At Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, they take pride in being punctual. But an AT&T service outage slowed the flow of business Thursday. Bradly Harting says, "We have to push through it. Especially as a business. Our reputation is on the line. We do have that five dollar guarantee. Every single minute we're late, we owe the customer five dollars."
Technicians usually call plumbers on their phones with information on their next customer. Harting says, "At first they were unsure of what houses to go out to. What the issues were at the houses. Because that's our main means of communication."
The outage forced them to text the client's name, address, and problem as fast as their fingers would type. Harting says, "We had one plumber that had to replace a sewer. He needed a tractor and he didn't have it at the time. So he drove to Quick Trip to use their landline to call back to our office."
Since most people no longer have land lines, Thursday morning's outage caused a big problem for many AT&T customers. Harting says, "You expect it to work. It's just habit for everybody. So it kind of creates an uncomfortable feeling when that utility is not available anymore."
The service came back on around 2 p.m. at Benjamin Franklin Plumbing. AT&T appologized to customers for the inconvenience and says service is now running normally.
