Telecom lied to me!

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lokinz

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Topic # 8300 19-Jun-2006 10:31

As some of you here know, I was moving house in the weekend; I have told my story about iHug and the service I received, now comes Telecom. Well I organized for my phone to be connected at 9am Saturday, 1pm rolled along and we had moved most of our stuff and I needed to make a phone call, but there was no dial tone. I called TC and asked what the story was and they told me there are no technicians in the area until Monday. So I went the weekend with no internet, no not even dial up! This is sad for me because I practically live on it. What I want to know is, if the operator that took my call could tell me straight away that no technician was in the area, why couldn’t the person who took my initial call? If they had told me that I could have had it connected on the Friday. I was too angry to give them a piece of my mind on Saturday, but am considering it now, what do you guys think? Am I justified in doing so?

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Reply # 38949 19-Jun-2006 11:01

escalate the issue... it seems like for things to get done in today's world is to escalate the issue, snowballing it up and barking up at every tree till the issue has becoming unbearaly noticable by anyone!

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tonyhughes

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Reply # 38950 19-Jun-2006 11:02

Consider yourself lucky. whilst i was in the employ of a Telecom partner, and my g/f was/is employed by Telecom, we were given an 11 day wait on all services when we moved across the road and seven houses up, and gave them 3 weeks notice. (also with a promise from them that we would be connected same day).

Also note that Telecom t&c's usually provide for a credit of up to one months worth of affected service (but you should read yours, they may have changed)

Telecom didnt lie to you, its simply bad organisation sometimes, with CSRs unable to control sub-contractors.

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Reply # 38951 19-Jun-2006 11:02

Perhaps the best subject for this thread should be "Telecom did not install the requested service on-time and the CSR was clueless and made promises they couldn't keep".

Ok, too long. But I personally don't trust any help desk, call centre, customer service contact centre, or whatever they call it. Simply because it looks like most organisation are always measuring them based on time and number of calls answered, not on client satisfaction.

There's also a huge gap between what the CSR knows, and what really happens around the company. It looks like with all "Business Intelligence" models and software, organisations still don't know how to treat the client.

That makes me think. Why companies invest hundreds of thousands in TV campaigns, on-line ads, billboards with all those 0800 numbers, but when you call they put you in a queue? They spend all that money trying to sell you a service, but when you want to buy there's no one available to take your order. Sad that they consider selling the image more than selling the service/product.

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psychrn

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Reply # 38952 19-Jun-2006 11:03

What did they orginally say to you about moving on the saturday??

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Reply # 38953 19-Jun-2006 11:12

I know this is now OT
My partner is a CSP in a Power Company Call centre, tells me they are placing more emphasis on being customer driven.
Less emphasis on time and number of calls and more emphasis on the customer experience and 1st call resolution.
They are an outsourced call centre-which may make a difference.
They are often monitored-10 calls a month and get marked down if there is any reason why a customer has to call again. These all of course affect AHT ( average handling time) of the centre.
They also have bonus schemes where call quality is incorporated. Quality is the main emphasis as opposed to time.
Apparently Telecoms emphasis is on sales!!

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jpwise

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Reply # 38955 19-Jun-2006 11:29

I didn't have any problems when I moved a couple of months back. That said, if you're aware of some of the limitations you can generally work around them.

With mine I scheduled an overlap on the phone. The phone at the new place was connected 2-3 days before the phone at the old place was cut. Part of the reason I was able to do it was because i had to change numbers (new exchange, different number ranges). There was a delay of a day or so before the internet was up and running (WorldExchange - XNet), but apparently that had to do with waiting for the Telecom Service Order (SO) to complete before they could provision the DSL on the line. That said I was still up and running before their little letter telling me my password and how to connect arrived. : )

If you can overlap it, it's alot easier, and gives you that extra day or two to jump on top of them if there's a problem.

Jp.

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Reply # 38956 19-Jun-2006 11:29

Last time I moved house the technician arrived on time and my phone/internet were connected on the same day as my move. Just as Telecom had said it would. I may work for the company but I still have to use the same call centres as everyone else.

On the other hand it took Sky 3 weeks to install a sat dish. First visit - 'that looks complicated', second visit - 'looks like we will need a special bracket to mount the dish', third visit install complete.

I just had my wife's Acer laptop repaired by Datacom (under warranty) that took 6 weeks! The CSR initially wrote down the fault incorrectly.

So, its not just Telecom.

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Reply # 38957 19-Jun-2006 11:36

No, it's not just Telecom, I agree. But in my view it seems to be a plague in the services industry. And I had a couple of good experiences with Telecom this month, regarding my Xtra login account for the Telecom Hotspot service, all fixed on the spot (no pun intended).

