Nightmare Fibre Installation with Contact and Chorus - How to complain or resolve issues?

Forums › New Zealand Broadband › Nightmare Fibre Installation with Contact and Chorus - How to complain or resolve issues?

cnor152

72 posts

Master Geek

#280188 1-Dec-2020 17:46

Fibre became available.

Applied with Contact to get it. 2 Chorus guys came, questioned why we need it, said they would come back in a week.
1 Week later nothing happened, so called Contact who claimed there was no information from Chorus passed on to them, and it was like the visit never happened. Rebooked it.

1 week later (with installation promised to happen tomorrow) Contact called, said it was cancelled by Chorus and they don't know why. They rebooked it again in 2 weeks time. I have no faith this will happen.
Contact blame Chorus (or the agency that they use to talk to Chorus, however it works). Called Chorus to complain, they got angry and said we can't complain to them. They couldn't give any information, but said it was Contacts fault. I wonder if it is the middleman not passing on info.

My view is that I am paying Contact to sort this out, and should change providers. It has taken hours upon hours of phone calls, still no solution. Am I wrong? What else can I do? Who can I complain to? Any competent ISPs - or is it Chorus?

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1267 posts

Uber Geek

#2614477 2-Dec-2020 07:23

Chorus is more likely to be the problem than your ISP. It is not a monolithic organisation but a multitude of subcontractor layers.

Do you have a shared driveway or a really difficult or time-consuming installation that the subies want to pass it over? Usually they'd offer to install it on the spot.

nzkc

1571 posts

Uber Geek

#2614547 2-Dec-2020 09:24

Sounds pretty frustrating and I empathize with your situation.

I would remind Contact that your relationship is with them and not Chorus. The relationship to Chorus is from Contact. As far as you are concerned it is Contact's responsibility to make sure your request happens. Every time they bring up Chorus I would stop them with a "not my concern...you need to make sure they turn up".

xpd

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#2614565 2-Dec-2020 09:41

Sounds a bit odd they queried "why" you need it.

Go back to ISP, ask for an update, and not a "don't know". You need an actual reason.

If no one can find anything regarding your site visit, ask for another one to be done.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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cnor152

72 posts

Master Geek

#2614887 2-Dec-2020 17:22

bfginger:

Chorus is more likely to be the problem than your ISP. It is not a monolithic organisation but a multitude of subcontractor layers.

Do you have a shared driveway or a really difficult or time-consuming installation that the subies want to pass it over? Usually they'd offer to install it on the spot.

I think this is probably one reason for the issue. It's not a shared driveway, but a little bit longer than normal. ~50m or so.
I can 100% see the two "techs" who came unlikely be keen to dig a trench.

I don't care if they need to hire a trench digger, I just expect information to be relayed back. Not just be ignored.
Contact said to complain to Chorus, I made it clear I am talking to Contact and they need to sort it out. Just arranging appointments, not having techs show up, isn't the solution. I do not believe for a second any other appointments booked will happen.

I want them to find out what happened, lay a formal complaint on my behalf (if Chorus is to blame), and sort it out. Else will change to Spark.

Hopefully this is the correct stance. Not sure what else to do.

toejam316

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#2614906 2-Dec-2020 18:21

Definitely - personal experience, there's plenty of space for the RSP to drive results from Chorus, it's just finding an RSP that will do that.

Anything I say is the ramblings of an ill informed, opinionated so-and-so, and not representative of any of my past, present or future employers, and is also probably best disregarded.

BMarquis

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#2615270 3-Dec-2020 07:46

It looks like a pretty disappointing story.
Without passing the buck... I'm not in the physical installation space.

I'm 100% sure my friends @chorusnz will be happy to take a look to see what the deal is an how the situation can be improved/resolved.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2615275 3-Dec-2020 08:01

nzkc:
Sounds pretty frustrating and I empathize with your situation.

I would remind Contact that your relationship is with them and not Chorus. The relationship to Chorus is from Contact. As far as you are concerned it is Contact's responsibility to make sure your request happens. Every time they bring up Chorus I would stop them with a "not my concern...you need to make sure they turn up".

last I checked contact are through a reseller. So there is another step between chorus and contact.

