Summary of Esat meeting today

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 7:39pm #1

Martin and I had a great meeting with Andrew Conlan-Trant (referred to as ACT from here on) and Sarah McCall of Esat today. It looks like we're going to have another with them again sometime soon as well.

Points covered:

1. People are mad about the way the service was cut off. Trust me, ACT knows this well. He has gotten phone calls at home, on his mobile, and many, many letters and emails. He and Sarah have read all of the letters and emails that have come in. I did hand them my printouts, and Sarah is going to read them, more for education than anything else. Basically, we can all stop haranguing him now. I am going to point out that it was a group of 10 people at Esat who made the decision to cut off the heavy users, not just ACT. His name was just the unlucky one attached to the letter.

2. Cut off date and billing. If you have gotten The Letter, and you are due to be cut off tomorrow, you have a minor reprieve. The billing cycle at Esat is in 3 parts, the 8th, the 16th or the 24th of each month. For example, our bill runs from the 8th to the 8th. Since our bill runs out on the 8th, we will have our last day on the 8th. If your bill runs to the 16th, you will be cut off on the 16th and the same with the 24th. No one will be cut off before 8th June.

3. 75 hours. This has gotten completely twisted around. This is where the number came from: anyone who was using SNL for more than 75 hours a month got the letter. That's it. There is no 75 hour limit in place right now. Customer care had it completely wrong with pretty much everything they said. (In fact, both ACT and Sarah we a bit taken aback when we told them what Customer Care had been telling people.) If you called and complained and Customer Care put you on a "list" or whatever they said, Esat will honor that and not cut you off. Don't try calling today, it won't work. The customer care drones all say that you had to have called in by sometime last week (or earlier...the stories are again all different).

4. If you have not gotten The Letter and are a SNL customer, there is a little joy. You will not be cut off automatically if you go over 75 hours, because once again, there is no limit. But the entire service is under review, and they will give 30 days warning to people they consider heavy users who would be cut off based on usage. But once again, there is no specified limit.

Let me repeat that...there is no limit, but there is a chance that heavy users will be cut off. The entire SNL program is under review.

5. There is no such thing as a "second letter". In the printouts that I gave them are many people talking about second letters, being told to wait, etc. There is no "second letter", there is no reprieve unless you have already talked to Customer Care.

6. They are checking to see about the @iol.ie email addresses and if they would disappear. Sarah doesn't think that it would, since SNL is tied to a phone number and not an email address. She is looking into it, and will get back to me once she knows more.

7. 3 hour limit. As far as ACT knows, this was implemented. As we know, it didn't seem to be. This was the first he'd heard of it not kicking in and is looking into that.

8. Customer care. Well, it's really not care, is it? Sarah and ACT are looking into the things that Customer Care are telling people, and are going to fill them in with the proper info.

We put ideas to them, their response is they are concerned and surprised about the different stories that have come out of customer care and they want to consider everything and come back to us. We have some breathing space since people will not be cut off before the 8th, and we will be asking for another meeting before that date. As this was just the first meeting with them, and only scheduled for a half hour, we couldn't get any further than this, and we're happy that they have agreed to meet with us again. They both listened to us with open minds, which made both Martin and me very hopeful. We both feel as if we have opened a door that can be useful in many different ways, and it's a great first step.

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 8:32pm

Good to hear the meeting was in some way constructive- Can you clarify the 75 hour limit-

I spoke to a Co. Rep. called Emmet who offered the 75 hour limit and took my name and number- This was the day of the original letter- circa May 1st- Does this mean they will honour this offer?

I actually got an e-mail read on the Pat Kenny show when he interviewed ACT- and he put this point to him....
"It actually costs 5 times more to attract new customers than keep existing ones"

If you get another meeting w/ ACT bring this point up if you can- Obviously those who were cut off are the heavy users and thus represent future flows of income for ESAT-

If they continue to treat us like s***, word spreads fast and not only will we not use their products neither will our associates- Perhaps they should just absorb the (minor) losses now and keep us on side when they really do have something available for us to spend our money on.

I think the tone of your meeting was amicable and I'm glad to hear this-

Remember business is about the creation of mutually beneficial relationships & perhaps if we're "NICE" Esat might realise error of their ways-ie- the potential loss of thousands of pounds!

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 8:35pm

Congrats on the good meeting guys

At least that has settled a couple of things in my head !!

At the next meeting, could you get a word in about the ADSL service from esat, just to see when it will be launched by esat !

