[TelstraClear] Constructive suggestions on helping Telstra Customer services

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TelstraClear

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#73447 5-Jun-2007 13:59

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your feedback. The comments around Digital TV and the TV Guide have been very helpful for me in reviewing our online services through www.telstraclear.co.nz.

In further response to James Bond's comments:

If I may put my two cents in, I think it would be nice for customers to have an account section on the TelstraClear website to view their bill, view their Internet usage, past and recent phone line activity, history of callous, faults reported, etc... all in the same section.

I would like to announce that we have today launched a new Customer Zone (www.telstraclear.co.nz/customer-zone) within the TelstraClear website to address this issue.

The Customer Zone, located at www.telstraclear.co.nz/customer-zone, has been launched to provide business and residential customers a single entry point where they can view all the current self service functionality that is available online.

The Customer Zone is divided into eight sections to reflect the differing needs of our customers: Residential, Business, clear.net, Paradise, Domain Names and Hosting, Accounts and Billing, Customer Services and Online Help and will be added to over coming months as new development takes place.

The launch of the Customer Zone is the first step in TelstraClear's new self service project. The project aims to deliver a 'self help' service channel, which will enable Residential, SME, Wholesale and Enterprise and Government customers to service their own business transactions if they choose.

This new section on the website is set to change dramatically over coming months, so watch this space!

Nicola Clement
Online Marketing Manager - TelstraClear

TelstraClear

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TelstraClear

#73448 5-Jun-2007 14:01

MEDIA RELEASE
5 June 2007
TelstraClear launches new Customer Zone

‘Customer Zone’- the first stage in providing online self-service options for TelstraClear’s residential and business customers - is now available.

Customer Zone can be accessed from the front page of TelstraClear’s website - www.telstraclear.co.nz.

TelstraClear Online Marketing Manager Nicola Clement says Customer Zone is a first step to enhance customers’ online experience and provides for a multitude of customer needs.

"Customers can access information on online payments, network status information, online help, bill explainers and much more - all from the one place."

"No longer will our online users need to trawl three websites to manage their TelstraClear, Paradise and clear.net relationships with us. Customers can access all existing online services from within Customer Zone."

Ms Clement says this is the beginning of simpler and easier things, with Customer Zone highlighting the start of TelstraClear’s self-service project.

"We’re adding many new services to Customer Zone over the coming months as we develop a new 'self help' service channel. This project will allow Residential, Small and Medium Enterprise, Wholesale and Enterprise and Government customers to manage their TelstraClear account and services online if they choose."

Customer Zone is divided into eight sections to reflect the differing needs of TelstraClear customers; Residential, Business, Clear.net, Paradise, Domain Names and Hosting, Accounts and Billing, Customer Services and Online Help.

ENDS

timestyles

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Ultimate Geek

#73453 5-Jun-2007 14:17

I'm just a simple lad with simple requirements. Phone line, internet. That's all. Apart from the issue of waiting times (yes, I'm the person who posts the thread on Trademe's general messageboard saying "..30 minutes on hold on telstraclear.." with 10 minute updates) but if there was ONE thing apart from the waiting issue, it would be when I am having problems, that I always speak to the same person. This is why you bounced any email to my clearnet email address for 3 months (I gave up and got a yahoo email address), the new people I spoke to didn't understand what the problem was, or how to fix it.

Also, for a phone company, it does seem a bit lapse that I could not speak to anyone in 'billing'. Like they were walled off in some faraway place where people didn't use phones, just email.

Rant over.

PS your staff need to be better trained. I shouldn't have to phone TelstraClear 3 times to ask the same question and see what the correct answer is likely to be (admittedly, Telecom have this problem too). I have been in countless situations where I, simple untrained lad that I am, relying on just a RSS feed on the Telecommunications section on the NZ Herald website and occasional browsing on Trademe and Geekzone's messageboards have known more than the operator.

chiefie

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#73454 5-Jun-2007 14:39

Wow! Many thanks to Nicola Clement and TelstraClear to bring this Customer Zone to us... however, how do we get to view our account details? At the moment I have the log in to view my TCL Cable usage, is this the same login/password for other part of the Customer Zone? Also, I'm still holding my Paradise login, will this (at some point later) be integrated into my TCL Account number?

Anyhow, great to see TCL is finally bowing down to hear suggestion from its customers, kudos for doing this, hope this is the beginning of better TCL-Customers relationship.

