How NZ service providers can up their game

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MadEngineer

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#196815 13-Jun-2016 20:00

Dearest NZ internet service providers

# When your staff promise to call your customers back please ensure that you have systems in place to ensure that this happens. Is that such a hard ask? This means making use of proper ticketing systems that have the following features:

* If a ticket is closed without customer confirmation and acknowledgement a flag should be raised or the ticket jumps out in reports.
* Tickets should be closed with options such as resolved, unresolvable.
* Tickets should have tasks or dates or some reminder function that everyone in the team can check up on so that customers don't get forgotten about when a single CSR goes on sick leave. There should be zero reliance on Outlook here - this needs to be done by the ticketing system.
* When a CSR accesses a customer's account this should be logged. Any access to a customer's account with no notes entered should raise a flag. The purpose of this isn't so much for privacy as it is for CSR's that hang up on customers.
* Follow up feedback by a senior should be placed especially for difficult tickets. First level staff should be able to do this themselves for their own tickets, for example verifying with the customer that Chorus have played their part. This can be quite rewarding.
* Better communication between Chorus and ISP's needs to be implemented. At the moment and based on my experience there's a horrible disconnect between customer's tickets lodged with the ISP and the resulting tickets with Chorus where follow ups are done manually and maybe when a CSR remembers. There either needs to be an EDI solution here where Chorus ticket updates are linked to the ISP's tickets so that a CSR can notify the customer or push a process to the next stage.
* The alternative to the above is for the ticketing system to remind the CSR or team to manually check with Chorus for updates

Also,

# Don't make your Chorus problems the customer's problem. In these cases explain to the customer the issue but quickly follow this up with how you are going to take care of it.

# If you're going to call a customer about feedback sent back by txt message to your automated system could you at least ascertain what ticket the feedback was in regards to? #truestory

If any ISP could manage the above it'd be winner winner chicken dinner.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

Sideface

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#1571281 13-Jun-2016 20:22

Sideface

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hio77

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#1571282 13-Jun-2016 20:24

Sideface:

sadly this pretty-much sums it up... smaller companies are pretty decent with their suport, EG bigpipe.

I have found Spark to be pretty consistent with promises etc.

#include <std_disclaimer>

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

alasta

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#1571283 13-Jun-2016 20:25

Good post, although it would be interesting to know the bulk of the problems are related to the lack of functionality that you described, or whether it's more a case of having gaping holes in management reporting so that failures are not being detected or quantified. Or, worse still, maybe the systems and staff competence are fine but resourcing levels are not adequate and the management consider churn to be an acceptable risk if it means that they can reduce costs.

BarTender

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#1571302 13-Jun-2016 21:04

But we're all getting ripped off with the insane costs of broadband right??

Fast, cheap and reliable. Choose two.

MadEngineer

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#1571330 13-Jun-2016 21:44

alasta:

Good post, although it would be interesting to know the bulk of the problems are related to the lack of functionality that you described, or whether it's more a case of having gaping holes in management reporting so that failures are not being detected or quantified. Or, worse still, maybe the systems and staff competence are fine but resourcing levels are not adequate and the management consider churn to be an acceptable risk if it means that they can reduce costs.

i'd go for a mixture of all the above.

Management should be implementing these processes and reports, but are not. Systems will not work when staff use Outlook reminders. Some staff try their best but on a domestic connection when was the last time you were called back when promised? I keep reading that same old chestnut in too many complaints or connection stories on this forum.

You're not on Atlantis anymore, Duncan Idaho.

tdgeek

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#1571347 13-Jun-2016 22:34

MadEngineer:

alasta:

Good post, although it would be interesting to know the bulk of the problems are related to the lack of functionality that you described, or whether it's more a case of having gaping holes in management reporting so that failures are not being detected or quantified. Or, worse still, maybe the systems and staff competence are fine but resourcing levels are not adequate and the management consider churn to be an acceptable risk if it means that they can reduce costs.

i'd go for a mixture of all the above.

Management should be implementing these processes and reports, but are not. Systems will not work when staff use Outlook reminders. Some staff try their best but on a domestic connection when was the last time you were called back when promised? I keep reading that same old chestnut in too many complaints or connection stories on this forum.

Easily resolved. VERY EASILY. Add more staff. Balance that by adding more cost (Staff). No, cant do that. Its the same problem in this modern world, want everything for nothing. Next thing there will be a brand new car for $15K that has a 20year warranty. You think thats silly? Well based on many posts I've read,not.

tdgeek

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#1571348 13-Jun-2016 22:37

BarTender: But we're all getting ripped off with the insane costs of broadband right??

Fast, cheap and reliable. Choose two.

