Talk to Eir - but they don't seem to actually help anyone..

A2LUE42

Is there an sla or other agreement that the talk to companies have to comply with to remain on boards.ie?

Eir as an example don't really seem to be engaging...

Boards.ie: Niamh

Hi A2LUE42,
There is no specific SLA or level of service that must be maintained. Every Talk to has different online hours that suit their customer service department. However if service were to drop to very poor levels for any reason we'd contact the company to find out if there was an issue so that we can keep user informed where possible. In fact we have had to do that in the past.

Eir currently have a 91% response rate and are answering questions right now so I am sure that will go up. If there was a query that you think they missed you could reply to the thread or notify them/us about it.

Thanks.

A2LUE42

That depends on the definition of 'Response'..

Replying and telling someone to pm them the full details counts as a response, unfortunately that is all they seem to be doing in a lot of the cases.

FingerDeKat

A2LUE42 wrote: »

Is there an sla or other agreement that the talk to companies have to comply with to remain on boards.ie?

Eir as an example don't really seem to be engaging...

You generally pay for SLA/SLO's

looksee

They are answering questions that are impossible to get answered any other way. The 1901 number that they tell you to call with queries does not work once they have closed your account. There is no way of contacting them, even though they are able to continue taking (dd) money from you. They did in fact abandon me half way through an enquiry and had to be brought back to life, but if they go there will be no talking to eir at all, in some situations.

FlipperThePriest

I would like to echo the above. They no longer offer genuine support on boards. I had to wait 2 days and bump a thread to be told they cannot help me, I'd have to call 1901. They cannot be contacted by email or via their online chat either. The wait time for their call centre is ridiculous. The Talk to Eir forum is also a joke, and reflects very badly on Boards to allow them to continue in this manner.

Boards.ie: Niamh

As per their post earlier today, they are aware that their wait times for responses are longer than normal at the moment: https://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057916504

In what way do you think it reflects 'very badly' on Boards? Talk To clients pay to have a space on Boards. How they conduct their customer service within that forum is up to them provided that they adhere to Boards rules and that they do provide a service. From what I can see, they are attempting to get to everyone. Their response rate is 95% right now so while it may be slower than it has been, it is still a good response rate.

rex-x

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

As per their post earlier today, they are aware that their wait times for responses are longer than normal at the moment: https://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057916504

In what way do you think it reflects 'very badly' on Boards? Talk To clients pay to have a space on Boards. How they conduct their customer service within that forum is up to them provided that they adhere to Boards rules and that they do provide a service. From what I can see, they are attempting to get to everyone. Their response rate is 95% right now so while it may be slower than it has been, it is still a good response rate.

I vaguely remember the calculations for response rate were heavily weighted to make companies look good, can you share the metrics used?

IMO it reflects badly on boards because there needs to be a minimum standard set by boards these companies are held to in order to maintain their position on the forum, as it is now it seems like pay the money do whatever you like.

tsue921i8wljb3

The eir Talk To forum seems to have been closed. Is this a permanent or temporary closure? I'd rather post there than have to spend over an hour listening to hold music.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Hi navi, it is a temporary closure since yesterday afternoon. We had hoped it would be a very short closure but I'll put a notice up in there now for anyone else trying to post. I'll update here when it re-opens.

EdgeCase

Hopefully things return to an adequate level of service when they've sorted out their return to in-house staff for support.

They're going through a massive reorganization of customer support at the moment and it seems to be causing long wait times.

The forum is a genuinely useful service though and was often far more accessible than 1901 and gives people a good way of getting in touch with companies like Eir if they can't make calls e.g. at work / busy or perhaps if you're deaf or have hearing issues. It provides a great way of communicating with these companies, without the whole need for special accessibility support services etc etc and makes great use of the internet.

Also it tends to aggregate support issues into a single thread that you can often get excellent support from other users having similar issues / people who are very knowledgeable.

It’s a really useful tool for a lot of people!

blanch152

Boards.ie: Niamh wrote: »

As per their post earlier today, they are aware that their wait times for responses are longer than normal at the moment: https://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057916504

In what way do you think it reflects 'very badly' on Boards? Talk To clients pay to have a space on Boards. How they conduct their customer service within that forum is up to them provided that they adhere to Boards rules and that they do provide a service. From what I can see, they are attempting to get to everyone. Their response rate is 95% right now so while it may be slower than it has been, it is still a good response rate.

It is both a credibility issue and a funding issue for boards.

If you bring in "Talk to" clients to support boards, they are only going to be used if they provide an adequate service. If they fall into disrepute through poor service, boards users will be put off using them, and the value of them to the paying clients who are operating them will fall.

If I, or another user, experiences poor service while using Talk to Eir, why would I use any other Talk to service?

Boards.ie: Niamh

blanch152 wrote: »

It is both a credibility issue and a funding issue for boards.

If you bring in "Talk to" clients to support boards, they are only going to be used if they provide an adequate service. If they fall into disrepute through poor service, boards users will be put off using them, and the value of them to the paying clients who are operating them will fall.

I'd agree that if a user receives bad customer service in a Talk To forum, they are unlikely to go back to that forum next time they need help. We can't force companies to conduct their customer service in a certain way, we give advice and guidelines when they are starting up and we are asked for help at times if there is a difficult issue. Usually they have their own customer service guidelines to adhere to. Boards is simply another medium through which they conduct their customer service on social media, usually in addition to Facebook and Twitter.

blanch152 wrote: »

If I, or another user, experiences poor service while using Talk to Eir, why would I use any other Talk to service?

In each TT forum you will encounter a different company ethos, different customer service and a different team. They are not all one. In a real world scenario, avoiding all forums because of the service you got in one of them would be like refusing to shop in Tesco after being short-changed in Supervalu.

EdgeCase

I see your point, but I would Niamh.

I don't think one company's use of Talk To reflects on the rest, rather I think you're more likely to notice big contrasts in terms of responsiveness and resolution between different companies and if anything that should force the standards up, as the interaction is happening in public.

Eir is definitie undergoing some very big changes by moving support back in-house and it looks like that process is not entirely free of bumps and disruption.
Hopefully it comes back online soon as it is genuinely a useful facility.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

EdgeCase wrote: »

I don't think one company's use of Talk To reflects on the rest, rather I think you're more likely to notice big contrasts in terms of responsiveness and resolution between different companies and if anything that should force the standards up, as the interaction is happening in public.

they mos definitely don't read each other's forums to see who's doing what. They have their internal policies and SLA's to adhere to.

I think Eir is an edge case at the moment, due to them pretty much firing their entire staff, which was based in Dublin, and shifting their contact centres to regional offices. It pissed people off and they can't really be expected to actually do any kind of good job in the interim.

EdgeCase

They may not read them but customers do.

EdgeCase

Their forum says

"We're online:
Monday - Friday: 12pm - 5pm"

But they're actually temporarily closed since 13/11 and it's now almost 30/11.

Boards.ie: Niamh

Thanks EdgeCase, unfortunately we can't re-open the forum at the moment. As soon as we can, I'll do so and post an update there.

nim1bdeh38l2cw

Have they not paid their bills?

Boards.ie: Niamh

Good morning folks, the Talk To Eir forum is now back open here.

Gone Drinking

Saying that Eirs inability to respond to queries helpfully has a bad reflection on boards.ie, is like saying that a bad driver reflects badly on the car manufacturer