Call Centres - Come and have a grumble
 

I'm moving house in 2 weeks, so I'm ringing around to change my address etc.

All going well until I ring good old BT...

50 mins ago now, just to change address, get new line connected and swap broadband from option 4 to option 1.

You got to wonder how cheap things could be if they knew how to sort stuff out quicker and didn't have 10,000 people in India asking you the same question 5 times.

Rubbish!!

Still on hold...

[Edited on 29-11-2005 by domski]

BT are the professionals at how to p'ss customers off,

Installing our factory DSL lines eventualy ended up in me phoning the "charimans office" ( on the advice of the engineer aftere every other line I rang could not actually do anything because no one was allowed to talk to the "back office")

I'm sure they've now started giving lessons to other companies as a training service, my boss is up to 124 minutes of calls to Sky to try and sort out their screw up, all at a nice expensive call rate, best laugh was that he then finds out that after being on hold for more than 20 minutes it doesn't actually stay in th e system but keeps you on the line, he got to 35 minutes on one line then ran on another and was answered in 14. he now can't find an email address to write to anyone at Sky to complain, I'll remove him from the roof before I leave tonight :)

Hoo-bloody-ray!!

1 hour 1 min 36 seconds and I'm still not convinced they've sorted it out, but at least I'm off the phone.

British business - best in the world!

:puzzled:

We had similar problems when I moved houses a couple of years ago. I phone BT to move our phoneline from one house to the other. Got through in the end and gave them all the details and they sent a letter to say it would be moved and the phone would be working on the day we moved in.

Moved into the house to find that, lo and behold, no dial tone.

Got onto BT on my mobile and finally got through to the right person only to be told that there was no way I should have been told that my line would be ready as it required an engineer to visit the house and screw the two wires dangling outside into the terminal behind the metal plate. When I said I had a letter they checked again and no engineer had been booked, so *I* was obviously lying at this point.

They then said I could have an engineer who would be able to possible come round in two weeks, maybe between 8am and 6pm (excluding 2 hours to eat lunch) if the wind was blowing in the right direction, but then again he might not. Oh, and I had to pay £49 for the priviledge.

She got a bit shirty when I told her I was ex-BT and qualified to install it myself if I wanted to save the hassle, and they managed to bump me up the list as a "goodwill gesture" !!

The wife spotted the BT van outside on the day he was supposed to arrive, so I went out to the front door as I hadn't heard the doorbell, to find him driving off! I went back in and he'd connected the two wires but hadn't bothered to knock on the door or let us know it was done.

We never did receive confirmation that the work had been done, by call or letter, so had we not seen him or checked the phoneline we would still have been waiting for it!

The problem is that they have a monopoly and know it.

Mate BT are superb compared to Dell's sales / service. These guys are a class act and i bet cant be beaten.
At least you can understand the majority with BT, and they sort of care, dell dont give a t0ss, and they have the cheek to keep trying to peddle thier junk at giveaway prices. I have over 550 users and HP gets my custom because thier service afterwards is very good - and they actually can speak english

Oh deary me (in best Apu impression)

Customer care is the hardest job in the world, but pays some of the lowest wages, so what do we expect!

Hey could be way off the mark and only a wild stab in the dark, but the ability to speak english would always be a good start i reckon. :D

Hmm, maybe this is not the thread to admit working for one of the biggest outsourced customer care and billing companies in the world................:D















Sorry

[Edited on 29-11-2005 by Rob B]

That's Manchester out of the equation then.:lol::lol:

Its the cold calling that gets me.

ring ring , ring ring........"Hello"

"Good evening Sir, How are you?"

" If your selling im not interested!"

"Er..........can i tell you about my product?"

" Can i tell you about getting pssed off with these calls?"

Click burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

A number of companies have UK call centres for "important" customers so they don't have to contend with that issue. If you have a substantial spend, or are percieved to be in some way important to them, you'll get treated differently.

Offshoring all comes down to cost. It's cheaper to employ someone with a degree in Delhi than someone with an ASBO in Allerton. They're also more reliable, and interested in working.

Looking back 5 years, call centres were a saving grace in many deprived parts of the UK, but with increasing wage demands, and the high rate of staff churn, it's not surprising that they've been off-shored. Rapid changes in technology are making this much easier all the time.

It's a sad state of affairs, but it's the economics of this nation of ours. It's why we all try to buy stuff cheaper overseas, and are never happy because life's always better elsewhere.

IVR systems, voice robots and automated queues are plain wrong, and cause more issues than they resolve. NatWest have gained a lot of market share from their methods of eliminating these, and others should learn from it.

As for cold callers, well, scum of the earth, but that's a different issue altogether. Two organisations lost my business altogether after persisting in calling and trying to sell me more stuff after being asked not to.

Our "control room" is now nothing more than a call centre..................no wonder everything is slipping!