Nearly 3.5 hours on hold with Spark Faults, what is your longest wait on hold?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Nearly 3.5 hours on hold with Spark Faults, what is your longest wait on hold?

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Jase2985

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#2263472 24-Jun-2019 15:12

tdgeek:

Most of the faults are not ISP faults, as ISP's don't own the copper or fibre networks

so what? i have a relationship with my ISP to provide me internet. if my internet goes down who do i go to for help? my ISP or chorus/SCC/any of the up stream providers no i go to my ISP. its their problem, and they can pass the ball to someone else if its identified that its outside their network.

But they will know pretty quickly thats the case, but still they should be letting their customers know.

compare sparks outage map to chorus' at the moment, big difference right, how many spark users are able to find out the status of their service with out needing to call?

Bung:
They own the customer relationship. I don't expect the ISP to only report faults in their own hardware.

Exactly this, people don't need to know why its down, they just need to know its down so they don't need to bother calling and waiting on the line for 3.5 hours. if an ETA is known throw that up too but hey, the internet is down, im going to play outside.

tdgeek:

And if you called in and asked the ETA and they said don't know what then?

if they have one put it on the outages page, if not well it is what it is. we all know you cant always have an ETA of when it will be fixed as sometimes you just dont know what the issue it.

Cabinet size outages are an acceptable size for reporting.

At least kepp your customers informed the best you can, and by doing this, well your phone staff probably wont be as busy.

but the fact is ISP's dont like posting these things because it makes them look vulnerable in the eyes of the public and their competition, even though most of the issues are not theirs to begin with.

decibel

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#2263543 24-Jun-2019 17:09

mattwnz:

But 3.5 hours hold time is unacceptable.

yes but they will all answer you quicker if you ring the SALES phone number.

[expletive deleted.]

mattwnz

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#2263546 24-Jun-2019 17:13

decibel:
mattwnz:

But 3.5 hours hold time is unacceptable.

yes but they will all answer you quicker if you ring the SALES phone number.

[expletive deleted.]

Actually I tried that as I had two mobiles phoning and the sales one also didn't get answered.

mattwnz

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#2263547 24-Jun-2019 17:16

chevrolux:
mattwnz:

I didn't have any internet though to check online, and had to phone someone to do it for me. Not only that but the phone message actually redirects me to go to the outages webpage, and not to chorus or any other system. The app also wouldn't have worked as no wifi due to the outage. . It would be best if there was a way to check outages on the phone via an automated phone message which is what other providers do. There was only one outage mentioned on the outages page, and the outages listed on online chat which listed mine was only 1 line. I would prefer to spend 5 minutes listening to a list of outage areas, than 3.5 hours on hold which was essentially the only way I could find out why it was down. I have checked chorus, and that doesn't even show that there was a recent outage in my area, so it is like it never happened.

But 3.5 hours hold time is unacceptable.

And mobile data wasn't working too?

It's 2019. People need to look at other ways than picking up the phone to resolve issues.

I don't use mobile data because even though it is 2019 , the casual rate is still about a dollar per MB or 10mb on Vodafone prepay. Plus I always tend to use wifi. So who pays for that, just to find out if there is an outage on map, when the map didn't actually show the outage anyway

mattwnz

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#2263553 24-Jun-2019 17:29

Just an update as both my internet and phone have been down for most of the day again for the second day in a row, and are still down. Currently using mobile data.
I've called spark fault s again today and the hold time was nearly two hours. Was told it was due to the same problem and yet again the spark outages map hadn't been updated and the chorus one also didn't show the outage. I see however 5 hours later it had been.
Was told the reason for the long hold time was because there were around 20000 people are affected by these two major outages, and a big percentage of them are calling up to find out why it was down. They agreed that they should have a message when the hold instead of music to list known outages so then people could hang up if they are on an affected area. This was the faults line so that would be a common sense thing to do. I do wonder if these call center systems are actually tested properly to cope with this sort of thing. I am sure my last ISP had an automated network status option so I could check. I would happily work as a consultant to help spark improve the systems as currently they are not wotking, and as I am a spark shareholder that is a concern to me. I also would have thought that as they are using overseas call centers, that when there is high demand due to an outage, extra capacity would come online to cope with that demand. Really there should be a maximum time limit for hold. I would be embarrassed to keep customers waiting on hold for that amount of time

mattwnz

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#2263589 24-Jun-2019 19:20

Batman:

I would just select the call back option. They usually call you back within the time frame indicated.

I didn't get this option when calling faults. Although when I called the sales line today, I did. Maybe it is reserved for certain times of the day, or certain types of calls? Or maybe there is a fault with the system if it doesn't always give the option. Or maybe it is based on how many staff are allocated to service customers at that time of the day. Who knows.

Anyway after about 7 hours of outage, my internet has magically come back online again. But not holding my breath it won't happen again. The one thing I have learnt is that using fibre for our landline is less reliable than copper. I can't ever remember having outages with copper on the actual landline. Yet I have had many phone line outages on this new connection with fibre.

jonathan18

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#2263611 24-Jun-2019 19:54

mattwnz: I don't use mobile data because even though it is 2019 , the casual rate is still about a dollar per MB or 10mb on Vodafone prepay. Plus I always tend to use wifi. So who pays for that, just to find out if there is an outage on map, when the map didn't actually show the outage anyway

This may be OT, but maybe it's a good time to also look at your mobile plan?!

I'm guessing many would assume that most people (especially those on GZ) would have a mobile package that includes data, considering how cheap it is now. There are so many advantages of having data - and you've found out one of them!