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nztim

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#2615336 3-Dec-2020 08:36

hio77:
nzkc:

Sounds pretty frustrating and I empathize with your situation.

I would remind Contact that your relationship is with them and not Chorus. The relationship to Chorus is from Contact. As far as you are concerned it is Contact's responsibility to make sure your request happens. Every time they bring up Chorus I would stop them with a "not my concern...you need to make sure they turn up".

last I checked contact are through a reseller. So there is another step between chorus and contact.

Contact and Trustpower have their own networks

https://bgpview.io/asn/135400

https://bgpview.io/asn/55850

Nova use someone else

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

chevrolux

4962 posts

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#2615339 3-Dec-2020 08:43

Contact called, said it was cancelled by Chorus and they don't know why.

That alone would make me think Contact is the problem - Chorus may cancel jobs for stupid reasons, but they will always have a reason, and as the RSP, it's very easy to find that out.

Chorusnz

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Chorus

#2615388 3-Dec-2020 09:15

@cnor152

We'd be happy to take a look into this and let you know what is actually happening. Can you please send us through a PM with your address details so we can investigate and provide you with a full update? Cheers ^DR

cnor152

72 posts

Master Geek

#2616431 4-Dec-2020 18:40

Chorusnz:

@cnor152

We'd be happy to take a look into this and let you know what is actually happening. Can you please send us through a PM with your address details so we can investigate and provide you with a full update? Cheers ^DR

Thank you - out of the blue a Chorus tech called and said they would be there Monday (Contact are still firing off irrelevant booking dates). He said they will do everything in that one visit. Sort of feels like they have been told off - maybe my complaints have caused someone to crack a whip.

I will definitely have to take time off work to supervise - if it were the same guys as last time.

So I'm crossing my fingers - will reach out if this doesn't end up panning out.

cnor152

72 posts

Master Geek

#2617732 7-Dec-2020 18:51

Thankfully, ended up working out.
Had to call to remind them to show up, but once here (this time I was here as well) they did a quick/good job.

Don't want to have to go through this again anytime soon. I think the main issue is bad communication as there are too many parties involved. No one knew what was going on, until we hounded and hounded them. I also think the complaints definitely sped up the process, but took hours upon hours of phone time to achieve.

Out of the dark ages now, in terms of speed!

quickymart

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#2617783 7-Dec-2020 20:28

Contact should have taken care of all of this for you, rather than just palming you off to somewhere else. If they'd just done their job properly, things would have gone a lot quicker (and smoother).

nztim

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#2617878 8-Dec-2020 06:59

quickymart:
Contact should have taken care of all of this for you, rather than just palming you off to somewhere else. If they'd just done their job properly, things would have gone a lot quicker (and smoother).

My bet is contact were not closely watching the chorus messagebhistory for required attention and the order got cancelled

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2617921 8-Dec-2020 09:20

cnor152:

Don't want to have to go through this again anytime soon. I think the main issue is bad communication as there are too many parties involved. No one knew what was going on, until we hounded and hounded them. I also think the complaints definitely sped up the process, but took hours upon hours of phone time to achieve.

This isn't an uncommon (be it relatively rare that things go wrong) experience.

there are so many layers, subcontractors etc involved that it's far too easy for things to go wrong.

Unfortunately for you, that means going back to your RSP to follow up on your behalf.

Depending on structure of that provider, there could be any number of things behind the scenes.

just as a few examples:

A power company or small provider that is reselling from a larger provider (they generally need to go via the other providers wholesale helpdesk to get action in this case)
A backoffice team that works with the fibre company, in these cases the message is often relayed to them, they do the follow up and if your lucky come back to you.
A tier one agent, who quite honestly isn't given the indepth training to be able to deal with these sorts of situations effectively.

Equally there are many painpoints on the Fibre companies side too.

Often you will find UFF, Enable and Northpower handhold installations a lot more on their end to smooth this over. With Chorus, they are a massive company, so again layers come in.

As i said initially though, it's actually statistically quite rare to have a bad install experience.

#include <std_disclaimer>

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

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