Worst tech support/customer service helpline?

Doctor DooM

The problem with threads like this is it is possible for any one person to have one- or several- bad experiences with a company. This person then gets the image that this is the level of service that the company provides accross the board. (for example, there are people who say meteor are terrible here, and they are really not.)

But on average yes, it seems Dell, Three and NTL are poor.

Sobering thought and I have said it before- companies do not exist to give you the best care possible. they exist to make profit. The company trades off the cheapest care they can give against the most profit they can make.

If a company's care policy makes you suffer, don't moan about- stop using them. Because all they really wan't from you is your money.

muppetkiller

Well then it's simple really has anyone ever had a good experience with NTL ?
I would say probably no.

chopperbyrne

SDooM wrote: »

If a company's care policy makes you suffer, don't moan about- stop using them. Because all they really wan't from you is your money.

The only problem being that many of these companies tie you in to year long contracts and if you cancel early, you have to pay the remainder.

NTL are awful though. I do not know anyone who has ever had a good experience getting an issue resolved by them.

Dinter

NTL / UPC.

I sent this email to them after weeks of being blanked. Gives some idea of how frustrating they are to deal with.




Dear Sirs,

I am contacting you in relation to your phone in Customer Disservice Department. I must congratulate you on the length of time you are available to deal with complaints. In the days of companies relocating their call centres abroad or shortening their opening hours, it is refreshing to speak to people who can understand my query before deciding to do nothing about it. While I wait, on hold, tiredly listening to a robotic voice apologising for the delay, I can take comfort in the fact that in around thirty minutes I'll be put through to a person who will politely take my details before balling them up and throwing them away. It is wonderful that your company has been able to do away with the messy business of having to actually solve a customer's complaint. I would guess this novel approach must be an industry first and I believe you need to advertise it more. However take heart from the fact that despite your company's endearing bashfulness, this customer is going to do his level best to advertise it for you. In the eight weeks since you 'installed' my broadband I have told and retold my tales of dissatisfaction and disappointment. Believe my I'll continue to try my hardest (which is a lot more effective than your hardest) to spread the word so that you know that you're getting the recognition you deserve.


If I may I would like to point out one small oversight in your, obviously extremely detailed, training programme. This would be the issue of making outgoing telephone calls. Although I think you deserve the plaudits for having done away with any semblance of customer service I still think it might be nice if you could phone your customers back, even if it's just to brag about your novel approach. I have phoned your Customer Disservice hotline at least eight times at this stage and despite being assured on every occasion that you would get back to me you've never managed it. Now I don't want to sound like a lonely spinster sitting at home, hoping for a marketing cold call just so a human voice will break the monotony of my day but it would be helpful if you could even try reaching the targets you set yourself. I understand that returning a call might be a lofty ambition for your cack, sorry I mean crack, team of Customer Disservice Agents but perhaps they could be taught not to be frightened of the phone. Instead they could embrace the possibilities that the little dust covered box on their desks represents. It might be a challenge but perhaps, eventually, instead of sitting around all day playing cards and fobbing off customers like they do at the moment they might just be capable of making an outgoing phone call. I mean circuses can train monkeys to dance so anything is possible.


Also on the issue of my bills, or recyclables, as I like to call them. I have no intention whatsoever of paying money to you for my broadband. I had already spoken to one of your Customer Disservice Agents and assured him that the only time he was going to get money from me was when your company had managed to provide said service. I also stated that I was not going to pay my cable subscriptions until you sent me an invoice that dealt with them separately. Of course looking back now there's a pretty good chance he forgot what I said in the time it took for him to hang up the phone, distracted while basking in the glow of a job well done.


