The rudeness of RTE when contacted by phone

Comhrá

Further to the break-down of RTE radio 1 transmissions this morning, I decided to phone RTE to see if there was any information forthcoming, I spoke with a very rude, dismissive lady who replied with "thank you for calling, I'll pass on your report" and she duly hung up without further ado.

I called back, explaining politely that I has been cut off and asked if I could speak with a technical person regarding the breakdown and I was told that the tech people don't speak with the public, and that my complaint was reported and ....goodbye.

What has happened to good standards of courtesy at the National Broadcaster? I've never known RTE to be so unhelpful and unprofessional in their dealings with public enquiries over the phone. Very disappointed tbh.

Is this due to the 252 outage?

http://www.rte.ie/aertel/desktopxhtml/169-4.html

What number did you call out of interest? 01 208 2259 usually gets you through to the tech people. But I agree, RTE can be difficult to deal with.

Comhrá

Karsini wrote: »

Is this due to the 252 outage?

http://www.rte.ie/aertel/desktopxhtml/169-4.html

What number did you call out of interest? 01 208 2259 usually gets you through to the tech people. But I agree, RTE can be difficult to deal with.

No, it's an FM outage in the Limerick area (89.4mhz) Went off at 10 am and still off as I type at 11am.

By the way it was 353 (0) 1 208 3111 where I made contact. Very rude 'lady' answered and did very little to conceal her pout, even though I was polite and professional.

dbagman

Who do you think you are? You'd swear you paid their wages the carry on of ya.

tomwaits48

how was this in any way unprofessional? did you want her to hang around on the phone having an idle chat with you?

hullaballoo

Can't understand how this would come as a surprise.

RTÉ has a top-down organisational culture of absolute disdain for the public that is evident across the board.

They make no apologies. If it isn't good enough, it's because €180,000,000.00 a year in public money plus €155,000,000.00 in ad revenue is simply not enough to keep the sihtshow on the road.

The Parish Priest.

You should have rang the following number for the technical people 1850 584584

Comhrá

The Parish Priest. wrote: »

You should have rang the following number for the technical people 1850 584584

I asked the lady if there was a number I could call for technical advice and she told me they (technical staff) didn't speak to the public.

Comhrá

tomwaits48 wrote: »

how was this in any way unprofessional? did you want her to hang around on the phone having an idle chat with you?

Stupid comment....

Cutting off a caller while they're still speaking is unprofessional any time imho.

zoobizoo

Would this not be the same as calling ESB to tell them about a powercut in your area and then expecting to have a chat with an engineer about it?

Jack the Stripper

I'd be getting onto Joseph.

Comhrá

zoobizoo wrote: »

Would this not be the same as calling ESB to tell them about a powercut in your area and then expecting to have a chat with an engineer about it?

And why exactly would I not be entitled to ask for some technical information?

Is it how the public are considered to be too ignorant to warrant some sort of explanation when there's a break in service.

As you mention the ESB, they are usually very helpful with this sort of query.

laotg

So you reported the fault and the person said she'll pass on the detail to the relevant department. What else are you expecting?

Expunge

No, he wanted information on what the transmission problem was.

I love Sean nos

laotg wrote: »

So you reported the fault and the person said she'll pass on the detail to the relevant department. What else are you expecting?

I suspect courtesy. It's in the OP.

Comhrá

laotg wrote: »

So you reported the fault and the person said she'll pass on the detail to the relevant department. What else are you expecting?

I was expecting good manners and not being cut off in mid-sentence....or is that too presumptuous of me in your learned opinion?

PeterTheNinth

Jack the Stripper wrote: »

I'd be getting onto Joseph.

If you want to experience RTE rudeness at it's best, ring Joe Duffy.

Red Kev

Jack the Stripper wrote: »

I'd be getting onto Joseph.

Joe: Hello caller on Line 2
Boardsie: Hello Joe, I was just wondering why we can't get RTE in the south west at the moment becaus....
*Click
Joe: Bad line caller. Back after dese...

DublinWriter

I was waiting in reception to meet someone in the Radio Centre a few years' ago when Liveline was on.

The amount of abusive and crank calls the two ladies on the desk were taking was unreal.

Quite a majority of Irish people act like pigs when dealing with public-facing shop staff, etc.

satguy

I would call again and ask for that persons name, it's just not good enough..

PeterTheNinth

satguy wrote: »

I would call again and ask for that persons name, it's just not good enough..

Call in, record it and upload it to youtube?

DublinWriter

PeterTheNinth wrote: »

Call in, record it and upload it to youtube?

Illegal AF unless you notify the other party in advance.

Comhrá

Got a reply from RTE re. the outage........

