A Tale of Two Companies With Made-Up Names

As I've mentioned several times over the last few weeks, I've been having phone and cable problems. And this comes at a time when I'm planning to make the switch on my Internet service from a phone-based provider to a cable provider. These experiences have given me a chance to compare two companies' approach to customer service and make a decision for sure on how I'm going to proceed.

The V Company: The problem - phone service goes out twice in two weeks, supposedly related to problems with the "outside line" both times.
The C Company: The problem - cable service goes out on Friday afternoon.

V: When you call, you get this ridiculous computerized "customer service" line that loops in and around itself, doesn't always recognize your spoken commands, cuts in and out, takes you to the wrong menus, and sometimes just cuts the call off for no reason. Then you have to call back and do it again. And no matter what volume, just yelling "help!" doesn't save you.
C: When you call, you get a real live person.

V: The computerized "help" line does some diagnostic test on the phone then tells you that to fix it, they must send a technician to your home and it will cost at least $91. After much punching of numbers and yelling out random things, you finally reach a real live person who says they will schedule a technician but since it's an outside problem they don't have to come in to your home and there will be no charge. It will be 3 days before you can get a technician on-site.
C: The real live person explains that there are outages in your neighborhood, and that if it's still not working the next morning you should call back and they'll schedule a repair.

V: As reported earlier, when the technician is at your apartment building he calls and yells at you for not being home, saying he can't fix anything if you're not there. He says he'll do the best he can. Whatever he does, it does end up fixing the phone service. But it goes down again 2 weeks later.
C: When you call on a Saturday morning, the next real live person you talk to first apologizes that you had to wait from the night before (although you didn't really feel mad about it) and promptly schedules a technician appointment for the next day. The next day being a Sunday morning. And at the beginning of the scheduled window of time, you get a call from the company confirming the appointment, making sure someone will be home, and letting you know the technician is on his way.

V: When the phone line goes down again, you have to deal with the computerized help line again and it takes several tries to get back to a real person. They tell you the problem is something different this time and they again have to schedule a technician for 4 days away. You ask to be very clear that you don't have to be home, and they again say that you do not. Somehow, though, the phone line starts working again on its own the next day. You don't question it and let the technician appointment stand, cuz who knows if it'll go out again. You never hear back one way or the other.
C: The technician arrives about 15 minutes after the call, and he calls you first, too. That makes it 9:50 am for an appointment window of between 9 am and noon. He has the problem fixed within 15 minutes and the picture looks better than ever. Plus then he also talks me through the sales pitch of cable internet, which is what I was thinking about doing anyway, so he shows me where it could be hooked up to work best in my apartment. And I've said thanks, especially for working on a Sunday. He tells me that's his regular workday and that they always have people on weekends, and he's on his way before 10:15.

Well, those are certainly very different experiences! I will be calling both companies again soon - one to cancel the service altogether, and the other to make the full switch.