Trusted
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Yesterday when I got home from work, I found my Internet not working. The last time I had seen my PC online from logmein.com was earlier that morning. I rang your 0800GETXTRA number at 5.30pm and selected the appropriate selections to get your help desk. After eliminating my modem & computers as the cause of the outage, it was determined that there was a technical fault at your end. I was informed that they would call me back, which may have happened. But I had to call back at 7pm to find out if it was indeed a technical fault. I was patched through to Peter (not his real name) in Auckland, who was excellent and very helpful. He explained that I was most likely mis-jumpered at the exchange. This had happened to me before back in February. But he would get a technician to look into it. But this could take until Thursday afternoon but they would be in touch.
Today I rang at 12.30pm to check on the status of my connection mishap and was told that I would have to wait until 3pm tomorrow for reconnection. I found this wait unacceptable and expressed my concerns about this delay. As far as I’m concerned, I’m paying you top dollar for an Internet service, a service which I am not receiving through no fault of my own.
Tonight when I got home at 5pm, I reset my router and checked the connection as a matter of course, hoping for a miracle and yes, I had my miracle, it was working, and the ADSL2+ had been turned on as well. For this I thank you. As per the advice of the help desk worker earlier in the afternoon, I called The 0800 GET XTRA help desk again to arrange a credit for my inconvenience. What I didn’t realise is that this phone call would take up another 60 minutes of my time and counting.
Tonight the person I spoke to (T######) tried telling me that I pay $59.95 a month for my Internet, which I don’t, and decided to argue with me about it. I was then offered an insulting $1.59 credit for being without Internet for over 24 hours and spending over 3 hours on the phone, plus the inconvenience of having to take unpaid leave from my job to meet a technician due tomorrow. When I had this problem back in February, I received a $79.95 credit for one months broadband as the fault was Telecoms, and then back in February, that issue was only resolved once I involved an acquaintance who works for Telecom Broadband. When it became obvious that the person I was trying to converse with didn’t listen to what I was saying, or read the case notes, I asked to be transferred to a NZ based tech. I was told they cannot do this, yet the person I spoke to on my 2nd call last night was able to do this. I’m confused as to why some people can and some people can’t transfer me to NZ based customer services representatives.
When I found that this avenue was going nowhere, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I have knowledge that there are 3 supervisors per floor and I should not be on hold for more than 5 minutes to speak to one. After 10 minutes on hold waiting to speak to a supervisor, I got told I was not speaking to a supervisor, but a senior technician, still based in the Philippines (T######). I reiterated that I wanted to speak with a supervisor. After laying down that I asked to speak to a supervisor, I am entitled to speak to a supervisor and she was going to put me through to a supervisor, did she put me on hold again. I again was on hold for over 5 minutes waiting for a supervisor. I finally got one. (T######). He told me that I still had to meet the technician, which I am quite happy to do, regardless of the fact I am going to lose income to do so, but would like to get to the bottom of this problem. He did not agree to increase the credit. I informed him that I was insulted by the paltry amount being offered given that I have spent over 3 hours on the phone and to his credit is going to follow up my complaint that T9###### argued with me regarding my broadband plan.
I would love to know how is it that telecom can cause the fault, make me do the running around on the phone and meeting technicians, yet not offer anything close to decent compensation for the trouble this has caused. I was earlier planning on moving my familys mobile calling to telecom (added business of $120 a month, minimum) however, given this recent experience, I am reconsidering that decision and also looking at moving my broadband and calling to another ISP. To say I am disillusioned with your company is an understatement.
I look forward to hearing Telecom’s response to this appalling customer service I have received.
And now, I thought I would share with you all, my blog post from today, where this issue is so beautifully resolved:
Some of you may or may not remember my original post which basically was an email I sent to Telecom about a recent broadband outage I suffered. I sent it to a couple of other people as well. And eventually word trickled down to me that my email was being used as an example as how poor customer service can bite you in the bum, or something like that. But anyway, I eventually calmed down and resigned myself to being shafted and the whole experience faded into a distant (jaded) memory.
Today when I got home from work, I had a letter from Telecom in the box. To be perfectly honest, I was expecting it to be a confirmation of a direct debit I had set up, but on opening it didn’t look like a direct debit letter, it looked like another kind of letter. I thought, oh how fantastic, more nonsense about being upgraded to ADSL2+, but alas no, IT WAS AN APOLOGY AND CONTAINED THE WORD SORRY IN THE TITLE. Sorry for yelling, but I am that surprised.
There’s a few sentences in this letter that I find pleasing.
In recent weeks in some parts of the country, we haven’t been able to fix telephone and broadband faults as quickly as we’d like. This is not good enough.
As you read on, you basically get the feeling that they’re trying to blame Visionstream and the recent industrial action as the cause for the delay. If I was a contractor, I would be feeling pretty pissed off about some of the things, but I’m not. I’m a customer, ya know, the customer is always right.
Then further down there’s another part I really like:
We’d like to make it up to you
As you’ve had a fault recently, I apologise on behalf of Telecom New Zealand that you were affected by this situation.
The rest of the letter details criteria for restitution from Telecom, if you remember all I was asking for was one month of broadband charges, well, I have received a credit for my home phone line and my monthly broadband charges. All up, That leaves me with $22 to pay.
Thanks Telecom for coming to the party. It is better late than never I guess and I think congratulations are in order for stepping up and sending out these letters, admitting that things could be better and putting it right with the consumers. Don’t forget us consumers. We pay your salary. I leave the last word of this post to Telecom:
Thank you for bearing with us. We are doing out best to put a bad situation right, and we never forget who keeps us in business – you, the customer.
ID Verified