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Reply # 38958 19-Jun-2006 11:40

We moved to this address almost two years ago from the other side of town. Thinking ahead, I phoned utility providers 6 weeks prior to shifting. The Telecom 123 CSR looked up our details said it wouldn’t be a problem and they only needed 48 HOURS notice as the house we were moving to already had a phone. She said the ADSL would be moved over for us on the same day. Total cost something like $45 (I asked if this covered everything. Answer: Yes!)

A little over 48 hours before we moved I phoned Telecom again on 123, and was advised that although changing over the phone to the new address wasn’t a problem, sorry but they needed 6 WEEKS notice prior to moving for the ADSL to be transferred to the new address. Considering I had first spoken to them exactly 6 weeks prior to the move I wasn't overly impressed by this statement. I was also at this point told there was a $99 fee for moving the ADSL, on top of the $45!

After insisting on talking to a supervisor and then being told there were no availble technicians for over a week (yeah right), ADSL was up and running 3 days after we moved in. They still charged both fees.

If you’re quoted something over the phone, get it sent out in writing. Either by email, fax or get them to post it out.

lokinz

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Reply # 38959 19-Jun-2006 11:47

psychrn: What did they orginally say to you about moving on the saturday??

They said it was fine and will be connected at 10am Sat.

tonyhughes: According to the second CS rep, it was a known issue at the time of my request, it should never have happened, I was told something that was simply not true, and therefore it was a lie.

3g

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Reply # 38960 19-Jun-2006 11:52

Definitely escalate it - and provided you put a clear case to them (just the facts - and with a smile), it's been my experience that they will definitely give you some form of credit.

I can't remember the official name of them, but they do have a team dedicated to people moving houses - make sure you are speaking to one of them, get their name and number, and you should be right.

Last time we moved, they failed to turn up on the Friday as promised then turned up Saturday afternoon to tell me that they had no idea why I couldn't get connected on the Friday as they had been sitting round the workshop all afternoon with nothing to do!

They then had to come back on Monday to install my 2nd line for dialup - which they gave me free because they had promised me ADSL but then found out they couldn't (for technical reasons). It was a great way to make sure that our box was the next to be upgraded 8-).

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Reply # 38961 19-Jun-2006 11:55

Neotech - yeah, that $99 for the DSL is a kicker. However, in my case as it happened they had the promo on 'new connections', but still wanted to charge for existing connections. That said, my logic on the matter was that as I was disconnecting DSL at the old place, and getting a new provider at the new place it was a new connection. They agreed. :) End result, no $99 charge. Plus I still have all of the filters from the old place. Sky was the same, there was already a dish at the new place, so queried them and they said I could just do a self relocation, and then arrange a tech if the dish did need re-alignment. End result, sky moved without cost.

So all in all I was happy enough with the end result. Still a nuisance that Orcon released a whole lot of new plans the week after I moved, but oh, well.

PS: only downside is you really don't want to see how the sky dish cable is run. hint: it runs half the length of the house, sitting 'in' the gutter... am going to look at sorting it out one day. Plus it's getting OT aswell.

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Reply # 38964 19-Jun-2006 12:14

I'd have to agree with freitasm on this one... I worked on a helpdesk, which was treated like a call centre... what's the difference? Well IMHO a helpdesk is there to provide solutions, a call centre is there to pass issues on for resolution! Not that a customer cares about whether it's a call centre or a helpdesk... As a CSR I found it very frustrating... being expected to resolve fairly complex issues (often for customers with zero knowledge about technology) in the same amount of time it takes to look up a phone number...

I've had extremely bad service from CSRs at Telecom, Sky, Air NZ, amongst others.

My advice is always ask for an employee number when you feel things are going wrong, often CSRs know their calls are recorded and this will jolt them into doing things properly.

Always be very polite! Remember they are often (but certainly not always) poorly paid and work long hours in unpleasant conditions. And more importantly, a fair percentage of the calls CSRs get are from people who are already pissed off with the world- these CSRs are human. I can tell you from experience that rude callers wont get any special treatment (and nor should they).

And if you're still getting no satisfaction, ask for a supervisor. When you speak to the supervisor, ask for an email address of the supervisor’s boss. I find explaining your frustration over the phone (when you're already unhappy) is a bit of a waste of time. Taking some time out to write an email will let you get the details out in a way you want them.

I also make sure if I get good service, I say thanks, and if the service is very good, I'll make sure I email to that effect.

Either way, thank god I'm not a CSR anymore... they say being a young doctor is stressful... whatever...

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