Thanks

again, congrats !

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 8:55pm

On the face of it the reprieve is something for now -a dying man will clutch at a straw.

I'm still trying to digest the outcome of the meeting. I'm looking forward to others comments.

When I rang Esat to complain of being cut off I was offered 75 hours per month, frustrating, but as there's no one else to turn to for flat rate and as I'm on a low income I couldn't afford to tell them to stuff it. So will I get this promised 75 hours.

I don't want to give the impression that I'm content with this -far from it- and I'm going to support this fight to the end.

Thanks E Kehoe and Martin for setting up and attending the meeting to make our anger and arguments known to Act & Co.

It's great to see a follow-up meeting is arranged. Wouldn't it nice if we could get one as well with Eircom who is the cause of all this problem by not offering a wholesale interconnecton rate. I wonder how many of us have Eircom as their telephone providor. Have we any leverage on them here.

Best wishes, Bannerman

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 8:59pm

Originally posted by 80project.com:
Good to hear the meeting was in some way constructive- Can you clarify the 75 hour limit-

Are we to imagine that if we were put on the imaginary list of those interested in the imaginary 75hr limit service, not that we have any proof mind you, that we are to be reprieved? Imagine that!!

Black Frank

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 9:15pm

Many thanks to Elana and Martin for meeting the Esat people.

While it doesn't look like we're gonna get our service back, at least we have a minimum of a weeks reprieve.

It's a pity that this whole situation wasn't given a lot more media coverage. Although I have my suspicions that unless the great un-washed are net users, they won't really comprehend the situation. Which is a pity.

But anyway, many thanks Elana and Martin.

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 10:34pm

As stated by others well done to you both, Elana and Martin, for setting up and attending the meeting. A reprieve of a week is very good especially as there is a follow meeting!!
1)Is there no chance that Esat would increase the subscription(not by too much though)and still retain the SNL??
2)I agree with Bannerman a meeting with Eircom would be handy.
3)By your synopsis I take it that there is no way of definately knowing that users will be cut off, if they surf more than 75hrs., These being people that have not got the Letter.
It means that Net Time watching is going to be very tiresome.
4)I also would not be happy with 75hrs but it is better than nothing.

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 10:50pm

Congratulations on a successful meeting!

I think it was a constructive first step...well done

It certainly clarified a lot of issues for me. I tried to ring their "Customer Care" dept during the first week of the "Letter" saga unfortunately I didn't get through, so the 75 hr deal bad as all as it is! just isn't an option for me. It's somewhat ironic that users who haven't used to service to the maximum may now do so, but of course with the risk of being thrown off. It does seem ridiculous that current users (the ones who will be retained) are under this threat all the time now.

I would certainly go along with suggestions made here that perhaps a meeting with Eircom wouldn't be any harm.

Again congrats ...tremendous effort

thanks.....

LegacyUser · 30-05-2001 11:15pm

Just further to my original post on this matter and in continuation of previous points-
Perhaps consider raising the issue w/ ACT of raising the subscription cost- perhaps up to the £30 threshold ?? This would still be better than anything out there if it was "no linits"-

Obviously dont go as high as this in negotiating but maybe try to sound out the possiblity.

if your using SNL to download mp3's, a rise in the fee still means me forking out less cash to the other CROOKS in this country....

HMV, VIRGIN etc.

80p.

80project.com

dahamsta · 30-05-2001 11:35pm

Well done Elana and Martin.

Now, that's got the backslapping out of the way, how about we face up to reality?

All Esat have done thus far is clarify the situation that they created themselves. They allegedly implemented a 3-hour cutoff that may or may not have affected some users in Brazil; they sent out a letter that confused the situation, made the users out as the guilty party, and made themselves look like idiots; and they're still failing spectacularly to use their marketing budget to inform the public of Eircom's monopoly.

Ok Esat, now you've clarified that you screwed up. Now answer some questions:

o Are you in negotiations with Eircom to supply flat rate Internet service with the 1892 and 1893 numbers created by the ODTR? If so, what is the timeframe for the rollout of these services?

o Will you or will you not implement a DSL service if the local loop is unbundled? Yes or no.

o What are you doing to fastrack the local loop unbundling process?

o Finally, the more informed of us know that unbundling the local loop is necessary to promote competition, and to control Eircom's monopoly. We know the situation, we know the problems you face. However the general public don't. Why don't you use some of your marketing budget to explain? It's the sensible thing to do, and it's the only possible way to get support from the public, and probably build your market share into the process. Why has your marketing department quite failed to recognise this?