......There is ongoing work today on the LW transmitter,it started at 9 a.m and the information I have here tells me it will last for 9 hours, apologies for the inconvenience. Unfortunately it is not possible to make announcements re the break in service, we have asked that this be possible and have been told that it causes too much confusion.Suffice to say if you lose your reception there is an outage.


Please also note Aertel page 169 is available for service issues.

hullaballoo

DublinWriter wrote: »

Illegal AF unless you notify the other party in advance.

It isn't illegal.

DublinWriter

hullaballoo wrote: »

It isn't illegal.

T'is.

https://www.mhc.ie/latest/insights/big-brother-is-watching-but-is-he-listening-too

hullaballoo

DublinWriter wrote: »

T'is.

https://www.mhc.ie/latest/insights/big-brother-is-watching-but-is-he-listening-too

If you read the article you have linked, you will see that it isn't illegal.

If you would like to discuss the matter further, there is a thread here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057657062

Neighsayer

No excuse for the lady answering the phone to be rude but, come on now lads, would you rather the tech lad be on the phone explaining the problem to Joe Public or on the job fixing it.

Comhrá

Neighsayer wrote: »

No excuse for the lady answering the phone to be rude but, come on now lads, would you rather the tech lad be on the phone explaining the problem to Joe Public or on the job fixing it.

Are you saying Joe Public isn't entitled to any information as to why the national radio service is off the air all morning?

The email response I received from RTE seems to suggest the public are so thick that any amount of detailed technical explanation is likely to cause confusion? Sounds like Iron Curtain stuff to me....

....There is ongoing work today on the LW transmitter,it started at 9 a.m and the information I have here tells me it will last for 9 hours, apologies for the inconvenience. Unfortunately it is not possible to make announcements re the break in service, we have asked that this be possible and have been told that it causes too much confusion.Suffice to say if you lose your reception there is an outage.

The Parish Priest.

Comhra wrote: »

Are you saying Joe Public isn't entitled to any information as to why the national radio service is off the air all morning?

The email response I received from RTE seems to suggest the public are so thick that any amount of detailed technical explanation is likely to cause confusion? Sounds like Iron Curtain stuff to me....

Why did they email you about long wave ? Wasn't it the FM service in limerick you were enquiring about ?

Neighsayer

Not at all.  I'm saying the tech lad is not the appropriate person to be taking calls from the public.  Sounds to me like they were taking an unusually high volume of calls and the people on the phone were stressed out.  Still no excuse for rudeness but we can't expect them to have legions of staff just sitting around available to answer calls when an unusually high peak occurs.

Comhrá

The Parish Priest. wrote: »

Why did they email you about long wave ? Wasn't it the FM service in limerick you were enquiring about ?

God only knows..... it's FM that's down. No RTE or Newstalk or Lyric on FM since 10am. But they feel an explanation is unnecessary. After all, it's only the public, the license-payers.....let them eat cake.

The Parish Priest.

I think I might know the problem, from what I heard, there are a group of slightly dotty anorak types who bombard RTE with phone calls every time lw goes off so most likely the woman on the phone thought you were one of them ?

tomwaits48

Comhra wrote: »

[/B]

Stupid comment....

Cutting off a caller while they're still speaking is unprofessional any time imho.

Nonsense. The person took the information and passed it on to the relevant department efficiently. Job done. Move on to the next call. Time and time again you have people b*tch and moan about wastage in RTE, this was handled efficiently in my view.

Comhrá

The Parish Priest. wrote: »

I think I might know the problem, from what I heard, there are a group of slighty dotty anorak types who bombard RTE with phone calls every time lw goes off so most likely the woman on the phone thought you were one of them ?

Definitely not me.....look, my wireless is working 100%....

gordongekko

Why ring rte. Don't 2rn look after the network?

Comhrá

gordongekko wrote: »

Why ring rte. Don't 2rn look after the network?

Good point. I suppose it's because RTE are the service provider, they're the first company that comes to mind to contact when there's an outage.

I didn't think of 2rn to be honest. They might be more forthcoming with explanations.

I love Sean nos

satguy wrote: »

I would call again and ask for that persons name, it's just not good enough..

Yeah, that'll work.

A general wants to reserve a jeep from the motor pool. His assistant is out so he makes the call himself.
"Motor pool"
"Hello, yes, I'd like to reserve a jeep for General Franklin"
"Well it better be a big jeep if fatass Franklin wants to go for a ride in it."
The General is furious over the insult.
"SON! DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE ADDRESSING?"
"No" replies the motor pool attendant
"THIS IS GENERAL FRANKLIN!"
"Well General, do you know who you are addressing?"
"NO! WHO?" the geneal screams.
"Bye bye fatass..." and the soldier hangs up the phone.

