I had a client with a huge issue. I reached out to @TalkieIT here who put me on to Matt ( hi Matt - hope you have joined us now and getting geeked out). 

Matt was great - started the ball rolling. 

My experience was a mixed bag but at the end of the day there were a few Spark people who really stepped up - Just wanted to publicly say thanks. They have made the life of one 85 year old, who was in deep poo owing to the actions of a mobster, who can now rest easy this Christmas knowing she can buy food and pay rent without debt collectors on her back.  I'm quick to bag bad service, but also want to make sure good ( in fact bloody awesome) service is acknowledged as well. 

While my start was rocky ( not TalkieIT or Matts fault) I ended up raising a TDR.  Kate from the TDR team got hold of me. She has confirmed that the client reached out for help and was pretty much ignored.

She then resolved the issue, credited back funds and has done an AWESOME job of resolving this using common sense, courtesy and a strong client focus. Cannot praise her response highly enough - not just because I got what my client needed but the way she handled it and followed up. She did what she said she was going to do.  I could have achieved far less and still be satisfied with her response. The fix she put in place exceeded my highest expectations.  People like TalkieIt, Matt, King and her, and the occasional front line person give me hope that there is still service left in an ISP. :) 

The frontline teams are a difficult mob to work with. Today's experience was getting put through to a team who I had to repeat everything 3  -5 times, and who despite me almost yelling at them , "I dont care about the voice mail, I'm trying to get the toll bar in place" still kept banging on about voice mail, sending me to the mobile team ( despite it being a land line issue ) and effectively wasted another 90 minutes of my life putting me through to the wrong people with the wrong information.  I'll freely admit I lost my cool with the 4th person I got to and gave him a really hard time. To his credit he actually gave a damn and followed up to try to get me to the right team ( Thanks King).  However,I would have to say 90% or more of my interactions with front line staff are aweful, stress inducing, waste of time experiences. 

But - if more Kiwis like TalkieIT, Kate, Matt etc worked at Spark it would have a rocking rep as a great company. ( hint hint hint to whoever the CEO is). 

Again thanks for your help.

Shane