to know how much time he's spent waiting on the phone or online for Frontier customer service to respond because he's called so many times, he said. When he used his cell phone to access Frontier's online chat help, 306 people were ahead of him.
"I would say that's not a good experience, but it's a temporary one," Elek said about Sterdt's online chat wait. Until the Verizon employees officially became Frontier employees, they couldn't undergo training.
Right now, "the experience is not as good as we would normally expect," Elek said.
Sterdt's voice mail and phone services were restored on Monday, but about the same time they were restored, his Internet stopped working.
Between the six counties Frontier overtook on April 1, the company has 600,000 customers. Elek said the problems are "spotty" and though it's not affecting a "huge number of customers," the customers who are experiencing issues show there are persistent problems.
"Most of that is getting the systems in Frontier to speak with the former Verizon systems," Elek said. Frontier didn't anticipate a lot of the issues with the switch.
"I think we thought we were in pretty good shape," Elek said, who worked for Verizon for 17 years before the switch. "(There have been) little things that were changed along the way; upgraded equipment and routers for homes and when voice-over IP came on for phones. It's needing to get those things to mesh with what Frontier has, and there were a couple of surprises in that."
Frontier customers experiencing issues are encouraged to try contacting customers service online first at frontier.com/contact-us. Residential customers can also call 1-800-921-8101 and commercial customers can call 1-800-921-8102.
Janelle O'Dea, business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7095 or follow her on Twitter @jayohday.