Back on Line!
- Thread starter hukent
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Chrisbassett
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We are with Virgin, it's the standard for the building we are in, so no installation fees. Good service except for a couple of hours each night when things can slow down. Generally have two laptops on VPN, tow iPhones, two iPads and the TV playing things from netflix with no real issue for most of the day.
Having said that, we just had a break on service yesterday morning. We reported it at 3.30am (don't ask!). Their support phone jockey insisted it was the modem, I insisted it was downstream somewhere in their network (pretty bloody obvious given the modem status)...they insisted again and we were told an engineer would come - on Tuesday next week. They then called back at 8.30 to tell me it would be fixed by 1pm yesterday as it was a downstream issue that affected multiple people (approx 2,000)...told them I was disappointed they didn't care enough to send someone for just me by that time; and that they hadn't believed me in the first place.
A customer service guy should be contacting me soon...hope it's something substantial as a way of apology.
Having said that, we just had a break on service yesterday morning. We reported it at 3.30am (don't ask!). Their support phone jockey insisted it was the modem, I insisted it was downstream somewhere in their network (pretty bloody obvious given the modem status)...they insisted again and we were told an engineer would come - on Tuesday next week. They then called back at 8.30 to tell me it would be fixed by 1pm yesterday as it was a downstream issue that affected multiple people (approx 2,000)...told them I was disappointed they didn't care enough to send someone for just me by that time; and that they hadn't believed me in the first place.
A customer service guy should be contacting me soon...hope it's something substantial as a way of apology.
Chrisbassett
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No, everything's fine, we ended up with only a ten hour outage, just a bit miffed the guy on the phone insisted on sticking to his script even though he agreed that my logic said it was wrong. Sometimes these places just don't "get" customer service and humility.
hukent
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No, still got it.....................
CatmanV2
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That would be mostly because consumers wont pay to provide decent help services
C
CatmanV2
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Chrisbassett
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That would be mostly because consumers wont pay to provide decent help services
C
I've always believed in paying to get quality...and with the price I'm paying Virgin and from their sales pitch, I'd assumed that's what I was doing...turns out their support staff have been on the same cut-price client relationship training as those at all the cut-price back-street places I've used in the past (e.g. AT&T in the USA). At least this one didn't try to up-sell during the process of dealing with my issue...maybe that's what I'm paying extra for, to be spared the incredulity.
Aaaaaaand breathe!!!
Actually (takes a deep breath), I've not had good ISP service since I was with a little place in the early 90's - a small setup who gave up being an ISP and hosting service because they realised they would have to expand beyond where they wanted to be to deal with all the extra clients they were getting by word of mouth. They knew they would need to compromise quality and didn't want to (most of their clients had the mobile number for the support manager if we didn't get what we needed from their staff, including me, a lowly dial-up home user!). They carried on doing the part they loved and knew they could do well ( web design and deployment and running an SMS gateway) leaving the web hosting & ISP grunt-work to others. I remember paying 25% more than a similar service from demon - but I never had to deal with a wonk who thought their script/protocol was more important than me, and that can feel priceless.
Emtee
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That would be mostly because consumers wont pay to provide decent help services
C
Really? So it's the consumers fault? Hmmm…………………………………………………….
CatmanV2
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Bluntly, yes. I face this on a daily basis. Customers 'want' 24/7/365 resilient service / support. So I tell them how much it will cost (not how much I need to charge note) and suddenly they're not interested. Because the 'consumer' buys on price. We (consumers) buy the cheapest insurance, the cheapest broadband, the cheapest food. And it's just not the same as buying a train ticket, or a hotel room. It's all *lovely* right up until the moment something breaks. Then when we have to deal with people whose training consists being given a script (because don't get me started on how much it actually costs to *train* people to technical support, let alone keep them, because no sooner do they know how they bloody systems work, the last thing they want to do is answer the phone to another idiot who can't even be bothered to update their anti-virus software, they go off an get an job with a 50% pay rise as a junior sysadmin), we complain. Like we complain when we find horse in our quarter pounders (I'm sorry, does anyone *really* think that 1 pound of beef can really be grown, slaughtered, processed, turned into burgers, packed, shipped and sold for a *pound*?!), or we complain when our insurance company tries to wriggle out of our claim for $whatever, or that our £3 t-shirts from Primark fall apart after 2 washes or....
(and breaaaaaattthhhhe)
Chris, wasn't Fastnet by any chance, was it? They had the best CS team I ever dealt with (including mine) but they charged for it. By 'eck it was worth it though.
Chris, surely you don't actually believe marketing?
C
CatmanV2
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CatmanV2
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