A realtime view of Eir customer service (webchat)

looksee

That business of telling you to ring 1901 is the most aggravating thing (well nearly) - it only works if you already have a functioning account with them. In the end Boards was the only way I got my problem solved, I am still not sure what exactly the problem was, but it got sorted...though I did get yet another bill from them this month, addressed (still) to my husband who passed away over two years ago, this information has been passed on, and the account was in my name, though he still got the bills. It was a bill saying I didn't owe them anything.

1hnr79jr65

Graniteville wrote: »

You will find a positive change soon. (few weeks)

Eir's new owners have given the boot to the current outsourced customer service crew and bringing it in house with their own employees.

The new owners accepted that service was particularly bad.

Sales team has already been brought in house.

I can understand your frustration at issues you have had, however 750 people are loosing their jobs, yes some of those job losses may be justified for performance and competence reasons. An the company they work for may need to bare some responsibility for those performance and competence issues. However it is extremely unfair to say all they staff deserve what is happening.

As for the outsourcing company, they still have staff in Dublin so not all services would be brought in house.

Thoie

Sour Lemonz wrote: »

https://www.airwire.ie/index.php/avail

use this link on airwire's site to show what is active for your location.

Chances are in eir they may not have received activation notice of a service in your area and would need wholesale (openeir) to send an activation file to process order for you. 

Alternatively you could ask an agent in call center to check product availability/speed on bank end gateway system.

Thanks Lemonz, I've checked that, and my address is listed for FTTC (and has been for a very long time).  One of the issues is that as a newish build in an existing estate, there's no physical cable between my house and the cabinet.  The ducting (and rope) is there, and the house was prewired, so it's literally just a case of pulling the cable through the duct and "plugging it in" on both ends.

So, that's the work that was scheduled for October 28th, and that's been the scheduled date since early summer.   I've no idea if it happened or not.  I initially ordered FTTC in early summer.  The order went through, an install appointment was sent, and then I got a text telling my install was cancelled.  Rang up, agent couldn't see an issue, reordered FTTC, cancelled again.  This kept happening.  Eventually someone told me that all "new estates" (this isn't a new estate) had to be FTTH, by law.   Not just internal company policy, mind you, an actual law.  

So the saga continues.  5 months in, no broadband, no idea if/when it might arrive.  I contacted OpenEir directly, and they replied saying FTTC is available, but didn't answer my question about the work order for Oct 28th, and whether that had been completed or not.  Despite the open competition between ISPs, it seems eir still has a monopoly on the physical network, so no-one else can help until that cable gets run.  An engineer from KN has informed me it's a very fast job, but they can't touch it without a work order from eir, which it seems eir has been lying about - whether through maliciousness or incompetence is hard to know.

D13exile

Well at least you got through to them. I’m 25 minutes waiting on an agent. I’ve been talking to myself online. Can’t get through in the phone either. Waiting 30 minutes there. Unbelievable 🙄🙄🙄🙄. See photos attached as proof

D13exile

Well at least you got through to them. I’m 25 minutes waiting on an agent. I’ve been talking to myself online. Can’t get through in the phone either. Waiting 30 minutes there. Unbelievable.

Thoie

Are we sitting comfortably?  Then let's begin today's installment!  Webchat is not currently available, so it's time for some hold music.

10:54 Dialled 
Lately, lately I've been losing sleep


Aside - definition of idiocy is repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome.  This is how eir makes idiots of all its customers.  I live in eternal hope that some day I'll call, and receive some customer service.

10:57 I'm being transferred to customer care, because the agent who answered (sounding like I'd just woken him) said he has no way of checking on a complaint, despite his colleagues having that miraculous power.   Maybe he's new, and can't handle the excitement of the complaints tool.


Lately, lately I've been losing sleep



11:04  Still on hold. 

I suspect this is going to be a repeat of the other day, where I eventually have to hang up.  I also suspect that customers are deliberately put into an abandoned queue hoping precisely for this outcome.  Maybe I'll buy a PAYG SIM for an old phone, call in at 9am, and see if they keep  it on hold until 5pm, when the call will be hung up on.  Actually, I could probably have crafted a valid, working SIM out of some tinfoil and papier mache in the length of time I've been on hold over the last few months.

11:19  Still on hold. 
11:24  Still on hold. Sadly have to hang up as I need to make another call.