I have one more point - Andrew Conlan-Trant is your Director of Marketing & Products. He was the person who signed off on that atrocious letter, he is the person responsible for this farce. Why is he still working for you? If he was working for me, he would have been sacked on the spot.

Or maybe you ordered him to do it? In that case, if I was Andrew Conlon-Trant, I would have resigned on the spot. Either way, there's something seriously wrong in the Esat marketing department.

adam

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 12:02am

Originally posted by Bannerman:

It's great to see a follow-up meeting is arranged. Wouldn't it nice if we could get one as well with Eircom who is the cause of all this problem by not offering a wholesale interconnecton rate.

Originally posted by Delphi91:

It's a pity that this whole situation wasn't given a lot more media coverage.

Both of these things are on our agenda. We went for the Esat meeting first because of the imminence of the 31st May cutof, but work is going on in othere areas as well - e.g. Elana's interview in Irish Times last week.

In regard to other points raised in this forum - higher tariff, ASDL, exactly when do people get off, etc. - we raised virtually all these items with them.

In fact, we raised so many issues that it would not have been reasonable to expect them to reply to them today.

This is why we were really pleased that instead of just saying "NO", they asked for time to consider all the points and agreed to meet us again. I don't know where this will lead to, if anywhere, but at least we have kept the door open.

Martin Harran

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 7:28am

Originally posted by ekehoe:

2. Cut off date and billing. If you have gotten The Letter, and you are due to be cut off tomorrow, you have a minor reprieve. The billing cycle at Esat is in 3 parts, the 8th, the 16th or the 24th of each month. For example, our bill runs from the 8th to the 8th. Since our bill runs out on the 8th, we will have our last day on the 8th. If your bill runs to the 16th, you will be cut off on the 16th and the same with the 24th. No one will be cut off before 8th June.

Not to doubt your word or anything but for safety sake and my own piece of mind I sent
a e-mail of to customer support to check the above, Because I am on the 24th to 24th billing cycle, I don't want to be paying through the nose to esat if they above doesn't apply to me!

I will let you know of any response!

Also on another note over on ie.comp
someone mentioned that only 35% of the 2000
accepted the 'Surf 75' offer.
Click here for post.
May be this is the reason they are not enforcing this rule.
If they did they could lose about 65% of their remaining customers.

Best regards,
corkie.

[This message has been edited by corkie (edited 01-06-2001).]

Bard · 31-05-2001 9:15am

That's a helluva lot squodged into a half hour meeting!!!

Well done Elana and Martin. Excellent job- there's plenty of hope yet.

Bard

First motorbike in the bible ???? - a Triumph! - 'And yea verily did Moses strike down the ammmanites, - and all the land did hear the roar of his triumph !!!'

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 10:30am

Elana/Martin did you mention the name of the group, and were any objections raised?

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 2:34pm

quote:
I spoke to a Co. Rep. called Emmet who offered the 75 hour limit and took my name and number- This was the day of the original letter- circa May 1st- Does this mean they will honour this offer?

I would give them a call to make sure that you are registered, but from what I was told yesterday that if you signed up once you got the letter, Esat will honor that.

quote:
2)I agree with Bannerman a meeting with Eircom would be handy.

That's actually on our agenda. We're working our collective group to find someone we can talk to there

3)By your synopsis I take it that there is no way of definately knowing that users will be cut off, if they surf more than 75hrs., These being people that have not got the Letter. It means that Net Time watching is going to be very tiresome.

No, there is no way of knowing. I wish I had a better answer, but there really isn't one.

quote:
Are you in negotiations with Eircom to supply flat rate Internet service with the 1892 and 1893 numbers created by the ODTR? If so, what is the timeframe for the rollout of these services?

From what I've read, the numbers have been created. That's it.

o Will you or will you not implement a DSL service if the local loop is unbundled? Yes or no.

ACT told me in our first phone call that they would, once there is LLU.

o What are you doing to fastrack the local loop unbundling process?

They can't do anything. It's all Eircom and the ODTR.

o Finally, the more informed of us know that unbundling the local loop is necessary to promote competition, and to control Eircom's monopoly. We know the situation, we know the problems you face. However the general public don't. Why don't you use some of your marketing budget to explain? It's the sensible thing to do, and it's the only possible way to get support from the public, and probably build your market share into the process. Why has your marketing department quite failed to recognise this?