Anyway perhaps I should tell you what this issue is about so that you may, once again, ooze into action and ignore it. Basically I got my broadband installed on, or around, the 6th October. However your installation agent being another member of the famed UPC carnival show neglected to bring the router with him. No problem you might think. Surely the agent raced back to your storeroom to collect the missing router post haste. Em, not quite. As near as I can tell he instead decided to go missing for eight weeks. Least this is what your Customer Disservice Agents say when I enquire about it. Are you not worried about him? I mean what sort of employer are you that you can just loose staff like that? Did he fall down a hole or was he kidnapped by another irate customer? Is someone holding him hostage in exchange for a router? Is he worth that sort of ransom? I don't understand why his presence is so integral to you giving me my router. Does he own them or something? Does he have the only key to the storeroom? Perhaps you could let me know just to assuage my own curiosity.


Being the gracious, generous person I was at the beginning of our misadventure together I offered to come and collect the router from you even though as far as I was concerned the contract we had entered into meant you had to supply it. This offer was refused, as was every attempt of mine to resolve this issue since. How difficult is this to sort out? Just post it to me or something.


Well I hope this brief idea of how frustrating my dealings have been with your company so far might possibly lead to some sort of resolution but I won't hold my breath. For the benefit of all customers that come after me and are also caught up in interminable disputes with yourselves it might be worthwhile introducing a new rule of thumb into your customer services handbook. Whenever an issue arises take the time to study it, think long and hard about what procedures you think are fitting, what is the most appropriate action in this situation. Then do exactly the opposite. Believe me it cannot be any worse.


Yours faithfully,

javaboy

I'm not going to even consider NTL as customer support. Let's just say our dealings with them were so bad, one of the big kahunas in there had to step in and we got free cable for a couple of years.

DSG (PC World/Dixons/Currys) is pretty atrocious. Automated service just to get connected to a store by phone. Then if they don't answer, which they don't, you can't switch store easily. You have to go through the whole rigmarole again. Very painful if you're trying to enquire about whether something's in stock. I once raced someone to get in touch with PC World liffey valley. I was in a car about 45 mins away and they were on the phone. It was like top gear except with a Yaris instead of something fast. Anyway I narrowly lost by about 2/3 mins. I was going to go in and ask them to answer the phone cos we'd been trying to get through for an hour. Absolute shambles.

I've dealt with AIB, Quinn Direct and the Revenue a few times recently. AIB are fine, QD was very efficient for what I wanted. The revenue were very nice and even told me when was best to ring to get dealt with faster.

Doctor DooM

chopperbyrne wrote: »

The only problem being that many of these companies tie you in to year long contracts and if you cancel early, you have to pay the remainder.

NTL are awful though. I do not know anyone who has ever had a good experience getting an issue resolved by them.

Don't cancel early, but when you do leave, let them know exactly why.

_feedback_

Dinter wrote: »

I sent this email to them after weeks of being blanked. Gives some idea of how frustrating they are to deal with.

That's an example of how not to write a letter of complaint... if you want anything done about it.

Dinter

elviscostello wrote: »

That's an example of how not to write a letter of complaint... if you want anything done about it.

At that stage I didn't want anything done about it. I was just annoyed.

They only way to get them to do anything was to refuse payment. Part service = part payment or none at all if they cannot invoice you effectively. The only time I ever received a call from them was when I cancelled my direct debits.

Still it felt so good to vent though.

Dord

elviscostello wrote: »

That's an example of how not to write a letter of complaint... if you want anything done about it.

I agree. I'd be more inclined to send a letter to them if it's that bad too.

_feedback_

Dinter wrote: »

At that stage I didn't want anything done about it. I was just annoyed.

I bet you could imagine shouting that stuff down the phone, if you got through to anyone that could listen !! It's a pain in the arse to be that annoyed with a service though.

Joe Robot wrote: »

I agree. I'd be more inclined to send a letter to them if it's that bad too.

I didn't mean to right a letter instead of email. I meant that if anyone on their customer service picked up the email, they more than likely wouldn't help because of the way it was worded, they'd just pass it off as being some pr1ck of a customer (not that you are Dinter ! ! ! )

Cianos

This thread reminds me of this

Mint Sauce

my nomination, i'll give you a clue, theres a thread over 4,000 posts long all about them over in the broadband section

AlmightyCushion

It's actually the biggest thread in that forum.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=259&daysprune=-1&order=desc&sort=replycount

DublinWriter

Eircom are the worst I've encountered so far. Trying to navigate through their omni-layered automated system just so you can get to talk to Alpesh in Mumbai is a bit reminiscent of a scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Their system is the kind of system Samuel Beckett would have designed if he was a call-centre-designer. When navigating through their automated options I get the same feeling of nihilism and desperation I get when watching Waiting for Godot.