Elemonator

DublinWriter wrote: »

Illegal AF unless you notify the other party in advance.

It's not illegal, my opinion can guarantee that.

And hullaballoo is a barrister, you can take his/her word for it :pac:

TallGlass

My word that type of carry on from RTÉ is not on to be honest as for some posters on here. Have you lost your manners or something? They cost nothing.

If you don't want to give out the information, you be polite doing so, your talking to people who pay your wages at the end of the day.

I don't see the problem, with answering the phone to the caller like so...

'Thanks for your call, yes we are currently experiencing problems in that area on x frequency on (FM/DAB/etc..) due to x, our technical team are working on the issue at the moment and expect service to resume shortly or x amount of hours.'

Caller asks to speak with technical team..

'Sorry, we don't route calls to our engineering team. If you want I can pass on our details and see if someone can contact you back, but it's not guaranteed they will.'

Really really not that complicated at all you could even automate it if needed.

gordongekko

Comhra wrote: »

Good point. I suppose it's because RTE are the service provider, they're the first company that comes to mind to contact when there's an outage.

I didn't think of 2rn to be honest. They might be more forthcoming with explanations.

Well then what did newstalk say when you rang them?

Just noticed that Woodcock Hill is also offline for planned maintenance. You'd think they'd just say it!

http://www.rte.ie/aertel/desktopxhtml/169-2.html

Due to essential engineering work, our Woodcock Hill transmitter will be subject to power reductions and a complete outage of up to 6 hours between 09:00 and 17:00 from 3rd to 6th April 2017

Comhrá

Karsini wrote: »

Just noticed that Woodcock Hill is also offline for planned maintenance. You'd think they'd just say it!

http://www.rte.ie/aertel/desktopxhtml/169-2.html

according to their email to me this morning it might only confuse people. :rolleyes:

......There is ongoing work today on the LW transmitter,it started at 9 a.m and the information I have here tells me it will last for 9 hours, apologies for the inconvenience. Unfortunately it is not possible to make announcements re the break in service, we have asked that this be possible and have been told that it causes too much confusion.Suffice to say if you lose your reception there is an outage.


Please also note Aertel page 169 is available for service issues.

Comhrá

gordongekko wrote: »

Well then what did newstalk say when you rang them?

Received an explanation for the outage eventually so no need to contact Newstalk.

Jodotman

I'm confused as to why this means so much to you that you had to contact RTE and wanted a technical reason.

Anyway I work in I.T and depending on the scenario if I got a call from non I.T staff demanding information on why somethings down it's a waste of my time and don't give it, only an estimated fix time and have to be firm on the phone like this person was. Person on the phone did nothing wrong. It's the only way to deal with difficult people unfortunately and could of having 20 previous calls and would have more important work than giving you an explanation.

Jodotman

Jodotman wrote: »

I'm confused as to why this means so much to you that you had to contact RTE and wanted a technical reason.

Anyway I work in I.T and depending on the scenario if I got a call from non I.T staff demanding information on why somethings down it's a waste of my time and don't give it, only an estimated fix time and have to be firm on the phone like this person was. Person on the phone did nothing wrong. It's the only way to deal with difficult people unfortunately and could of having 20 previous calls and would have more important work than giving you an explanation.

So you regularly hang up on callers do you?

vkid

How the hell does an outage notification cause confusion? Might raise some questions but confusion..I don't think so.

Jodotman

[Deleted User] wrote: »

So you regularly hang up on callers do you?

Get them off the phone as quick as possible. So basically yes. It's not my job to explain the technical reason behind it non I.T people. Once I give thell them we are aware of the issue and the estimated fix time that's it. If they keep yapping I say I have to go now and bye and hang up the phone.

It's the only way to deal with difficult people.

gordongekko

Comhra wrote: »

Received an explanation for the outage eventually so no need to contact Newstalk.

Are you going to share the reason with us?

Comhrá

gordongekko wrote: »

Are you going to share the reason with us?

It's in post #26:

There is ongoing work today on the LW transmitter,it started at 9 a.m and the information I have here tells me it will last for 9 hours, apologies for the inconvenience. Unfortunately it is not possible to make announcements re the break in service, we have asked that this be possible and have been told that it causes too much confusion.Suffice to say if you lose your reception there is an outage.


Please also note Aertel page 169 is available for service issues.

I love Sean nos

So it was a planned outage, but RTE feels that letting anyone know in advance would be confusing?

Comhrá

I love Sean nos wrote: »

So it was a planned outage, but RTE feels that letting anyone know in advance would be confusing?

That's what the lady wrote in her email. Says something about the esteem in which they hold their listeners salary-payers.

Oh, she also explained that if you lose your reception, there is an outage......highly technical, that.