Timmaay

Over 30mins listening to very poor quality music, and eventually someone appears to answer! I happy say hello, however nobody replies, instead all I can hear are other eir customer representative conversions!! I give it 5mins incase, well incase I duno I've given them 30mins of my life already, what's another 5mins. But nope had to hang up, next time I called their sales team department, surely to God eir would actually sufficiently staff that department. Still took them 3mins to answer, I ask them to put me through to cancelation, and here I am now listening to crap music 20mins later again ffs.

Eir the absolute irony that you consider yourself a telecom company but cannot even answer your phone. (I feel marginally better now after my morning rant ha!)

FitzElla

Wow, I would be embarrassed reading this if I was Eir. Any thoughts I might have had of changing to them are completely gone reading this!

EdgeCase

I had to deal with a very sudden and unexpected bereavement over the summer and was involved in helping to change utilities over to a new name.

Eir was the only company that caused significant difficulty and upset. First there were hours (and I literally mean hours) on hold. They seemed to not have any process in place for dealing with this. It was almost like they assumed their customers are immortal and that in 80+ years of operating a national telephone network none of them had ever died.

Then they made a few massive technical gaffes, including cutting off the mobile of the person who was taking over the account (from his wife who had just died) due to an porting screw up that went on for days. Then when it came back he had her outgoing voicemail message. They actually managed to port his number into her sim but didn’t reset the services ..

You literally couldn’t make this stuff up!

No amount of expensive branding and advertising can get past the fact that the customer “care” eir has in place is just beyond abysmal. It’s so bad it has to be causing serious damage to the company. I mean, after that experience it’s very hard to have any positive view of the brand. It caused the maximum possible level of confusion, upset, foot dragging and fobbing us off with excuses.

Your customer care staff also take a absolutely no ownership whatsoever of the cases. You’re fed nonsense and passed from department to department to department. It’s frustrating, patronising and a complete waste of time for all involved.

Are you operating some kind of dystopian bureaucracy modeled on the HSE?!

tuxy

I wonder what the difference in profit is if someone goes direct with Eir or if someone uses another company that buys wholesale on the openEir network.
Would they rather have us switch to vodafone,sky ect.. as openEir still makes money and doesn't have to deal with customer support. 

EdgeCase

I doubt their strategy is to drive people away from Eir retail but the way they’re going about operating that’s certainly what they will end up achieving.

The difficulty in contacting them is frustrating and hours on hold is unacceptable but the bit that drove me crazy was that nobody seems to take on the problem and follow it through to completion and they keep trying to fob you off with weak excuses every time too. It’s almost like their entire motivation is to close the call down and get you off the line whether the problem is resolved or not.

That isn’t customer care. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but it’s a complete waste of time for the customer and for Eir.

Also having no information whatsoever about technical matters like installations of fibre, phone lines, mobile porting problems, technical faults on the landline network and so on is beyond infuriating for customers.

I mean what’s the point in answering a call to a customer and then more or less telling them any old nonsense to get them off the line?

I mean most tech companies have a proper ticketing system and a capability of raising things with the right person and following through on tickets raised.

Thoie

EdgeCase wrote: »

I doubt their strategy is to drive people away from Eir retail but the way they’re going about operating that’s certainly what they will end up achieving.

The difficulty in contacting them is frustrating and hours on hold is unacceptable but the bit that drove me crazy was that nobody seems to take on the problem and follow it through to completion and they keep trying to fob you off with weak excuses every time too. It’s almost like their entire motivation is to close the call down and get you off the line whether the problem is resolved or not.

That's what I was talking about when I suggested they may be focused on the wrong metrics.  If staff are "judged" solely based on how many calls they get through, regardless of whether a solution is found or not, the logical thing to do is answer a call, tell the customer any old crap, and hang up on them or transfer them into a random queue that doesn't lead anywhere.  Similarly with suggestions from webchat agents that you contact 1901.  They surely know that number is only useful if you have a current account with them, but it gets you off their queue.  

Given their absolute refusal to escalate anything (even though it's part of their complaints process), I'd take a guess that an agent's personal metrics also count escalations as a bad thing.

Most people will have come across satisfaction surveys after dealing with most call centres (press 1 if your problem was resolved, or perhaps an email follow up).  Has anyone ever received a satisfaction survey from eir?

All call centres face a choice between customer satisfaction and call waiting times. It's rare that a company can get through a high volume of calls per day and satisfy >80% of the callers at the same time.  eir have obviously gone down the route of quantity over quality.

Chris Partlow

At least the eir reps on boards are doing a bang up job. 92% "response rate" by all accounts! Fair play lads. 

Thoie

Been a bit busy today, but the place felt a little quiet earlier, so I put the phone on speaker for over half an hour and got to listen to the same three songs over and over.  Is this Stockholm syndrome?  Didn't have a chance to note times, but I never did get to speak to anyone.

