Closing of Talk To Eir Forum 29th March 2019

angel eyes 2012

Avatar MIA wrote: »

angel eyes 2012 wrote: »

I always cite this company as an example of why privatisation of state companies is usually a bad concept.

Only because State companies come with huge problems - in particular with Eircom institutionalised engineers that had a can't be sacked attitude that were unbelievably poor to deal with.

I don't know how paying a handful of nearly-retired engineers a salary would justify such appalling customer service.  By no means is the public sector perfect but I am not aware of any public body that has such consistently bad customer service when it comes to basic communication with its customers.  For one, maybe they should concentrate on sacking their head of customer service and stop blaming the engineering department.  You need a masters in quantum physics in order to figure out how to contact them as they don't answer the phone and then you need the patience of a saint if you interact with them by email or god forbid by registered post.

Anyway it's not the eir representatives' fault, it wasn't an easy job and I wish them well in the future. 

eir: Grainne

Hi All, 

It will still be possible to contact eir through our other social media channels. 

The agents that have been working on boards.ie will still be working on the other social media channels and will be happy to assist with any account queries that you all will have. You can contact eir through twitter here and through facebook here

It has been a pleasure assisting you all with your queries on the Talk to Eir thread. 

Thanking You,
Grainne

Linzi, Grainne,

If you ever leave Eir please come back to boards and do an Ask Me Anything about life as a customer service rep. I’d love to know what it is really like behind the scenes.

Wishing you well.

topnotch

What a joke of a company. Should change their name to Ostrich telecommunications specialists in burying their heads in the sand. 🀕

yrreg0850

I for one and, I am sure many more of my generation have as much interest in facebook or twitter as going to Mars.

Gazzmonkey

DubInTheWest wrote: »

It's obvious what they are doing. It's a well known fact that eir try to keep all problems/threads via PM so other users can't see the utter shambles. So they have been disgraced on here and they don't want future unsuspecting customers to see all the problems/useless customer service so they shut down the forum.

I think the best thing to do would be for people to still post their issues regardless even after March 29th, so future potential customers can see what they are in for. Otherwise Eir just win and continue to pull the wool over peoples eyes.

This is exactly what we need to do, keep posting your Eir experiences folks. Saved me from signing up to that disease of a company, but it was too late for my employer & some mates.

tuxy

Berty wrote: »

Poulgorm wrote: »

I hope that the talk to Eir forum stays up there, even if there are no reps there to respond.

At least, it would serve as a warning to potential customers.

I think It's unlikely. I'm sure the business has to pay to keep this forum in some form so if there is no money paid then I imagine it wouldn't be good to have it open as it doesn't allow them a right to reply.(unless they pay of course I guess)

Correct, companies pay boards.ie to host this service AFAIK so it will be gone after March 30th.
We could start a Eir customer advice thread over on the broadband forum, I know the best advice is don't sign up or leave but some people are stuck in contract and advice on contacting Comreg may be of use. 
It won't be as visible as this forum but it may help some people. 

Odyssey 2005

Zero loss. PM a/c details,name etc etc.

That's as far as it ever went. Why wait until Friday ? Go now

gman2k

I have recently being trying to get Eir account connections to two separate properties but to no avail. Everything has gone wrong, eircodes addresses, BB or TV not being ordered etc. Both times when a contractor actually came out, they advised not to go with EIR if possible due to their shocking incompetence at every level.

HBC08

paddy19 wrote: »

The most effective way to resolve your problems with Eir is to use two email addresses.

(Works really well for cancelling and saves you shoe lather and €8.)

ccm@eir.ie

ComReg track and publish the number of complaints to this email address on a quarterly basis.
Eir are very sensitive to it because it gives ComReg data to prosecute them.


Demand a  ComReg recognised complaint number.
They wont want to give it to you but just keep demanding it if your problem is not resolved.

If problem is not resolved in 10 business days escalate to ComReg by emailing



consumerline@comreg.ie




Mixed feeling about the closure of this forum. It at least allowed people to highlight issues.


On the other hand there was tendency to go to PM to bury issues with guff about GDPR.

Telling customer that they had to send a registered letter to cancel services was outrageous and misleading.

