nga.enquiries

I have just received a standard reply to an enquiry I made at 16.36. "Out of Office"
What sort of hours do they work? 9 to 5 is usual isn't it? I believe that at one time they were reasonably good at responding to requests for information but I think they are becoming a bit of a joke now. Were they not set up to actually respond to enquiries?
The "Out of Office" response I got was to an email I sent reminding them that it was now 15 working days (three weeks) since I had sent my original enquiry without reply.
Chocolate and fireguard spring to mind.

Out of office can also mean off site and at a meeting...

Alas as Openreach was set-up as a layer well away from the consumer there should be no surprise they do not deal with consumer stuff very well.

The out of office reply is just there to let you know they have received your question.

Assume it looks like this...?

Thank you for contacting Openreach about fibre broadband.

We will respond to your enquiry normally within 15 working days.

Please ensure that you have read our FAQs http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/faq and note that if your question is already covered here, you will not receive an answer to your enquiry. This includes questions about availability of fibre broadband in areas marked as �not currently in rollout plans�. For these issue, please contact your County or Borough Council who may be appropriating funding from the Governments BDUK initiative to enhance the Openreach commercial rollout of fibre broadband in your area.
If you do not include a working telephone number and full address details, your enquiry will not be dealt with.

Please also be aware that questions about live fibre broadband service including speed issues should be made to your Communications Provider as we cannot respond to these.

BT staff hours vary depending on department and there are quite a lot who will work 8:00 - 16:00. One particular department that a friend works in has some strange hours - he was on a 7:00 - 14:00 or 12:00 - 19:00 working day.


edit to add:

And they actually put an OoO notification on. How many people do you know that do not bother and even when they go on holiday you have no idea as to whether an email has been seen or actioned.

Edited by MHC (Thu 24-Oct-13 17:27:48)

I should think their email address is now well posted across various forums, so they are probably getting ten times the amount of emails they used to.

Thanks to MS again for introducing utterly worthless rubbish that clogs network and mail inboxes. Even Lotus mail done the same, from what I can remember.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/templates/e-mail-m...

Nick

Also people forget to turn the thing off, then complain to IT they do not see mails flagged.

MS dumb and dumber.

Nick

In reply to a post by Lethe:

Even Lotus mail done the same, from what I can remember.

Notes mail doesn't pre-populate (neither does outlook from what I can see) - but Notes DOES remind you on a daily basis if you forget to switch off the out of office setting.

Outlook also reminds you daily if "Out of Office" reply is still switched on.

And depending on which version of Outlook it also allows you to set both Start and End dates so that it turns itself off automatically.

In reply to a post by MHC:

And depending on which version of Outlook it also allows you to set both Start and End dates so that it turns itself off automatically.

Good

Yep, 2010 definitely does. And OoO messages predate Outlook from what I remember - so not an MS thing but an "industry standard". Outlook also allows you to set different message for internal and external recipients (or in my case they are disabled for externals as I generally don't want to advertise to random people who might send me email that I have gone on holiday!).

They reply to me after 23 days waiting!

Think you're seeing this as the wrong way.

This is basically a lazy way of saying "Yes, we have got your e-mail and we will reply to your e-mail within xx working days.

They leave their OoO enabled at all the time so whoever emails at any time to this mailbox will get the OoO reply to let you know that they have got your e-mail.

You can set it to reply to only people in your address book, and have separate messages for internal and external addresses. It will also only send the message once to each address.

Indeed. But I don't use my address book much

In reply to a post by ian72:

And OoO messages predate Outlook from what I remember - so not an MS thing but an "industry standard".

Unix or VMS program called "vacation" I seem to recall

What I failed to mention was that two previous emails to them on 12th Sep and 22nd Sep were not responded to in any way. No "Out of Office" just ignored. The "Out of Office" reply was the first response I had had, hence the post re. odd office hours.

".....there should be no surprise they do not deal with consumer stuff very well. "

Shocking! So is there a department with an email address staffed with people who can and will deal appropriately with the people who's custom helps contribute to their salaries or do we just suck it up and accept we are dealing with a virtual monopoly?

I think nga is no longer to reply to customer now.

As the commercial roll-out is ending then yes I would expect a running down of that office, with councils taking on more of the mantle of informing the local public of the roll-out, and the more they push take-up the bigger the clawback will be.

Openreach running the line was always an oddity considering their lack of interface with the consumer. If I get a bad coffee at Starbucks I don't email the coffee grower in costa rica.

The less people deal with Openreach the better, as then it means people will reduce their assumptions that it is all BT end to end, and we might see more people buying from the other FTTC/FTTP retailers.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Openreach running the line was always an oddity considering their lack of interface with the consumer. If I get a bad coffee at Starbucks I don't email the coffee grower in costa rica.

Then we need a vendor (ISP) neutral way of determining if a certain home can order FTTC and when. The nga address was the only way that was cross CP.

If you have a Sky line, or a TalkTalk line, you can't get any data out of the BTwholesale checker, which strangely isn't an Openreach checker - which yet again reinforces the assumption that BT is actually one entity which has had different names stamped on it to hoodwink the regulator.

The less people deal with Openreach the better, as then it means people will reduce their assumptions that it is all BT end to end, and we might see more people buying from the other FTTC/FTTP retailers.

Nice idea, but too many people are clueless as to how the ADSL services worked with the LLU operators. People panic about their land line (why I don't know, I wish I could get rid of mine) and think they should have a BT line but then have any broadband, which means Sky/TalkTalk don't get the business.

The other gotcha is the phone book... cable/Sky/TalkTalk lines aren't in the phone book are they. Some people don't like this. I see its often the older generations who are more attached to the phone line, or those where mobile phone service is "patchy" (polite term) at best.

Lo! And indeed behold! I think someone must have mentioned this thread to nga enquiries .
I received a reply today. Not a concrete,unequivocal answer, more a hedging of bets but at least a message of hope.

I had a reply from them once.. only once mind. Nice chap offered to go away and check for me, haven't heard anything since despite a couple of emails in their direction.

Cabinet 78 on the "LCCHO" Chorley Exchange. Will it be upgraded? (all others in the area have) and if so when?

may be worth checking to see if covered under superfast lancs

Superfast Lancs don't appear to know anything about it apparently and got quite snarky with me..

Superfast Lancs on Twitter

so that means not in commercial buil also not in current lancashire BDUK current build - so could private fund via community / or developer