Orcon: As bad as it gets

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, 2talk and Vocus) › Orcon: As bad as it gets

marpada

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#99592 22-Mar-2012 14:16

Hi geekzoners, I'm sorry for the rant but need to get it out of me.

I've been a happy Orcon customer for 6 months. Several friends had recommended Orcon because their good and responsive support unlike other ISPs. I was really impressed by how streamlined the joining process was: I just signed up, received the Genius modem in a few days, plugged it and bingo! Connected. These Orcon guys are really smart!

Unfortunately the problems started and after almost three weeks without internet and phone service, a replacement modem, two Chorus tech visits (that would be another story), countless hours wasted waiting on hold calling the helpdesk line, absolute no response for written tickets , tickets closed without a solution, tickets and broken promises, the problem persists and it seems that they don't give a damm.

I feel so disappointed, deceived, humiliated and impotent that I don't know what else can I try, other than the name and shame, to get any kind of response from Orcon. I would be happy to just cancel my contract and move to a company that really cares a bit for paying customers, but I guess they'll want to charge me the cancellation fee even when they are failing to provide the service. However after so much wasted time and frustration does seems the best idea.

Please Orcon, I just want the Orcon Genius service working again, no more canned apologies, broken promises and "we'll call you back" bullsh*t. Is that too much to ask?
As a friendly warning for those thinking in signing for Orcon, just try calling the helpdesk technicall support and you'll see what I mean

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#598681 22-Mar-2012 14:44

What sort of issues were you having ? Slow connections ? No phone service ? Ive been on Genius since day one, and had very little issues with it.

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marpada

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#598696 22-Mar-2012 15:00

The modem doesn't stay connected for more than 15 mintues (at the very best), and once it loses its sync it make take up to 30 minutes to connect again. The first time the Chorus guy said that it was a dodgy modem, so we were sent a new Genius modem, to no avail. Second time the same tech changed the port in the cabinet (not sure if those are the exact terms) as he saw there were some errors with the one that was being used, but didn't want to wait for 15 minutes to check if the problem persisted as he was more interested in moving to his next work instead of making sure that our issue was solved.

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#598724 22-Mar-2012 16:20

Does sound like line/wiring issue - cant really blame Orcon too much if theyve put forward the job to Chorus, but it is frustrating when it takes so long to sort out... took me 3-4 Chorus guys to work out my line issue few years ago...

When it loses connection, is it just the PPP disconnecting or the complete line/ADSL ? If its the complete line/ADSL, then the tech should be able to see that from outside the house - if they cant see it outside but can inside, then Id suspect internal wiring issue or dodgy filter.

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lucky015

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#598744 22-Mar-2012 17:12

Sounds to me like the problem you are having is with the lines and unhelpful and uncaring people in charge of fixing the lines.

Although I'm sure an incompetent ISP does not help matters.

I would say there has been a massive drop in the quality of service provided by Chorus since the change from Transfield to Visionstream in my area, At the very least they seem to have lost any interest in actually solving problems in favor of closing tickets quickly, I'm guessing something along the lines of going from a paid per hour to paid per job basis.

Snackos

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#598775 22-Mar-2012 18:18

marpada: The modem doesn't stay connected for more than 15 mintues (at the very best), and once it loses its sync it make take up to 30 minutes to connect again. The first time the Chorus guy said that it was a dodgy modem, so we were sent a new Genius modem, to no avail. Second time the same tech changed the port in the cabinet (not sure if those are the exact terms) as he saw there were some errors with the one that was being used, but didn't want to wait for 15 minutes to check if the problem persisted as he was more interested in moving to his next work instead of making sure that our issue was solved.

Probably because he knew it wouldn't fix it and just wanted to move onto the next job.

Chorus are pretty useless.

johnr

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#598776 22-Mar-2012 18:21

Chorus were fantastic when my parents needed them 1 week ago

Logged a fault with them around 6pm and showed up about 10am following morning

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#598779 22-Mar-2012 18:32

lucky015:

Although I'm sure an incompetent ISP does not help matters.

Long as Orcon are putting forward the jobs to Chorus, Orcon cant be considered incompetent.

I had one semi-helpful Chorus tech during my issues, one useless one, and one great one...seems to depend who covers your area etc, some are great, some not so....

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lucky015

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#598780 22-Mar-2012 18:35

xpd:
lucky015:

Although I'm sure an incompetent ISP does not help matters.

Long as Orcon are putting forward the jobs to Chorus, Orcon cant be considered incompetent.

I had one semi-helpful Chorus tech during my issues, one useless one, and one great one...seems to depend who covers your area etc, some are great, some not so....