Fair play to you Paddy! Great advice and the only way to deal with this company.
Thank feic for boards.ie. I was in the Eir shop and ready to switch from sky a few weeks ago and then started seeing these threads!

Jurgen Klopp

Gazzmonkey wrote: »

This is exactly what we need to do, keep posting your Eir experiences folks. Saved me from signing up to that disease of a company, but it was too late for my employer & some mates.

Heh if eir offered boards €1 a year to make sure there was no threads allowed about them I wouldn't be surprised if they jumped at it like a reverse gearbest deal

Avatar MIA

"eh if eir offered boards €1 a year to make sure there was no threads allowed about them I wouldn't be surprised if they jumped at it like a reverse gearbest deal"


The acceptable fee would be three fiddy surely. C'maon, they have some standards.

CantGetNoSleep

I'd just like to say fcuk all of you for the truly useless customer service you have provided here and on all channels throughout the years. One of the most incompetent companies I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with and I hope you all feel proud going home every night knowing that you've helped absolutely no one, no matter how **** you get paid. **** off and good riddance

tuxy

CantGetNoSleep wrote: »

I'd just like to say fcuk all of you for the truly useless customer service you have provided here and on all channels throughout the years. One of the most incompetent companies I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with and I hope you all feel proud going home every night knowing that you've helped absolutely no one, no matter how **** you get paid. **** off and good riddance

Eir internal policy is not the staff fault. They are seriously understaffed even by call centre standards and are only have the use of seriously flawed systems to try to resolve issues. The staff on that were active on boards.ie actually did a good job despite the conditions.
F*** Eir as a company but if you have never worked in an understaffed call centre with upper management making awful decision then I don't think you are in a position to criticise all lower level support staff. 

tuxy

Eir’s odyssey may face further twist as investor Iliad struggles

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/markets/eir-s-odyssey-may-face-further-twist-as-investor-iliad-struggles-1.3835476

Odyssey 2005

tuxy wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/markets/eir-s-odyssey-may-face-further-twist-as-investor-iliad-struggles-1.3835476

Good news indeed.

yrreg0850

Odyssey 2005 wrote: »

tuxy wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/markets/eir-s-odyssey-may-face-further-twist-as-investor-iliad-struggles-1.3835476

Good news indeed.

The problem goes back as far as allowing Mr O Reilly to grab the shares held by the people of Ireland.
At that time the company owned all it's property and infrastructure which had been paid for by the Irish taxpayer.
He then asset stripped it and sold it.

tuxy

I dislike twitter so rarely visit the site however I just had a quick look at tweets to @eircare. For the most part it's just people tweeting complaints about very long call times. It's still common to be on hold for over an hour, it actually looks like things are getting worse. What happened to all the new staff they are training?

Here's a typical reply

Apologise for any inconvenience. We are experiencing a large volume of calls in our customer care call centres. We are aware that call-waiting times are longer than usual and we appreciate your patience as your time is valuable...

It's just lies, there is no way they have had a larger volume of calls for 6 months straight. It's the same level of calls with a fraction of the staff numbers.

Anteayer

It was an odd purchase for Illyad who are the Ryanair of the French telecoms market, all about cut price and market disruption.

Eir is a big established incumbent that evolved from a classic European PTT model and ought to have a strategy more like the companies that Illyad is trying to take a bite out of : Orange (France Telecom) and TIM (Telecom Italia). They’re effectively in the mirror image of the position they’re familiar with.

Things like having inaccessible customer care and so on is something you might get away with if you’re a cut throat, cheap provider but when you’re supposed to be the old PTT, and you’re the dominant player people expect quality and service and it’s part of why those operators get away with premium pricing.

You’d wonder if someone’s perhaps not really understanding the market segment and business model.

tsue921i8wljb3

tuxy wrote: »

I dislike twitter so rarely visit the site however I just had a quick look at tweets to @eircare. For the most part it's just people tweeting complaints about very long call times. It's still common to be on hold for over an hour, it actually looks like things are getting worse. What happened to all the new staff they are training?

The new national call centre was due to open in Sligo in March. I don't know if it actually has opened yet though.

Camila Glamorous Strand

Camila Glamorous Strand wrote: »

The new national call centre was due to open in Sligo in March. I don't know if it actually has opened yet though.

