BT have monkeys man their helpdesks

[qubit]

To quote AAISP:

Our favourite telco are insisting that we identify the end users perceived problem. They cannot understand that the we have a technical end user that perceives "random packet loss" as "the problem". It is not "when I got to facebook it is slow", it is "I can see there is random packet loss". They also fail to understand that *WE* are their customer and what we as the customer perceived as the fault is measurable random packet loss on the line...

As an ISP I would far rather a customer came to me saying "I see 2% packet loss" or "I see 2% packet loss to XXX". I can test and diagnose a report like that. What I don't want is someone saying "The internets are slow". It seems our favourite telco wants the latter and when you provide actual detailed reports of exactly what is wrong they cannot cope."

Believe me, I've experienced 'customer service' like this from BT and since I left, I've had excellent service from my current ISP.

BT are totally incompetent and I'm starting to wonder how they stay in business. Oddly enough, the only thing they get right are their adverts and slick website to suck you in. Funny that...

ISP Review

www.bt.com

 

[Batou1986]

That's because the ppl that answer the phones follow flow charts just like every other support service.

I had to get in touch with a regional supervisor with Comcast before i got anyone who actually understood how cable internet works and how it was a problem with a piece of there equipment that was faulty.
Not to mention how i had "techs" come to my house and tell me that my signal was fine only for me to bring up there own activation service for the techs that reported 1 out of 5 devices in my house an acceptable upstream.

Comcasts response "there is no problem"
Its ok i laugh at them now when there SECURE GUARD service emails me thinking my tons of encrypted bt traffic is a bot guess they will stop bugging me about copyrights that no one in the US holds copyrights for.

 

[silkstone]

I used to work in a BT Tele-helpline. It's all outsourced to other companies where the training truley is not that great and even overseas. BT doesn't actually recruit or train any of the people and the main thing they are interested in is getting you off the phone as quickly as possible so they can close the case. If their "cases" go on for too much time, they lose their jobs. So, most of the time they are more interested not in solving the problem, but getting you to think that there is no problem.

 

[qubit]

I used to work in a BT Tele-helpline. It's all outsourced to other companies where the training truley is not that great and even overseas. BT doesn't actually recruit or train any of the people and the main thing they are interested in is getting you off the phone as quickly as possible so they can close the case. If their "cases" go on for too much time, they lose their jobs. So, most of the time they are more interested not in solving the problem, but getting you to think that there is no problem.

I left BT in January over seriously crap customer service, but I have to admit that they didn't try to just close the call on me. It was more a war of attrition over a couple of months, where they would keep on going, doing one useless thing after another and just leading me round in circles, literally trying the same things over and over that didn't work and repeatedly sending out an engineer out when that wasn't needed.

And the fault? Just a little setting in their BRAS (Broadband Remote Access Server) was stuck. Due to me changing ADSL modems a couple of times, it confused the BRAS into setting a lower throttling limit than my line could support and leaving it there. It should have been set to 18Mb/s, but got stuck at just 12. All someone had to do was just log into it, set the damned option to 18M and that was it, but it was too much for them. In the end, the third engineer visit (and the same guy twice!) went the extra mile for me, spoke to BT Wholesale and got them to do it on the spot. Took all of 5 minutes. Now, why couldn't their outsourced helpdesk manage this?!

 

[Completely Bonkers]

You think BT customer service is bad? Try SKYPE!!! I use a paid skype service for business, and last week and today the skype lines have been failing. Tried to contact them. Receive NOTHING BUT MONKEY canned phrases.

I'm minded to copy+paste their rubbish and the emails they wrote writing between equally incompetent CS teams/departments. They should hand their heads in shame.

My impression of Skype has now hit the rocks. I was OK with the occasional technical hitch; it happens to us all. But MONKEYS for customer service is unacceptable and demonstrates incompetent management.

 

[kylzer]

www.bt.com

Ohh this old chestnut?

I personally use a BT reseller much better than BT themselfs.

 

[Frick]

Technical support is always tricky. At least in sweden, you cannot get a lower paycheck than working as someone who talks in the phone. And it doesn't matter if it's technical support, selling or customer service (unless it's more highend tech support). So that makes it a guarantee you get young and/or uneducated people. If you're too good you have no reason to make minimum wage, you can probably find something better.

Also sometimes people say stuff that they think make them sound smart and later it turns out they have friends who told them to say that and the actual caller don't know squat.

EDIT: And sometimes you have monkeys of course. But I'd say about 80% of the calls can be solved with flowcharts.

 

[twilyth]

So, most of the time they are more interested not in solving the problem, but getting you to think that there is no problem.

These are not the data packets you are looking for.

 

[Mussels]

i just work my way in and get the direct contact to their IT specialists, who usually know less than i do.


"hey buddy, getting packet loss at your core router ****.**** etc, causing random drops to international traffic out of your sydney link, you should look into that"


four hours later they send out an email "our expert technicians have found a fault in our international link from sydney..."

 

[LifeOnMars]

I agree whole heartedly with you Qubit. My partner and I used BT 4 years ago and it was a farce TBH. Customer service was shocking and at the time was obviously outsourced to people who didn't have a clue. I could hear them turning the pages of Technical help books which included such scripted crap they were totally oblivious to what our actual complaint was.

We currently use virgin and I have to say it has been an excellent experience. On the one occasion we had a problem, it was rectified very quickly. Never have any issues with download speed or connectivity either and I'm wireless on my rig.

 

[Widjaja]

Not the only place....
NZT is the same. :/