I wasn't specifically referring to this particular instance with my comment about Orcon's incompetence, More their general inability to contact people back, sort out billing issues and generally solve problems overall.

marpada

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#598816 22-Mar-2012 19:51

Maybe the issue would've been fixed on the first visit with a more professional or knowledable tech , but don't really want to point my finger to Chorus as it is Orcon I'm giving my money to.

In my job, and I'm sure yours too, it is not acceptable not to answer the phone when a customer calls, ignore written communication, close tickets if the problem is not solved, not to return a call if promised to and lie. Unfortunately Orcon doesn't seem to share this standard.

It's such a pity because the Genius is a great product, but really looking forward to moving a different ISP

lucky015

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#598825 22-Mar-2012 20:12

marpada: Maybe the issue would've been fixed on the first visit with a more professional or knowledable tech , but don't really want to point my finger to Chorus as it is Orcon I'm giving my money to.

In my job, and I'm sure yours too, it is not acceptable not to answer the phone when a customer calls, ignore written communication, close tickets if the problem is not solved, not to return a call if promised to and lie. Unfortunately Orcon doesn't seem to share this standard.

It's such a pity because the Genius is a great product, but really looking forward to moving a different ISP

While I do think Orcon as well as a number of other ISP's have very substandard practices for their Help Desks that are not actually likely to achieve anything positive, Fault tickets from what I have seen are opened by ISP's but are closed by Chorus.

ISP's pay money to Chorus for a service they provide to the customers, A service which they have extremely little direct control over when it comes to faults (Specifically in lines and wiring)

I would note that you should never expect a call center (Particularly an ISP) to call you back as it is highly unlikely there is a system in place to actually assist with doing so, It would be nice if everyone had policy to ban for low level call center staff but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case so instead they often offer and then never follow through, The same generally applies to Emails a lot of the time.

After a tour of the Orcon Call Center and and going over a few of their business practices I would laugh at any of their Rep's who offered to call me back or who suggested I may get a response from them from an email and I find it unlikely they would be any different to any other ISP.

marpada

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#598827 22-Mar-2012 20:16

Long as Orcon are putting forward the jobs to Chorus, Orcon cant be considered incompetent.

The "funny" thing is that the technician ran away leaving the job unfinished and it's me who has to call Orcon (ie spend a few hours on hold and tell the whole story again because they closed the ticket) to reschedule a visit and go back to square one, because the Chorus tech can't feedback Orcon. Don't really know what kind of relationship they have but anything but helpful to the customer.

lucky015

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#598831 22-Mar-2012 20:26

In all likeliness the origional CSR probably submitted a detailed fault including what you stated and the results of any tests from their end, This would have been submitted through their system and passed on to the Chorus Tech who looked at your line played with it a little before submitting a few words amounting to "Looked at line" and checking off the "Close ticket" check box and moving on to the next job.

The fault is cleared off their system and marked completed when Chorus close the fault, The details left from the Chorus Tech are accessible to the next CSR to look up the account but these don't always actually contain much info.

cokemaster

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#598838 22-Mar-2012 20:56

lucky015:
After a tour of the Orcon Call Center and and going over a few of their business practices I would laugh at any of their Rep's who offered to call me back or who suggested I may get a response from them from an email and I find it unlikely they would be any different to any other ISP.

You'll be surprised - some ISPs do have dedicated technical callback teams and systems. I know - I wrote an outbound broadband call centre management application that manages outbound calling for a certain ISP (complete with scheduling, slot management, wholesale integration, SMS acknowledgement, and self-service SMS rebooking functionality with L2 support).

Its really not that hard - the hardest bit is the mindset and policy shift.

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lucky015

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#598843 22-Mar-2012 21:07

cokemaster:
lucky015:
After a tour of the Orcon Call Center and and going over a few of their business practices I would laugh at any of their Rep's who offered to call me back or who suggested I may get a response from them from an email and I find it unlikely they would be any different to any other ISP.

You'll be surprised - some ISPs do have dedicated technical callback teams and systems. I know - I wrote an outbound broadband call centre management application that manages outbound calling for a certain ISP (complete with scheduling, slot management, wholesale integration, SMS acknowledgement, and self-service SMS rebooking functionality with L2 support).

Its really not that hard - the hardest bit is the mindset and policy shift.

Oooh, Interesting, That would be something I would like to see adopted across the board, The closest I have seen is SMS acknowledgement from Vodafone.

I'd be interested to see which ISPs actually have decent callback system in place however I have yet to actually receive a callback from any ISP.

I see you mention L2 Support which I imagine callbacks would actually come into play a little better (Lower call load mixed with the authority to actually authorize an outbound call) however in L1 it seems to be a rare sight to see.

styxgeist

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#598972 23-Mar-2012 10:41

Take them through the TDRS process if you've exhausted all other options. Gauranteed callback by a Contact centre team manager in a few days.

http://www.tdr.org.nz/

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