I know someone who started working there last November. I must text and ask what the story is.

paddy19

From Irish times article:

Iliad ..... More worryingly, it had lost about 250,000 mobile subscribers and 93,000 broadband customers over the course of last year.

I always wondered why Eir was so reluctant to allow customers to cancel....

Must be a darned sight easier to cancel in France....

lbc2019

Or maybe boards isn't reaching enough people for the cost?  I wouldn't be rushing to get a business on boards for support.

And I am no fan of Eir

redzer

If people were to "Talk to Joe", it might change their minds?

Up Donegal

eir, PLEASE DO NOT close 'Talk to eir'.  Until such a time that a workable customer service is available, this facility should remain open.  It has successfully highlighted the disastrous customer service they have.

Avatar MIA

Up Donegal wrote: »

eir, PLEASE DO NOT close 'Talk to eir'.  Until such a time that a workable customer service is available, this facility should remain open.  

You mean indefinitely?

vkus6mt3y8zg2q

Up Donegal wrote: »

eir, PLEASE DO NOT close 'Talk to eir'.  Until such a time that a workable customer service is available, this facility should remain open.  It has successfully highlighted the disastrous customer service they have.

Highlighting their disastrous customer service is the reason they are closing it

Odyssey 2005

Up Donegal wrote: »

eir, PLEASE DO NOT close 'Talk to eir'.  Until such a time that a workable customer service is available, this facility should remain open.

  It has successfully highlighted the disastrous customer service they have.

^^I feel this is a big reason for closing it. Divide and conquer.!

wmpdd3

The new call centers are a message taking service, they don't have access to the 'order system'. They raise tickets, nothing else.

Interesting that the 'talk to' forum will be gone as the other main providers are still here.

Comreg complaints, while it will get you a call back, will not get things moving.

Once I finally get phone line reactivated, I'll have an interesting post to make.

jk23

Anyone who sees this or has dealt with Eir please tell them to stay away from them or they will get away with their appalling behaviour.

The only way they will get the message is if they lose customers.

paddy19

"ComReg complaints, while it will get you a call back, will not get things moving."

In fairness to ComReg they at least get you attention at a senior level,
which gives you a better chance of getting an issue resolved.

Great for bills, cancelling and paperwork issues.

Not so good for technical issues where you need to get to someone who actually knows what they are doing.
ComReg can't actually put an engineer in the exchange to fix an issue.

ComReg can't make a basket case like Eir responsive only it's own management can do that.

Privatisation and 6 different owners in two decades, including the legendary Tony O'Reilly
has made Eir what it is today.

the_syco

DubInTheWest wrote: »

It's obvious what they are doing. It's a well known fact that eir try to keep all problems/threads via PM so other users can't see the utter shambles. So they have been disgraced on here and they don't want future unsuspecting customers to see all the problems/useless customer service so they shut down the forum.

I think the best thing to do would be for people to still post their issues regardless even after March 29th, so future potential customers can see what they are in for. Otherwise Eir just win and continue to pull the wool over peoples eyes.

After March 29th thje Eir section of Boards will either become read-only, or cease to exist.

I'm sure they're planning on having this all in-house, with the new support centres that they opened to replace the HCL centre.

yrreg0850

paddy19 wrote: »

"ComReg complaints, while it will get you a call back, will not get things moving."

In fairness to ComReg they at least get you attention at a senior level,
which gives you a better chance of getting an issue resolved.

Great for bills, cancelling and paperwork issues.

Not so good for technical issues where you need to get to someone who actually knows what they are doing.
ComReg can't actually put an engineer in the exchange to fix and issue.

ComReg can't make a basket case like Eir responsive only it's own management can do that.

Privatisation and 6 different owners in two decades, including the legendary Tony O'Reilly
 is today.

Tony O Reilly got his hands on a state owned property and infrastructure rich company and, asset stripped it.
Then sold on a debt ridden shell . The only thing that increased in 6 owners is the debt.

kranbo

Left eir 3 years ago and went to SKY for broadband/phone - best decision ever. Still with them-  mobile bill only sim. I have been trying to contact them on 1905 for the last 3 days to change my plan - total waste of time - just going to have to port over to one of de providers.

Pity cause their service was quite good - withdrawing their only service where you could almost be guaranteed to get a response is madness 

cannotlogin

In fairness "Talk to Eir" was probably a generous description.