I remember the April Fool's Day ad in the papers. Every time that LLU is talked about as well, it seems that there is a quote from Esat saying, basically, get on with it. But as for the rest, it's up to Esat.

I have one more point - Andrew Conlan-Trant is your Director of Marketing & Products. He was the person who signed off on that atrocious letter, he is the person responsible for this farce. Why is he still working for you? If
he was working for me, he would have been sacked on the spot.

Yep, his name is on the letter. BUT, as I noted in the meeting summary, he was one of 10 people who made the decision. So all the blame cannot be placed on him. And, heck, if I had made it up to Director of Marketing and Products, I wouldn't resign either :-).

quote:
did you mention the name of the group, and were any objections raised?

Yep, we did. And did we get a look! But, as Martin said "It could have been much worse". :-)

The above are the facts as I know them, with a bit of my opinion thrown in there. Feel free to slam me if you wish. But I will take these comments to the next meeting, especially the ones from dahamsta.

E

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 6:54pm

I wrote to ACT, as Martin & Elana are aware, and I rang Esat Cust Support today to know if I was being cut off tonight.!! Had a very interesting convo with the 'Rep' Basically he said that all the staff, even the lowest grade, had all agreed that Esat had handled the whole situation very badly, and that they (the staff) had every sympathy with us (the users).!! He also agreed that the extension of 75 hrs to "some" just because they were lucky enough to telephone support, was unfair, as those like me who didn't, are now being given the "stick". Yet, there was no mention of making the call in ACT's letter. As I took the trouble to write a long reply to ACT, the Customer Rep thought I should be on the 'list' of those 'reprieved', but when he checked I wasn't on it !! He agreed this was unfair, and that 'everybody' should have been given the chance to reduce their useage to 75hrs, but informing them of such in the original letter..!! So, if you were lucky and rang them, you have a reprieve, if like me you wrote to ACT, then you don't qualify for a reprive..!! The Customer Rep also agreed with my point, about raising the monthly subscription, and that this should have been offered to all, before the letter of 'removal' was sent out. For those who may be interested, he also told me that the Staff(at Esat) and presumably therefore Management as well, had been taken aback and utterly suprised at the depth and the ferocity of feeling that ACT's letter had generated. He also said, he thought that if Esat did not resolve the situation, they would be vleft without any users at all, as there was also a lot of sympathy coming in from 'mild' users who had not been sent the letter. I think we should all get together, by email, and plan a further campaign of publicity, to augment the excellent work being done by Elana and Martin ?? Any backers, or supporters for this ??

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 7:08pm

It seems to me that the seperate departments within Esat are very messed up. If they can't communicate with themselves, how could they communicate with a deaf moose like eircom?

But thanks for what you're trying to do folks.

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 8:58pm

so basically

was i right in reading that if you get the letter and during the month u dont go over 75hrs, u dont get disconnected????

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 9:25pm

er...no, if you phoned up when you got the letter and were put on the "imaginary" 75hr list, then Esat will honour it as it was a mistake of the support people.

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 9:32pm

Originally posted by angryuser:
I think we should all get together, by email, and plan a further campaign of publicity, to augment the excellent work being done by Elana and Martin ?? Any backers, or supporters for this ??

Just to let you know that the meeting with Esat isn't the only thing we are working on.

In regards to media, Elana has already been in Irish Times, has an interview in PCLive's next issue and is working on other media contacts.

We are also working on ODTR, Eircom and politicians.

Martin Harran

p.s. Thx for compliment

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 9:36pm

Originally posted by ekehoe:
quote:
quote:
did you mention the name of the group, and were any objections raised?

Yep, we did. And did we get a look! But, as Martin said "It could have been much worse". :-)

E

It's worth pointing out that he had visited our web site and was able to quote our objectives. He stated that Esat has no problems with those - they are exactly what they want to achieve also

Martin

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 10:50pm

*shrug*

I have left the ****ers and wont go back unless they are offering an abso****inloutley unbeatable product that I must have. They have proved time and time again that they will screw their customers where ever and whenever it suits them. Why don't we all just cancel the standing orders and tell them to go **** themselves when they go looking for their final bill? (No, I'm not that stupid, just that angry at the way this has been handled)

****ed off Esat ExCustomer.

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 10:59pm

Thank you for the update on what you are doing Martin, and the area that Elana is covering. Its very impressive, and obviously best left to yourselves. No doubt you will keep us informed on the date of the next Esat meeting, providing they honour their word ?? I think one of the most serious aspects of this whole thing is the loss of our email addresses on Esat, when they shut us off. I myself, like many others have contacts around the world, as well as web sites that use these addresses. Changing all these to another ISP is going to be a major task, and will undoubtedly mean the loss of a lot of friends around the globe. ??