EdgeCase

Maybe there’s nobody there ...??

Thoie

EdgeCase wrote: »

Maybe there’s nobody there ...??

[font=arial, sans-serif]Hope is a four letter word[/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif]Make that money[/font]
[font=arial, sans-serif]Watch it burn[/font]

BronsonTB

Users should be clicking on 'Thank' ion the first post f they have had similar experience from the OP. (it should be ALOT higher than 4!)

contrary_devil

I would urge all disgruntled Eir customers to use the e-mail, phone number and postal address in the attached link to get some reaction and as a means of protest. Write, phone and e-mail, surely someone will notice

Graniteville

Sour Lemonz wrote: »

I can understand your frustration at issues you have had, however 750 people are loosing their jobs, yes some of those job losses may be justified for performance and competence reasons. An the company they work for may need to bare some responsibility for those performance and competence issues. However it is extremely unfair to say all they staff deserve what is happening.

As for the outsourcing company, they still have staff in Dublin so not all services would be brought in house.

The primary reason the contract was canceled was that the level of service fell well below good standards.

They are hardly skilled jobs, and with near full employment most will get redundancy and be in a new position in no time.

Furthermore, a similar number of jobs will be created by eir, but hopefully they will be better trained and have access to real time information and treat customers like customers and not an annoyance

Hotblack Desiato

I've been a Meteor customer for many years, only ever had a couple of minor issues with them during that time which their support dealt with very efficiently. No problems since the switch to eir so far, but if I do I'd probably be better off for the sake of my sanity flinging my phone in a river and porting the number to anything (even Tesco Mobile aren't as bad as eir.)

MarkY91

I've had with live chat basically call me a liar. 2 hour of back and forth with multiple agents passing me about, still didn't even get my roaming enabled...it never works when abroad.

I'm moving to three tomorrow.

sdanseo

All sounds very similar to my recent experiences.

This company deserves no customers. They are a disgrace beyond all previous disgraces (and I say that having worked for a phone company in retail, and knowing how painful dealing with customers can be - but you do it anyway because that's how business works).

Comreg should revoke their license based on the fact that they're utterly incompetent.

Emmersonn

Chris Partlow wrote: »

At least the eir reps on boards are doing a bang up job. 92% "response rate" by all accounts! Fair play lads. 

A response is not necessarily a solution. Suggesting ringing 1901 is a typical response.

Emmersonn

Chris Partlow wrote: »

At least the eir reps on boards are doing a bang up job. 92% "response rate" by all accounts! Fair play lads.

A response is not necessarily a solution. Suggesting ringing 1901 is a typical response. Not much of a resolution there. :rolleyes:

Cockadoodledoo

I think they are all equally as bad when it comes to a customer who can’t get fibre. They just don’t know what to do.

A Vodafone rep told me that everybody, yes EVERYBODY in Ireland would have fibre installed by Summer 2018. Thankfully I didn’t hold my breath.

tuxy

Cockadoodledoo wrote: »

I think they are all equally as bad when it comes to a customer who can’t get fibre. They just don’t know what to do.

A Vodafone rep told me that everybody, yes EVERYBODY in Ireland would have fibre installed by Summer 2018. Thankfully I didn’t hold my breath.

Well they got their date wrong, the national broadband plan was to cover every rural home by 2020 but that's all gone to **** now.

1hnr79jr65

Graniteville wrote: »

They are hardly skilled jobs, and with near full employment most will get redundancy and be in a new position in no time.

Furthermore, a similar number of jobs will be created by eir, but hopefully they will be better trained and have access to real time information and treat customers like customers and not an annoyance

We only know what was put into the news by Eir themselves why the contract was cancelled, other company have said nothing in news when asked, there could be more to this than what Eir put out.

In terms of job numbers, they are not creating same number of jobs, they are applying Tupe to a lot of the outsource companies staff in limerick and cork centers, so they may still have a lot of the same folks in those locations while expanding in other locations.

The question will be what are Eir doing to ensure the service given is of a decent standard with appropriate support tools for staff.

sdanseo

Sour Lemonz wrote: »

The question will be what are Eir doing to ensure the service given is of a decent standard with appropriate support tools for staff.

The answer to that based on the number of issues and complaints would appear to be nothing. 

Their sales guys know their stuff, but the job of hooking the unwitting customer is more important. Everything else is outsourced as far away and as cheaply (there is a direct correlation) as possible. Who cares about looking after customers in contract? If they leave, it's not for 18 months and when they do, they'll just keep calling them with spectacular introductory offers until they come back. 