May I suggest some more accurate names should you consider a relaunch:-

- Silent Treatment by Eir

- Passive Agression by Eir

- Eir's Gross Inaccuracies

- or my personal favourite We Just Don't Eir!

(cos you certainly don't care)

normanoffside

Interesting article below. It seems Eir closed their own chat forum as it became a place for disgruntled customers to congregate.
At the time they redirected people to this forum. The article, written yesterday, hasn't updated the fact that the boards.ie forum is now also closing.
It looks like Eir want to gag disgruntled customers.

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/eir-sued-by-dutch-provider-of-diy-customer-care-service-1.3835634?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR0oxTfT-oBy9Fm0C2es6xqvFnT10z9yOY03eyre5MtQ4vkIr6Es0AYPpCA#.XJYnRNXs9Lo.facebook

Avatar MIA

normanoffside wrote: »

It looks like Eir want to gag disgruntled customers.

The way things are going they'll have zero disgruntled customers, which will be a great KPI. Alas, it'll likely be when they have no more customers.

tuxy

kranbo wrote: »

Left eir 3 years ago and went to SKY for broadband/phone - best decision ever. Still with them-  mobile bill only sim. I have been trying to contact them on 1905 for the last 3 days to change my plan - total waste of time - just going to have to port over to one of de providers.

Pity cause their service was quite good - withdrawing their only service where you could almost be guaranteed to get a response is madness 

It's been said loads of times and even reported in the parers that they cancelled their contract with an Indian company but based in Dublin and are opening their own centres to replace it. The problem is they let go of the outsourced centre before opening their own ones. And I have a feeling their own centres may have less staff even when up and running. This fact makes it infuriating that they continue to lie about large number of calls.

The Specialist

redzer wrote: »

If people were to "Talk to Joe", it might change their minds?

Not siding with Eir, but I'll let you know an inside pro tip from working in call centres - "I'm calling Joe Duffy" is one line you should absolutely avoid.

It gets a great laugh among the agents once the call is over, it causes incredible rolling eye strain in the agent that has to hear it and it will get you absolutely nowhere in terms of getting something resolved . Nobody cares what Joe has to say and nobody cares that you are calling him. And if Eir can't be arsed as it is to have any sort of customer care in place for their products (despite their own customers beating them repeatedly over the head with the fact they can't get any service from their options), the rabble rabble of Joe Duffy isn't going to change anything. 

Anteayer

I'd agree that yelling at front line customer service staff is pointless and also just making someone else's day worse. They're working in a system that doesn't function and you can be sure that they're probably trying to do their best.

I know when I was in my university days I worked in an outsourced call centre for a completely different company (nothing to do with Eir) but I can understand how these things happen. You typically had a very limited view of the company's systems - just access via customer-relationship management platform which basically just gives you tick boxes, drop down menus and forms to fill in and prompts you with info / scripts.

A customer would ring in and all you were doing was taking notes and raising a ticket on a system. You'd no idea if that ticket was ever acted upon as nothing ever came back to you and you'd absolutely no authority to do anything at all. You were just putting queries into automated queues without any idea where those queues went. It's like a production line - they basically just have call takers who are powerless to do anything and are usually placed under huge pressure as you're  rated on how many calls you answer, not how many problems you resolve or how good the customer experience is.

A lot of the time you'd have customers coming back to the helpline going absolutely mad because they'd received no response and when you checked notes, someone had diligently tried their very best to resolve the problem but the system was so broken that nothing was happening.

There are ways of doing these things well, but in a lot of cases it's just been a case of how to do things cheaply and measuring all the wrong things and incentivising things that end up causing even more problems.

You have to have a mixture of call takers working with local management who can deal with and follow through with queries and actually resolve them. Otherwise, you're just into that scenario of your customers and staff going around and around in every more frustrating circles. Often the kinds of issues that people have require someone to go in and trouble shoot accounts, follow up with technical queries and so on. If the systems don't work and nobody's empowered to do anything it turns into a production line that just answers calls and doesn't actually achieve anything.

Also, if queries are resolved and taken ownership of by staff who can actually do something, you would probably reduce the volume of calls as people aren't likely to be calling back and also you'd probably find systemic weakness and resolve them too, thus fewer calls would happen.