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 11:14pm

Originally posted by angryuser:
Thank you for the update on what you are doing Martin, and the area that Elana is covering. Its very impressive, and obviously best left to yourselves.

No - it is not just up to us, we are only the 'mouthpiece'.

In the interests of clarity, I think it is important that we have a central point of conatct but this campaign belongs to all users - please keep giving us your ideas, views and comments! (The encouragement we are getting from you and many others also helps

)

In regard to your point about email, we are 'fairly' certain that we won't lose email addresses but Esat are to confirm this for us.

Martin

LegacyUser · 31-05-2001 11:57pm

Can you say "Boycott?"

LegacyUser · 01-06-2001 10:54am

Well done for the hard work and getting certain issued clarified.

I have a question though. You're saying that people who called Customer Care and complained are being kept on the Esat service? What about if you wrote an email complaining? Which, I may add, to which the ****ers never responded. I think Esat has totally underestimated how many of their customers talk to each other(on boards like this and mailing lists), so they will have to come up with a solid "line" to give to their customers in the future, and not the confusing ****e we've seen so far.

I have to say that I'd be quite sceptical of anything Esat say now, and will be taking any of their pronouncements with a large rock of salt. I can't believe they claimed they didn't know that the 3-hour cut off wasn't working. Come on, the logs would have showed you that. The mass layoff of customers came about a month after they were supposed to have brought in that 3-hour limit, so my guess is that they decided to dump the high end users rather than fix the system. It has all the hallmarks of a pointy-haired boss decision.

Yes, we know that Eircom is the culprit behind all of this, but it doesn't mean that Esat can treat their customers like crap. Oh well, enough ranting...

Bard · 01-06-2001 11:55am

Mr. O'Connell - can you please let us make our own banner ads, or at least take our logo out of that banner ad of yours.

I appreciate other sites linking to the IrelandOffline one but making banner ads for our site is something that should be up to us.

The usefulness of them has been pointed out to me, and as the web developer for IrelandOffline, I'm the one to do it.

I'll have a few banner ads made very shortly.

Thanks,

Niall

[EDIT:] Thank you.

[This message has been edited by Bard (edited 01-06-2001).]

LegacyUser · 01-06-2001 7:40pm

Thanks Elana and Martin for all your hard work on this one. Well done on the diplomatic and polite way you are dealing with Esat despite being very annoyed with them. There is a complete lack of info out there and without your help and this forum I for one would now be cutting back on my online time. The info about the billing period at least gives us a little while to get organised...and means we can take advantage for the bank holiday weekend.

~Z~

LegacyUser · 01-06-2001 8:28pm

About the 75hour limit....when does that kick in? is it also on the billing date? or is it today?

LegacyUser · 01-06-2001 9:20pm

Originally posted by Cond0r:
About the 75hour limit....when does that kick in? is it also on the billing date? or is it today?

There is no 75 hr limit as such.

75 hours was the figure that Esat used to identify the 10% heaviest users.

They are keeping the whole thing under review and any other users who are deemed to be "excessive" may have their accounts terminated - 75 hours may or may not be the figure that they will use.

A bit vague, I know - that's why we are pressing Esat to come up with something better.

Martin

LegacyUser · 02-06-2001 12:24am

The 75 hours is a red herring. I don't know where they dreamed up this figure. The break-even number of hours per month is about 40. To avoid losing money with SNL one must spend MORE 40 hours a month on line.

Taking bank holidays into account the number of off-peak hours is about 520 per month.
Therefore all SNL users must use between 40 and 520 off-peak hours per month.

ESAT are asking us to believe that 90% of their users use between 40 and 75 per month, and that only 10% use more than 75 !

I believe that this assertion is is a lie. The situation is probably the complete
reverse - I would say that 80 - 90% of users stay on line for 75+ hours per month.

==========================================
I would be prepared to pay more to keep the
service - How about asking ESAT to introduce tiered billing dependent on usage and to treat the period after midnight differently.

Summary of Esat meeting today

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