Yes we are. Jetstream 400 (MB) was $49. Add $20 ISP fee. Add $33 (?) Modem fee (for the $1300 Modem)

We need to get back to those days to give some people value. Unlimited BB at 100/20 is far too expensive.....

quickymart

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#1571360 13-Jun-2016 22:53

Don't forget the line rental too. No such thing as naked broadband back then either.

mattwnz

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#1571365 13-Jun-2016 23:29

What you are mentioning is pretty much a problem with Call Centres in general. One really annoying thing I have found dealing with these companies that use call centers recently, is there is now no way to actually email a company. They now expect you to take time out of your day to phone them, or use live chat. I found this problme when dealing with Apple, you can't just email them a query about a problem. Even the call back feature is a waste of time, because because it is more than likely they will phone back at an inconvenient time where you aren't available., What ever happened to just sending a simple a simple quick email. Big pipe do still let you send emails, which is possibly why they get good reviews.

BarTender

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#1571394 14-Jun-2016 07:34

mattwnz:

What you are mentioning is pretty much a problem with Call Centres in general. One really annoying thing I have found dealing with these companies that use call centers recently, is there is now no way to actually email a company. They now expect you to take time out of your day to phone them, or use live chat. I found this problme when dealing with Apple, you can't just email them a query about a problem. Even the call back feature is a waste of time, because because it is more than likely they will phone back at an inconvenient time where you aren't available., What ever happened to just sending a simple a simple quick email. Big pipe do still let you send emails, which is possibly why they get good reviews.

The problem with a pure email based helpdesk is staffing is a real issue. In the traditional Call Center world you estimate based on previous call volumes how many people you want on queue the next day/week. Plus some older folks like to talk on the phone, plus what happens when your internet is dead and you don't have any other way to access the internet, you ya gonna call? Those people need to be paid don't they?

With pure email solutions it tends to either work either if you have small volume (less than 2k emails per day or so), have dedicated reps that take on a case or direct the email into a case management system that then manages the whole flow of the customers issue based on the subject line.

Small ISPs / companies can get away with it as they aren't dealing with 1 million+ customers and 20k+ calls per day as one person takes point and forwards the emails to whoever else is dealing with it and everyone works out of a shared mailbox.

Having dedicated reps so after the initial contact is made all further comms is to a dedicated person, but what happens when they go on holiday/get sick. Escalation in this model is challenging and frustrating for end customers.

A full case management stack based on email is probably the best solution with appropriate automated escalations based on SLAs. But that option isn't cheap / easy to implement.

Then you have to take into account staff training and attrition as you always have a high turnover of staff so your staff lifecycle management is tough.

There is a real art to running an effective contact centre. They have been around for years and if there was a silver bullet it would have been done years ago, as there are always tradeoffs.

Aredwood

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#1571486 14-Jun-2016 09:41

The other big problem with email is spam filters. Meaning emails don't get through. End up in junk folders etc. Not so much of a problem for internal company emails. But a bigger issue for emails to / from the public.

There was a case on GZ about someone complaining about a slow response to a connection problem with Bigpipe. Turned out they had replied to a previous email so it didn't go into the main queue. And Bigpipe also have a contact us box on their website so they don't just use email.

Dairyxox

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#1571524 14-Jun-2016 10:56

hio77:

Sideface:

sadly this pretty-much sums it up... smaller companies are pretty decent with their suport, EG bigpipe.

I have found Spark to be pretty consistent with promises etc.

I have found the same experience with these RSP's.

Another tip, make sure your staff have enough broad knowledge of your business to be helpful to all sorts of customer inquiries. I.E transferring them to the correct department when you are unable to help *cough* Vodafone *cough*

Rikkitic

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#1571543 14-Jun-2016 11:22

So... is this unique to NZ or is it an international issue? Are New Zealand companies exceptionally incompetent, under-resourced, indifferent to customers, etc.? I don't know but if this kind of corporate behaviour is common around the world, that suggests it is intentional policy rather than inadvertent sloppiness.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

BarTender

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#1574523 15-Jun-2016 16:40

Rikkitic: So... is this unique to NZ or is it an international issue? Are New Zealand companies exceptionally incompetent, under-resourced, indifferent to customers, etc.? I don't know but if this kind of corporate behaviour is common around the world, that suggests it is intentional policy rather than inadvertent sloppiness.

This isn't unique to NZ. If you look at the Broadband situation in the US it's far worse than what we have here in little ole NZ.

Yes things go wrong and people stuff up, but for the most part it's not too bad.

The main issue is ongoing pressure downwards on price, with unlimited broadband and expectations on service.

How some providers are now doing 24 month deals with below cost / at cost internet for the first year and try and make it up the 2nd year will only end in tears as there can't be a way to sustain internet services and have a reasonable call center.