BT come a close second. My late-Mum cancelled her account with BT a year before she died of cancer. She then started getting bills for €20 constantly from them for a service she had cancelled in writing.

When I did manage to speak to a humanoid a few months after she passed, I explained the situation and the person said that it wasn't a problem and that he'd cancel the account.

Six months later I got a call from their Credit Control department looking to speak to her when I was clearing out her house. I completely lost the plot.

I also refuse to deals with DABS in the UK because of similar muppetry (Insight are much better to deal with) and I've heard of horror stories with Perlico that would not make me want to touch them with the 10-foot-proverbial.

Automated call systems are God's way of telling you that you just aren't important enough as a customer.

sam34

ntl- when a relative of mine died last yr i contacted them wanting to close her account- reasonable enough on my part, you'd think. but i was told i couldnt close the account as i wasnt the account holder. when i explained AGAIN that the account holder was dead and buried, i got "ehh, can you hold a minute...." -- surely that situation must arise a fair bit, they should know how to handle it.

eircom broadband support- i only ever ring them when my broadband doesnt work, and i have switched everything off then on again. then, while im on hold, i get a little voice telling me to go to www.eircom.whatever... well, if i could go to that website then my internet would obviously be working and i wouldnt be ringing the helpline!!

Azhrei

Okay, time for a slight turn-around I work for 11811, obviously not tech support but still customer service. So here's my reply to anyone who is thinking of mentioning us -

1. We're not mind-readers. Customers get so pissed off that they can't spell the name of the thing they're looking for that they blame us. Yeah, we should be mind-readers and automatically know what you're on about. We get a lot of calls every day for the same things but that doesn't mean we remember each and every one of them :P

2. Stop calling back to be credited after getting a wrong number or being cut off! Customers get pissed when you tell them that, yes, you are being charged for every call. You get charged 84 cent, so when you call to be credited for the eighty-four cents you spent getting the last number (our average is twenty seconds a phonecall), you have just spent it again, you idiot! In fact, because we have to take the time to write out a docket, you have just lost even more money. It's not our fault you're being charged every time you call, so don't bitch at us! The prices are set by Comreg and not by Eircom. Although the credit dockets give us a good laugh so I might miss them if people stopped asking to be credited.

3. When you ask me to connect you, I have to, repeat, have to, give you the spiel about how much it costs. People just keep trying to speak over me with "That's okay", "Yeah, I know" and "YES I KNOW IT'S OKAY!!!", and we're just told to speak over them as quickly as we can and as best we can to save them as much money as possible. All of our calls are recorded, and if Comreg finds out that someone has not been letting customers know of the costs, that someone loses their job and Eircom is in deep, deep ****. Stop trying to stop us speaking, or we'll have to explain why we have to say it and you, the caller, loses more money. It's your choice, but damn it's annoying when all we're trying to do is help the customer save time and money.

4. Recently I had a caller ask for something that was just plain not there. They asked for it in Dublin, so I did an 01 search. Nada. I tried varying my spelling (I'll get onto that in a second), seperating what could be two words, and searching the entire national directory. Nothing. When something isn't there, it plain isn't there and I can't just magic it up for you. This brilliant simpleton then said, "Fine, I'll call 11850, a much better service". This had me in hysterics. Firstly, why call us if the other service is better? Secondly, they have access to EXACTLY THE SAME directory entries that we do. If we can't find it, they can't either. Thirdly, telling us that you're going to ring a better service is only going to make us shake our heads and smile, because we already know they'll tell you the same thing and you'll hang up after a brief, "Oh, for f*** sake!".