All Irish telcos are poor in this area, by the way. But in my experience having worked for two and been a customer of all of them at some point - Eir are unashamedly the worst of a very bad bunch by a country mile.

Not a nice accolade to have.

Chris Partlow

Emmersonn wrote: »

Chris Partlow wrote: »

At least the eir reps on boards are doing a bang up job. 92% "response rate" by all accounts! Fair play lads.

A response is not necessarily a solution. Suggesting ringing 1901 is a typical response. Not much of a resolution there. :rolleyes:

My sarcasm obviously didn't come across here.

Thoie

Happy Monday everyone!  Webchat is available - I'm going in.  Wish me luck.

Eir Reps on here btw - I responded to Kyle's earlier post, offering to send the complaint reference number if you'd like to look into it further.  Did my suggestion of eir verifying their identity with me when calling put people off looking into this?  It would not be a breach of GDPR for me to give you just a complaint number, and then for eir to email the account attached to that reference number, without going through a million verification questions via Boards PM.

9:38  Started chat (there seem to be some new options in the dropdowns when starting chat - maybe this will help route queries to the right places).
9:40  A response!
9:41  Agent asks me to confirm that I'm looking for an update on my complaint
9:42  Agent asks for account number.  I give them the last one I have, but as the orders keep getting cancelled, not sure that will help.  Suggest searching by the complaint reference number.  That gets ignored, and we start the verifying my identity shenanigans.  Copy and paste the text doc info I have saved for this.
9:44  Agent cunningly comes up with some new verification questions.
9:46  Agent tells me the account number is cancelled.  I point out I'd already told them this, and ask again if they can search for the complaint number.
9:48  Agent asks if I can wait a few minutes while they check some details.  I set a timer for 4m30s, as from past experience, the webchat will automatically close after about 5 minutes of inactivity.
9:50  I am thanked for my patience.  At least it keeps the chat active
9:52  Agent suggests I visit my nearest store.  I'd beaten him to it, and dropped in there last Saturday.  They were very nice, but couldn't even start to help.  And I was the only customer there at the time, so it's not like they were too busy.  I point out why I can't call 1901 (no account number) before it's even suggested.
9:54  Agent appreciates I'm frustrated, but mentions again they have "limited access"
9:55  I point out the amount of time I've spent on this, and ask who in the company can access the complaints system to see updates.
9:56  Agent suggests I call 1800303458 and ask for Loyalty.  I tried that before, they couldn't help.  I ask who can see the details of the work order, and whether it's actually been completed or not.
10:01  Agent tells me someone called me, but I didn't answer.  I haven't had any missed calls for weeks, and no voicemails
10:02  I ask what date this call was on.  Agent tells me I have to place a new order and they can transfer me to the sales team
10:03  I ask not to be transferred to the Sales team, as they will place yet another order (the 6th so far?), then that will get cancelled again next week
10:04  He tells me the missed call was on October 22nd.  I check my phone log.  No missed calls that day.  I give the agent a list of the people who called me, or that I called on that date, and the day before and after.  None of them were eir.  Asked him to make a note on the file that the Oct 22nd entry was an outright lie.  Obviously enough agent doesn't do that, and just repeats they're reading the account notes.
10:06  I ask for a supervisor
10:08  In order to speak to a supervisor I apparently have to call 1800303458 and ask for Loyalty.  I point agent to https://www.eir.ie/complaints/  and point out that the company procedure is to put me on to a supervisor, or arrange for a supervisor to phone me back, and give me an internal complaint reference number.  Agent repeats that they have limited access, so I need to talk to Loyalty.
10:10  Agent offers to transfer me to Sales team.  I explain that's pointless.  Again.
10:12  I ask the agent to confirm they are unable to escalate to a supervisor, or give me an internal complaint reference number.
10:12  Agent repeats they have "limited access".  I ask what do they have limited access to, is it limited access to a supervisor, or computer systems
10:13  Agent tells me their supervisor is available on 1901.  I resist screaming.  I am marginally rude, by using the phrase "That's rubbish".  I ask for the supervisor's name, or the supervisor's manager's name.
10:15  Agent says "Sorry for the inconvenience".
10:16  I point out how broken the entire customer care side of things is
10:18  Agent tells me to call 1800303458  "from a different number and my issue will surely be resolved" which is just weird.  Why would I need to use a different number?
10:19  I give up, and go do something useful with my life, like googling "fibre optic cable crochet patterns".  Maybe if I use a small enough hook and some glass wool...