Zen Support - Update?

Greetings,

Phil (and/or other) Zen staffers who would know...

Do you have an update on the state of play with support, in terms of the new staff you're training - are any coming on board yet to serve customers, and/or do you have any timescales.

I'm increasingly concerned that support wait times are growing, and, while the only reason to call Zen is when something totally breaks (which almost certainly involves Zen raising a request to BT), the issue is becoming more noticeable.

Does Zen Enhanced care get around this issue, and if so, is there any relation to the introduction of this, and the increasing support times. I note the press release says:

"The introduction of Zen Enhanced Care does not mark any deterioration in regular service standards, it simply recognises that many organisations today require a guaranteed fault resolution time and advanced service level for all business critical operations over their Broadband connections."

..but from where I'm sitting, there is a direct correlation to the time when Support times rose and this service came on-board.

Co-Incidence? If the 2 teams are different, where did the team to staff "Enhanced Care" support suddenly come from?

[NOTE: I am asking generally/publicly at this stage, and I'm still not sufficiently concerned that it warrants interaction from my Account Manager, but it's becoming close at times]

An update of sorts is here.

Probably not fully what your looking for, but hey, tis a start

hth

It was mentioned (somewhere I can't remember) that a new 'batch' were coming on line next week after completing training.

Edited by deleted (Sat 21-Oct-06 18:55:25)

If you think about it, there has to be some strong reason for anyone to part a considerable extra sum of money in order to recieve a decent level of support. If Zen offered the same standard of CS they did when I first joined, surely no one would bother forking out the extra. This so-called premium support is just about the worst idea I've ever seen from Zen.

In reply to:

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This so-called premium support is just about the worst idea I've ever seen from Zen

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But it's not Zen's idea, they are just re-selling a BT service.

The idea is fast resolution of BT faults, not Zen faults, if I've understood correctly.

Correct.
The enhanced care option is purely reselling the BT enhanced care (which has some assurance on fault resolution times) + providing an SLA.

You still speak to the same support staff - it does not mean that standard support will be any different.

More staff are being hired to address the current situation. I'm sure Skyfire will be along to reiterate this.

Hi there,

We are continuing to recruit in order to restore normal levels of service. The latest batch of new starters should begin taking calls towards the end of next week and more still will be starting the induction training the week following - we'll also be taking out new adverts to increase the rate of applicants, and have a whole new assessment process to speed up the selection between receiving a CV and offering a position. We're also delaying internal promotions to other teams to prevent any further reduction in service. We know, as well as our customers do, that the current situation is not acceptable. It is our main priority to get back to normal and stay there.

As has been mentioned several times - Enhanced Care is a BT service we're reselling, providing access to a dedicated team at BT. The support at Zen is still handled by the same teams so it has no impact at all on Standard Care service levels.

kind regards,
Phil D.Long

Hi Phil,

Thanks for taking the time for the update (especially at the weekend).

Also thanks for the clarification on the Enhanced Care - I recognised part of it was effectively TotalCare (?) but wasn't sure if it made a difference within Zen.

I look forward to normal service in due course.

It looks like you will also be having an influx of customers judging by this post in the Nildram forum...

http://bbs.adslguide.org.uk/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=nildram&Number=2715192

Be prepared for the usual questions of why 1 Gig of webspace + 1 Gig of webspace does not equal 2 Gig of webspace.

If you think about it, there has to be some strong reason for anyone to part a considerable extra sum of money in order to recieve a decent level of support. If Zen offered the same standard of CS they did when I first joined, surely no one would bother forking out the extra. This so-called premium support is just about the worst idea I've ever seen from Zen.

If the above is in reference to Enhanced Care; as posted elsewhere on this forum and on our website, the Enhanced Care package is a BT service we resell to deliver guaranteed response times from BT where a fault is raised to them. There is no 'two-tier' system or 'premium support' within Zen; all queries are dealt with by the same department of technical staff.