5. Spelling again. The customer is nearly always wrong when it comes to spelling, and we have to make up for it with our own ideas of how any word could be spelled. Understand that we're trying to help you and shouting at us for not knowing the spelling isn't going to make us want to help you at all. When you have someone nice to you on the line, you're going to work just that bit harder to help them. Can you imagine how we'll react if you just give us abuse?

6. While we do learn about the directories in all the counties and are expected to know them off by heart, we do not know the area codes of every single town and village in every bloody county. So you can imagine my frustration and utter bewilderment when people get offended that I have to ask them what county the business they're looking for is in. For some reason, people from Donegal and Dublin are the biggest offenders... they shout down the phone at me as if I'm an idiot for asking where Ballymacfeckit is. To me it's some godforsaken place straight out of Killinascully that I hope I will never see, but it doesn't mean I won't want to help you. All I want to know is what county it is in so I know what directory to search.

6. We can't search streets, lanes, roads or villages. It's towns and counties folks, and that's it. So when I do ask what county whatever place it is, to make things faster for you, just name the county. Don't reply with, "Ehhh... ahhh... 143 Anon Street, Ballymacfeckit, Belturbet, Mayo." Just "Mayo" will do. Am I asking for the street number, housing estate, townland and town? No, I'm asking for the county.

Interesting to see things from the other side of the fence, isn't it? Seriously though, my job is great and I pride myself on great customer service. Just give us poor saps a chance when you call asking about some deserted island and expect an answer in two seconds flat :P

lee_arama

PERLICO!! Useless shower of tools the lot of em.

And Ulster Bank keep fuxx0ring up everything on me, and my entire family oddly. I wonder did we upset them in an earlier life...

Top of my list - Dell. I've gotten to the stage that I e-mail them rather than call because things seem to work out better that way.

BT would be on my list after what my parents were put through. After getting wireless broadband they cancelled the phone line with eircom and cancelled the phone service and dial-up with BT. They never cancelled the dial-up and continued billing us for it despite the line being non existent. My da called them several times to say he cancelled the account and they always replied "I'm sorry, it won't happen again" then another bill arrives with the previous month's amount added on to it. They even threatened to sell on the debt (I can't recall if they actually did) but it took about 8 months to finally get them to cancel the dial-up.

I know others have said the opposite but I always found Meteor's support to be pathetic. I once had a problem where my voicemail didn't work and it took them over a month to sort it out. I also had numerous GPRS issues that weren't fixed easily.

Vodafone and O2 were always grand for me, especially O2. I haven't yet had to deal with 3 and from what I hear I hope I never do. It's the main reason I never even tried their service.

Microsoft's activation line can be a pain in the ass when the activation is refused (usually because its a brand name OEM and they don't always activate online). Sometimes they'll just ask two questions, other times they could ask for the product key and when they do, there's bound to be problems. Most of the time you're put through to what I think is India but on one occasion I got an Australian woman which was quite a shock.

I've never attempted to bully a CSR because I'm just not an aggressive person. I know they're just doing their job. The closest I got to it was with Meteor, it seemed like they were totally clueless in there.

chopperbyrne

Karsini wrote: »

BT would be on my list after what my parents were put through. After getting wireless broadband they cancelled the phone line with eircom and cancelled the phone service and dial-up with BT. They never cancelled the dial-up and continued billing us for it despite the line being non existent. My da called them several times to say he cancelled the account and they always replied "I'm sorry, it won't happen again" then another bill arrives with the previous month's amount added on to it. They even threatened to sell on the debt (I can't recall if they actually did) but it took about 8 months to finally get them to cancel the dial-up.

I was getting billed for eight months after I cancelled all BT services.

Everytime I'd get a really nice person on the phone who would tell me that yes, my account is showing as cancelled and that they will make sure I receive no more bills, but two months later I'd get billed again.

Most of their service lines are based in Dublin, but billing is in Derry (I think) and they don't give a toss about BT Ireland customers, only BT UK customers.

Toots

Not sure if anyone's mentioned NTL yet:rolleyes: but........NTL

chopperbyrne

Irish Broadband are pretty bad too.