I'd be be more likely to send in a letter of formal complaint to the company itself, follow up with ComReg or just move my business away from them entirely than shout at staff. You're just causing more stress for someone who's already probably doing a very tough job and while it might resolve your tension, it will achieve absolutely nothing as they're not necessarily even able to feed this stuff back, never mind do anything about it.

tayto lover

The Specialist,

I don’t agree with you on this.
Joe Duffy has many thousands of listeners and no company can afford bad publicity as well as the fact that listeners who hear the complaints will not be inclined to do business with a poorly run company that has no time for its customers.

Anteayer

I'd agree with taking your grievances to ComReg, TDs or media, but I wouldn't get ratty with front line staff.

B_ecke_r

absolutely nobody cares that you are going to call Joe Duffy, and to be honest half the staff given their age wouldn't have the first clue who he even his. 

I have experience at many levels of a call centre and the fact is you get ratty and you get nowhere. 

staff will go above and beyond for the genuinely nice people who they've feel hard done by not some condescending eejit who thinks he's above even speaking to a  CSR 

B_ecke_r

B_ecke_r wrote: »

absolutely nobody cares that you are going to call Joe Duffy, and to be honest half the staff given their age wouldn't have the first clue who he even his. 

I have experience at many levels of a call centre and the fact is you get ratty and you get nowhere. 

staff will go above and beyond for the genuinely nice people who they've feel hard done by not some condescending eejit who thinks he's above even speaking to a  CSR 

I don’t get this. So you would go above and beyond for someone that was nice? Therefore, customer service reps DO have the ability to resolve a customers issue but just pick and choose when they want to do their job?

Why can’t you just do your job regardless?

B_ecke_r

they will do their job, going above and beyond is something extra. if someone came into a pub and started treating the staff aggressively he's getting kicked out not a nice cold pint, no reason people should be allowed act like warriors on the phone and expect to get same level of help as someone who has an ounce of manners.

CSRs are not there to be abused down the phone - nobody is aware of the wait times more than them and its impacting nobody else more than them. 7.5 hour days without a break in calls (not counting lunch here) is a long and tiring day 

So the customer doesn’t get their issue resolved and has to again call a customer service number and hope they get through to someone after an hours hold and the cycle continues.

I get that some people can be absolute arseholes but there is serious frustration with eir customers regarding getting through on the phone. If above and beyond is possible, do it for everyone and save passing the buck to your next colleague.

It’s just a never ending circle of frustration with reps and customers trying to catch up with each other. Surely it’s easier to sort a problem and never hear from that customer again?

B_ecke_r

I don't believe passing the buck is what's going on here though at the moment.

Serious lack of Knowledge due to the mass redundancies in both eir and hcl 

they say it take "six months average for a CSR to get up to speed" in reality it takes much longer than this - six months will allow you to answer general queries and have a good grasp of navigating the systems and your call quality. 

eir's processes have not changed - get rid of the Indian company all you want but the reason for the wait times are the processes and systems HCL or anyone was/is working with. 

obviously they let too many people go too fast but how would you feel 

if you were told your job was being relocated just before Xmas? would you stick around til December or look for a new job straight away in a panic? this is a mass failure in the process. 

the point is at the moment I don't believe the staff are passing the buck I believe thay have no escalation points and that's why these issues are continuing .

Accidentally

Strawberry Milkshake wrote: »

I don’t get this. So you would go above and beyond for someone that was nice? Therefore, customer service reps DO have the ability to resolve a customers issue but just pick and choose when they want to do their job?

Why can’t you just do your job regardless?

You're missing the fact that people are people. If the person on the far end of the call comes across as reasonable and friendly, you're a damn sight more likely to go out of your way to help them in any way you can. If the person has a rant or an officious attitude, you will stick strictly to the official script. Always been the way in any customer facing role.

tayto lover

That’s if you’re talking to a call answerer though.
I’m talking about the hierarchy in the company listening to a radio show where customers are ringing in to state what a rubbish company it is and why nobody should have anything to do with it. They wouldn’t like that one teeny weeny bit. Customers are money to them.

B_ecke_r

AFAIK at least once a year Joe does a eir special and nothing really changes

How many articles has Conor Pope written?