Terrible Customer Service

Hi guys

I wonder if anyone could give me any advice on a problem a customer of mine is having with BT?? I`ll post a letter I sent to BT on my friends behalf which explains the situation.

Thanks

Hello

I`m currently in the process of helping a customer of mine who is having a problem with their broadband connection. Basically they have not had a signal now for 10 days. They became so exasperated with the incompetence shown by the so called help line staff, that they called me (I`m an I.T. Technician) in to help. I`m afraid to say I didnt fare much better. Basically, the router is not synching at all. I tried a different router, new filters and with everything else unplugged and no joy. So I rung the support line and encountered the rudest customer service agent I have ever had the misfortune to talk to. He did a line test, and then told me that it was a fault on the phone line and not with broadband so I should ring BT`s fault department. It didnt matter that I told him I was currently speaking on the landline and there was no fault, or that a BT engineer had been out to check the line the previous day. He just ignored what I said and continuously repeated the mantra "phone BT fault line". Although it was pointless, I did phone the faults line, to be told there was no fault with the line, the problem was with the broadband. And so the circle of incompetence continued. After phoning the Broadband line again, I got through to someone who was at least more helpful, who told me there was an open fault on the phoneline and this was why it was being referred back to the landline people. I assured him that that fault had been rectified and the fault should have been closed. He acknowledged this and said he would invesigate further and get back to me.

I really couldnt believe the shocking service given by a company as prestigous as yours. It seems that the staff on the support lines simply read from a script and offer no real help to the user. I look forward to hearing your comments on this matter. The details of the customer I assisted are as follows:

ADSL not working and phone is working, it is pretty simple - ISP BT Retail should handle it, if that is who the ISP is in this case.

As for the scripting - welcome to modern call centres.

Hate to say Mr S this is not the case with modern call centres only call centres that have been outsourced to certain foriegn countries. As for the OP, i am not suprised at the incompetence with which you are facing, how long is there left on the contract ? trouble with BT broadband is it can take 3 months to fix a simple fault and you have to ask yourself is it really worth the lost time and phone calls ? wish I could say something more positive but we are talking about BT broadband here.

After reading this thread, can anyone please remind me why I came back to BT?

I must be mad, ADL24 was working fine.

Saying that so far things have been fine and all is working well, as long as it stays working I will be happy, not sure what I will do after the 18 months are up.

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with the complaint they should sort it a lot quicker than the normal so called help desks can.

Stick with it and escalte the level of complaint take a few weeks but you will get there had similar problems some time ago. But eventually sorted and got 3 month rebate on BB and a goody hamper.

I'll echo the suggestion to go the CEO route, he has a special team who will actually take ownership of your problem and it will get sorted. I've had two surreal situation solved in a few days by that team, they will actually call you to update you....

This is the case with many call and contact centres and sadly it�s not unique to offshore either. Many centres get through call and fault volumes by giving staff targets or fault resolution times to achieve. FATAL mistake as staff will always aim to meet the target because that is what they are told by the upper echelons, matters. That delivers absolutely no value to the customer at all.

customers want good service, technical aptitude and reliability and you won�t get that if your staff are scripted and are not allowed to break out of that cycle.

In my experience customers don't mind waiting a while if they get their issue resolved and without the need to keep on calling time and time again because the previous interaction with their service provider was poor.

We work on the basis that the people who do the work are best placed to provide the service customers expect, by understanding the demand that comes in from our customers we can respond and react to it.

That�s one of the reasons why I won�t allow scripts in my teams.

Gary