I know someone who quit because he couldn't take another week of lying to people for eights hours a day.

AlmightyCushion

Karsini wrote: »

Microsoft's activation line can be a pain in the ass when the activation is refused (usually because its a brand name OEM and they don't always activate online). Sometimes they'll just ask two questions, other times they could ask for the product key and when they do, there's bound to be problems. Most of the time you're put through to what I think is India but on one occasion I got an Australian woman which was quite a shock.

Whenever I had to ring them I always got through to the robot woman who asks you to type in the product key. Never had any problems with it.

LovelyTom

NTL or Dell

AlmightyCushion

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Whenever I had to ring them I always got through to the robot woman who asks you to type in the product key. Never had any problems with it.

Most of the time it's ok. The problem was usually with HP or Dell copies of XP Home, sometimes the activation returned "Incorrect product key" and then via the phone the automated system also failed. But nowadays they just ask the usual questions via an automated 1=yes 2=no system so talking to someone isn't as common as it used to be. It's actually quite rare now and mostly Vista activations.

Sam Vimes

here's a post i made about 3 customer care last september
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055153263

bear in mind that the problem didn't get solved for a few months and dozens on phone calls after that and a lot of people are still having the problem. this is one of dozens of examples of their incompetence as anyone who's ever had the misfortune to to call them will tell you

LordChessington wrote: »

Eircoms automated service drives me nuts. I have gotten many an odd stare while I repeatedly shout "3" into the phone



Well, I hope it was automated...

say "agent" to the machine and you get put straight through to a person

Sam Vimes

chopperbyrne wrote: »

Irish Broadband are pretty bad too.

I know someone who quit because he couldn't take another week of lying to people for eights hours a day.

what kind of lies? "our service works" for example?

i told an irish broadband customer service rep that i was interested in the breeze product and got her to admit that ripwave is crap

IRISH RAIL

Oh jesus someone mentioned Irish broadband
I tried to get them in last year, guys came out to the house and told me cant be done theres an apartment block in the way
the apartment block is nearly 5 miles away! everyone else on the road antenna was pointing the other way so I rang up and was fed the biggist load of bull s*it I ever heard, the guy ( technician ) even said I stayed here till half 5 to sort your problem out! he tried to tell me 3 different problems untill I told him I was an IT Technician ( Im not ) then he hung up, tried to go up the ladder and met that fantastic brick wall on the first floor with phone calls direct to my voicemail,

Ntl when digital tv froze for the last time box got thrown out the window onto the street, canceled direct debits owed them 2 months rental yet they still call me two years later looking to see if I want broad band :eek:
the guy came out to pick up the box I told him to come back when it suited me he was really smart and said are you refusing to give it to me I said no Im just not going thru the dump now come back in two weeks. end of that

O2 are great except in the square when you ring the shop :mad:

stepbar

Toots85 wrote: »

Not sure if anyone's mentioned NTL yet:rolleyes: but........NTL

God I remeber these boyos well. When I moved into my apt years ago (before when I am now) I rang them to get the cable connected. Eventually got sick of waiting for them to come out. So my friend and I just hooked it up our selves. For 4 years we had free NTL and TBH I didn't give a **** until the TV licence guy called. Fcuk.... and just before we moved out and all.....

bug

The revenue's automated system for non PAYE customers drives me insane.

tech77

Ryaller wrote: »

NTL beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's like pulling your own teeth out dealing with that shower.
I didn't know before last week, but apparently, if you don't hang up on them, they can't connect to their next call. I'd say I eked an extra 5 minutes of confused heavy breathing from the useless muppet I got last week. I kept waiting for him to say "thank you" or "sorry for not being able to help", but he was just plain ignorant, so I left him hanging. He didn't have a clue what to do. Kept on going "uhhh, is there anything else?" Classic.

LMFAO- "confused heavy breathing".
Good man.

Personally the people who work for Buy and Sell are extremely hostile and haven't a fcuking clue what they're doing.