Now... onto getting HD Digital services, EPG data for Media Centre users, IPTV, integrated PVR+modem (single device)... PLEASE!

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Fruitymind

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#73555 6-Jun-2007 00:10

Telstra clear has launched their online service for Telstra clear customers.

Thats a great step in the right direction.
Next you can put in terminals in T'shops so people can view their bills.
It begs the question.
Does that mean you Telstra are going to do away with the paper bill now that you have the online service up and running?

sneeble

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#74045 8-Jun-2007 21:20

MTCW

Once upon a time in a dark dark age I too worked in the TelstraClear call centre, believe me folks when I say the staff have their hands tied, there is little they can actually do for you except for logging the faults and complaints. At least be pleasant to them they are the meat in the sandwich. Like all call centres some customers are priceless and some are truely pathetic.

I do have my own complaints, just little things though....

a. Your technicians must speak and understand english, it is absolutely vital. No ifs, no buts, no excuses.

b. When jobbed to wire a wall for a set top box and modem, it is expected that the customer can use both the wall jacks, not be able to use either the set top box or modem. It does help when both can be plugged in at the same time.

c. The technician should be able to not be puzzled out of their tiny little minds by a router and server. It is none of their business to try and figure out why there is a desktop computer with no keyboard mouse and monitor plugged into the modem.

d. The bloody modem should not crash at 10 am every monday morning without fail. Nor should I have to ring only to be told "it's not doing it now, is it turned on?" I work from home, I need stable net access.

e. Toll plans could at least pretend to keep up with Telecom . We originally decided to use Saturn when transferred to the Wellington region by Telecom. Back then the call pricing was competitive(at the time we both worked for telecom and qualified for the maximum employee discount!!), and that was 7 years ago, the price of making toll calls is now effectively double that of Telecom.

f. Fix the programming in the digital set top boxes, its hopeless, slow and unstable and it reboots right in the middle of something interesting ..........without fail.

JonC

425 posts

Ultimate Geek

#74254 11-Jun-2007 10:16

sneeble: MTCW

f. Fix the programming in the digital set top boxes, its hopeless, slow and unstable and it reboots right in the middle of something interesting ..........without fail.

Absolutely my biggest complaint about TCL cable TV. Go to the EPG, scan around for a programme and hit the "i" button - five times out of ten it'll stall there for a couple of minutes and sometimes it'll crash and reboot. And in the meantime I get evil looks from the Missus as if it was my fault she's missing 3 minutes of TV while it's rebooting. How hard can it be to fix the software and send out a patch?

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bcourtney

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#74259 11-Jun-2007 10:55

JonC:
sneeble: MTCW

f. Fix the programming in the digital set top boxes, its hopeless, slow and unstable and it reboots right in the middle of something interesting ..........without fail.

Absolutely my biggest complaint about TCL cable TV. Go to the EPG, scan around for a programme and hit the "i" button - five times out of ten it'll stall there for a couple of minutes and sometimes it'll crash and reboot. And in the meantime I get evil looks from the Missus as if it was my fault she's missing 3 minutes of TV while it's rebooting. How hard can it be to fix the software and send out a patch?

Yep, this is my biggest gripe too. The loss of EPG data on a frequent basis and the rebooting of the decoder on an even more frequent basis - sometimes something as simple as changing the channel causes this.

And like you JonC, the missus is getting increasingly angry at the system, constantly asking why we can't simply just move across to Sky, especially considering they have a brilliant PVR system.

My loyalties are with TelstraClear (for God knows what reasons) but I too am starting to like the sound of a more stable Sky solution with PVR... give me a couple of weeks

JonC

425 posts

Ultimate Geek

#74261 11-Jun-2007 11:13

bcourtney:
Yep, this is my biggest gripe too. The loss of EPG data on a frequent basis and the rebooting of the decoder on an even more frequent basis - sometimes something as simple as changing the channel causes this.

And like you JonC, the missus is getting increasingly angry at the system, constantly asking why we can't simply just move across to Sky, especially considering they have a brilliant PVR system.

My loyalties are with TelstraClear (for God knows what reasons) but I too am starting to like the sound of a more stable Sky solution with PVR... give me a couple of weeks

Yeah - I have to say that I've got an unused Sky dish sitting on my roof and when my lock-in period finishes in a few months time, I'll be re-assessing my options with TCL TV. Love the cable internet, phone is fine, but if TCL haven't got a decent PVR solution in place or on the cards soon then I'll be thinking of switching.