$16 a month with Skinny gets you 1.25GB a month as well as heaps of minutes/texts; even $9 gets you 250MB. If you're really focused on pay-as-you-go, data is 6c/MB with Warehouse Mobile.

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mattwnz

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#2263640 24-Jun-2019 21:18

jonathan18:

mattwnz: I don't use mobile data because even though it is 2019 , the casual rate is still about a dollar per MB or 10mb on Vodafone prepay. Plus I always tend to use wifi. So who pays for that, just to find out if there is an outage on map, when the map didn't actually show the outage anyway

This may be OT, but maybe it's a good time to also look at your mobile plan?!

I'm guessing many would assume that most people (especially those on GZ) would have a mobile package that includes data, considering how cheap it is now. There are so many advantages of having data - and you've found out one of them!

$16 a month with Skinny gets you 1.25GB a month as well as heaps of minutes/texts; even $9 gets you 250MB. If you're really focused on pay-as-you-go, data is 6c/MB with Warehouse Mobile.

Just returning after another 2 hour outage on Spark.

I am just on prepay, as don't use the actual phone enough or data enough to justify a monthly fee, and I am always near a wifi connection. I am also not a big mobile user, mainly use an ipad instead of a mobile, and I don't like contracts or plans for mobiles. If I had mobile data, I would use 1.25 gb up in a day, or wouldn't use it at all, except when there is an outage like this. Even 1.25Gb of data isn't much these days. Just today while my spark connection has been offline I have chewed through 300MB of data out of the 500MB unit I purchased, using it conservatively. I understand spark do have some form of limited free data for users experiencing outages , but only if with Spark mobile. Whereas I am with Vodafone. Maybe they should provide all broadband users with a free mobile phone to allow them to check the outages webpage when it goes down. But then again the outages map isn't updated often enough, so checking would be a waste of time in this case.It was 4-5 hours today before the outage in the Wairarapa was posted, then it lists two towns affected but not my town. Yesterdays one wasnt't listed at all. But think how people who don't have any mobile, or any way to check why their phone and internet is down, especially the elderly. They may have a basic mobile, but they would have to wait 3.5 hours yesterday and 2 hours today to find out what was going on.

mattwnz

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#2263641 24-Jun-2019 21:21

I should also add regarding the callback service. I got my father to also contact Spark today about it, and he got the call back option. He was called back, but it went to hold music, and he then got cut off before he was put through to anyone. So the callback system also has problems. It didn't call him back either after that. I just really do wonder if these systems are quality assessed on a regular basis.

The other thing that annoys me, is that when they do resolve it, Spark never actually say what the cause of the fault was, or any explanation. Just that it has been fixed. Nor any apology. Basically this is the only info you get, but then the outage may occur again within hours.

Good news. It looks like your issue's all fixed up, so everything should be working as normal.

If you're still experiencing problems, you can chat with us and reopen your case using our online tracker and case number ####

I am now having to get back onto live chat to try to get the original problem with the landline that keeps going for the last 9 months since the new fibre connection was setup, resolved. But live chat seems dead, no one replying tonight. They wouldn't address it while there was an ongoing outage, and they closed the original case without actually resolving it or providing me with the information requested.

mattwnz

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#2264142 25-Jun-2019 14:57

my father who was more annoyed about the outages than me, had a long talk with Spark’s Executive Office.

They were very apologetic and will try to do better. Chorus hadn’t notified them of the outage.

They are consider putting in a link so people can notify them of outages. Also looking at texting affected customers if there is an outage.

hio77

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#2264148 25-Jun-2019 15:19

mattwnz:

The other thing that annoys me, is that when they do resolve it, Spark never actually say what the cause of the fault was, or any explanation. Just that it has been fixed. Nor any apology. Basically this is the only info you get, but then the outage may occur again within hours.

This is because at this stage, all chorus say is "We have fixed the connection"

Often it's not till hours later that we know what they Actually physically did and that's provided in quite cryptic notes.

Would you really want to have a message saying "REP Crd CT RJ F2F cx34242"

Often that also comes with sign off codes that tell us something like repaired jackpoint. to which does not match the report at all. ala inconsistencies that would cause the customer to come back and go "No, Chorus didnt do that, they did this are they charging me!"

that really doesnt mean anything you without all the context that goes with it...

Chorus are working on a project in the next year or so to replace the tools that the field techs use to improve this experience.

As i said initally, i apologies for the experience, but i can only offer you the things within my control.

Spark Prepay customers are also welcome to connection promise free data.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

decibel

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#2264305 25-Jun-2019 16:54

mattwnz:

my father who was more annoyed about the outages than me, had a long talk with Spark’s Executive Office.

They were very apologetic and will try to do better. Chorus hadn’t notified them of the outage.

They are consider putting in a link so people can notify them of outages. Also looking at texting affected customers if there is an outage.

So Spark had not been notified of the outage by Chorus.?

It would appear then that I have a BETTER NMS in my garage than Spark has. Total disgrace.

hio77

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#2264373 25-Jun-2019 19:20

decibel:

So Spark had not been notified of the outage by Chorus.?

It would appear then that I have a BETTER NMS in my garage than Spark has. Total disgrace.

i highly suspect there is alot more to the story that has been lost in translation.

I dont have the details to make a factual comment however.

Spark on average pickup outages far faster than chorus do through out automation, Any that are missed are likely quite small and communicated by chorus.

The Exception here is a copper faults that are small and not on a service element (say physical copper pair faults in an area) chorus only notify for large pair counts currently.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

quickymart

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#2265391 26-Jun-2019 21:57

(as posted in the other thread)...speaking of "wait times"... https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/113615702/contact-energy-is-impossible-to-reach

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