Party Political Animal

Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

Isn’t it interesting the customer service you receive. Having moved across the road (finally) into our new house, as the man of the house I had my priorities to sort out. That means ensuring Sky is installed and that broadband is working.

For ease – lets take Sky. I carry my Sky plus box over. The friendliest man calls round today in his van for a pre booked appointment. He drills a hole in the wall. Puts up a new Sky dish, as he doesn’t want to leave us with an old one. Put a phone line in. Cleans up after himself, and we get charged £50 for the service.

Now lets take Broadband – and British Telecom.

We let BT know weeks in advance the date we are moving house and that we would like broadband and the telephone number to follow us. It is literally less than 40 metres from one house to the other.

We are told everything will take place on April 24th, and we will get notice before the phone line goes down. I get up to do some work, and guess what – the phone line is down.

Several hours later and the phone is working in the new house. Fine – jolly good. We call and are then told broadband will follow a couple of hours later – definitely by 5pm. No broadband at 5pm, we are told 8pm. None at 8pm. We are told midnight. I go over at midnight, am on the phone to one of BTs call centres in India who have me unscrewing the plate on the telephone socket and they have me waggling wires.

MANY MANY MANY calls later, broadband is in, but giving an extremely woeful signal. Every time I call I am told there is a problem at our exchange and that engineers are there. How funny – I can see our exchange from my window and no one is there, and no one has been there whenever I call. Then the excuses changed from it being a problem at the exchange to broadband needing to “bed down for 10 days”.

Can I have an engineer please now, as I suspect there is an issue with my line at the socket. Oh no – there is a problem at the exchange – please wait another 24 hours. By Sunday night, having called about 6 different numbers, and having had a lady on the phone for an hour – who thought she had solved the problem until I told her she had connected me to a neighbours broadband by wifi, I finally lost my temper. Could I get put through to BT wholesale who apparently take the decision as to whether you can have an engineer – could I hell.

I manage to get a number of someone in the UK, and explain that perhaps (you know I’m not technical now) the fact that several wires from inside the face plat aren’t connected to the inside of the telephone jack may explain why it gets a crap signal when I use the proper jack, but an acceptable one when I use the internal master jack.

But Sir – you do realise if the fault is yours, you will be charged over £100 call out, plus £90 an hour. I said quite frankly I don’t care – I need an engineer.

Today – two likely lads in two vans roll up. They came in, unscrew the socket and do what they have to do. They must have been here for about 3 minutes. Hey presto. Guess what. It’s working.

So why does BT have to completely bullshit you with the “the engineers are working on the issue at the exchange” when for four days I’ve been telling them that there’s an issue with the socket, and have had to fight tooth and nail to get an engineer. Their inane questions about whether the hub has filters, or is it near a microwave oven (I kid you not) are enough to test anyone’s patience!

I suppose I shouldn’t moan really. It took 3 weeks to sort out the issue last time, and BT ended up sending wine and flowers as they admitted they had been poor at customer service.

It really is an interesting parallel though. Sky charge you £50 to move house – which includes a new dish , cables and they ensure the service is working before you leave. BT don’t charge you when you move, but if something doesn’t work then they want to screw you if they can’t sort things out remotely!The think is, I’ve never spoken to a call centre yet who can attach wires to a piece of equipment in a phone socket!

Jonathan Sheppard

PS – I believe my fellow blogger has had a run in with a certain broadband provider before. Type Phillip Oppenheim and Bulldog into google to find out more!