Cable TV should be better than satellite - it should be able to do movies on demand and all sorts of other fancy things that cable operators in the US provide, but TCL don't seem to want to innovate. I have to wonder what the deal is with TCL essentially acting as a reseller of Sky TV channels - are there strings attached to this deal that are restricting what TCL can do with the cable TV service? Maybe the margin they make on the deal doesn't make it worth the effort?

Nety

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#74274 11-Jun-2007 13:17

I would be a bit careful with mySky. There has been a bit of complaining (some of it here)about it as well. Losing programmed recordings and not chaining them. Of course may be a low number of people but then again I very seldom have issues with the epg on Telstra which shows that that is not a issue that affects everyone either.

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munchkin

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#74340 11-Jun-2007 22:59

I agree with JonC; having lived in Vancouver for a while, I find TCL (especially their digital TV product) to be a little substandard, however, like most things in NZ, people have had no experience with what is on offer overseas, and therefore, no reason to complain for something better.

Have a look at Shaw - they're certainly not the best Cable provider in BC, but they're somewhat better than what we have here.

(I know that they're in a completely different market, and they can offer timeshifting simply because of the different timezones and there is the ability to offer the major US networks as an added package, but I still think TCL could try harder. IMHO, the resale agreement that they have with Sky means that TCL are effectively another way for Sky to collect revenue).

michaeln

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#74387 12-Jun-2007 13:58

Nety: I can see how you search by genre but can't see how you can search by keyword?

Press the MENU button. Go to Programs. You have the option to search for various things. One of them is keyword. That means that you can type in "Simp" for instance and it will find all showings of any title with "Simp" in it---for instance "The Simpsons"---on any channel, at ay time, as loaded into the EPG. So you need the EPG working for this to happen. I checked it at home last night. Worked for me.

ZollyMonsta

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#74397 12-Jun-2007 15:33

michaeln:
Nety: I can see how you search by genre but can't see how you can search by keyword?

Press the MENU button. Go to Programs. You have the option to search for various things. One of them is keyword. That means that you can type in "Simp" for instance and it will find all showings of any title with "Simp" in it---for instance "The Simpsons"---on any channel, at ay time, as loaded into the EPG. So you need the EPG working for this to happen. I checked it at home last night. Worked for me.

Full instructions:

1. Press 'menu' on your remote
2. Cursor across to 'programmes' and press 'ok' on your remote
3. From the list select 'Search By Keyword' and press 'ok' on your remote
4. Using your remote enter a keyword (ie: part of a programme title) Enter it as if you were txt messaging on your mobile :)
5. Press the down arrow on your remote
6. Tick 'Search Titles' by using the left/right buttons on your remote
7. Untick 'Search Synopsis' as this is currently not implemented. 'Adult Events' is also currently not implemented.
8. Press 'OK' on your remote to start the search.
9. If successful you will see a list of matching programmes.. You can go through the list and set reminders for programmes in this list by selecting them and pressing 'OK' on your remote.

If you do not have this 'search by keyword' feature, then your stb is not running the latest version of code.
To update it, do the following...

1. Press 'menu' on your remote
2. Select 'settings' and press 'ok' on your remote
3. From the list select 'code download' and press 'ok' on your remote
4. The set top box will check you are running the latest code. If not it will prompt if you wish to upgrade. Press 'ok' to upgrade.

If your box upgrades, it will reboot and download the code which will take around 8 minutes. Do not power it off during this time. Once upgraded it will restart. Your EPG/PPV guides will need to re-download.

Cheers,
ZollyMonsta

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OrangeDrink

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#75334 20-Jun-2007 15:42

A couple of TV related suggestions, I'm possibly looking at switching from Sky to Telstra Cable TV but these are things that scare me off:

1) Only S-Video out. In this day and age this is simply unacceptable. Having a high quality output like Component would do wonders, of course you'd need a separate audio out then too. I'd suggest also having an HDMI output as well. Hell if heel dragging Sky can do it I'm sure Telstra could sort it out in their next gen boxes. The difference in quality is massive.

2) Better quality of picture. It seems you decode the Sky signal then recode it for Cable transmission. This introduces another level of compression and artefacts to an already (frankly) quite poor image from Sky. There are much better ways of doing this and because of your transmission method you could really jump ahead of Sky here in picture quality. Theoretically anyway!

Unless your going to address 1) though 2) seems like a waste of time! It doesn't matter how much you improve your picture quality if the end result gets hacked down to S-Video or worse, Composite signals.

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