2D dragged down by the buy?

Forums › 2degrees (including Slingshot, Orcon, Flip, Stuff Fibre, MyRepublic, 2talk and Vocus) › 2D dragged down by the buy?

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457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3043732 1-Mar-2023 17:41

michaelmurfy:
decibel:
Plenty of staff for sales, not enough for after-sales services.

Sales and support are 2 very different things. My bets is sales are actually a small team but just don’t see call volumes the same as support who likely have a whole lot of staff but can’t scale fast enough.

There is a -huge- network migration going on currently where 2degrees customers are being moved across to the Vocus platform. Personally I’m just staying out, not bothering to phone them up to get a better deal etc as who knows, I may not like the Vocus network and decide to jump ship somewhere else. In general though I don’t need to call them ever.

It will be "interesting" to see if I notice any difference once I'm eventually migrated from 2D to the vocus backend.

I'm a business connection on a static IP so I imagine I'll be later in the list - It'll be home connections first. Just glad my home connection is with a more boutique player and thats where my essential equipment is so I can live without internet at the office at all for a while. Even the static IP is less essential or important than it once was.

I have my doubts about the Vocus back end but they probably are completely out of date and unfair so I'll wait and see.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

Handle9

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#3043734 1-Mar-2023 17:43

mobiusnz: I can't help but feel thats an indication of how bad things are at present.

Just leave and tell them why. It’s not your problem to deal with their mess.

You don’t have a personal relationship with a telco and you certainly don’t owe them any loyalty.

antoniosk

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#3043764 1-Mar-2023 21:22

mobiusnz:

I can't understand call centres that don't have a reserve your place in the queue and we'll ring you back. Daughter one rang her power provider (Might be electric kiwi - Can't recall) - She held for 5 minutes and figured it was going to be too long, she'd try later. They rang her back 20 minutes later asking if they could help as her number registered in the Queue! That's how a helpdesk should work.

PS - The whole hold forever without a place in queue call-back is massive - MYOB are dreadful - I've held for an hour for a fault with their platform only to be told "Its end of month so we're busy" DUH - You run an accounting platform, this should be part of your helpdesk staffing that its increased at peak. Secondly I was told "Oh, yes, there is a fault with that and technicians are working on it. I'll investigate why no-one has put that on our pretty but worthless status page" (OK, I embellished a little in what was said there.)

(snip)

1/ High quality scalable and supported call centre software that does this costs money to buy, implement and maintain. A new install should have it out of the box, but if they have existing capability that never had it.... upgrades cost a lot of money, and those sorts of projects can easily be diverted with 'we can hire more staff'. except when they dont :-)

2/ you need a surge of people and really good rostering into future to support the demand :-)

3/ CC costs a lot of money regardless of whether you pay a decent wage or not. it's an easy, easy massive singular cost for any company to just look at and say 'can we seriously not cope with 5 less people? do we really need a GOS that has 30s answer time vs 60s? and so on'. Been there and witnessed it in cash-strapped telstraclear and greedy vodafone.

4/ Automation is a wonderful thing that solves all right? 2D used to have a decent automation orchestration layer. that needs smart BA's, devs and testers as well as good monitoring and response systems to function...

________

Antoniosk

Divhon88

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#3043870 2-Mar-2023 12:51

I'm with 2D Fibre for 5 years, I just moved to Orcon because of these issues.

Our household have 1 mobile plan and 3 prepaid plans for them. I just moved 1 prepaid to Kogan and will be moving 1 of the prepaid plan very soon to Spark just because I'm not happy with their broadband customer service.

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3043871 2-Mar-2023 12:54

Divhon88:

I'm with 2D Fibre for 5 years, I just moved to Orcon because of these issues.

Our household have 1 mobile plan and 3 prepaid plans for them. I just moved 1 prepaid to Kogan and will be moving 1 of the prepaid plan very soon to Spark just because I'm not happy with their broadband customer service.

The irony is you've switched from one vocus entity to another and I'm picking that all 2D customers will all actually become Orcon customers (other than billing..... perhaps).

But by doing it you've had control of the interruption and managed the switch and now you are stable.

The poor buggers sticking it out may well end up with non-communicated outages and issues (Like my daughters change yesterday).

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

michaelmurfy

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#3043872 2-Mar-2023 12:55

Divhon88:

I'm with 2D Fibre for 5 years, I just moved to Orcon because of these issues.

You mean... I'm with 2D Fibre for 5 years, I just moved to 2degrees because of these issues.

Same company these days but as stated before a huge migration is going on currently migrating customers to the network you just joined :)

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
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wratterus

1687 posts

Uber Geek

#3043973 2-Mar-2023 16:15

I actually recommend Spark now. For a few reasons:

Good modem/routers (and very easy to purchase if you need one at any point), simple no-frills plans, public IP, voice on ONT, and they seem to be easier to get on the phone when required.

Used to always recommend 2D, but recently any communications have been painful.

Quic Broadband

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SarahRykers

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2degrees

#3043983 2-Mar-2023 17:34

Kia ora everyone,

It makes for tough reading, and I just wanted to take the time to explain about where things are at.

We know that wait-times aren’t up to scratch right now, and we have been recruiting as fast as we can. We have 40 more frontline agents than we did a year ago and we have 40 more starting this quarter. Some of our products are complex, so it does take a bit of time to train Care agents - which means it's not a quick fix.

We also have added an additional call centre in South Africa who take Pre Paid mobile queries, to help relieve pressure on our Customer Care team. Despite these steps, we still need more staff, and like many kiwi businesses we’re finding it hard to recruit in a labour market shortage. We have streamlined training and other processes, we have increased pay, we are launching more bonuses and rewards programmes as well to help us retain staff, and we are also moving to a single billing stack, which will make it faster and more efficient to serve customers as well.

As many of you who have worked in this environment know, there’s no shortage of metrics we track, and thanks to this work that’s been happening in the background our SLAs are headed in the right direction – we do know that we’ve a way to go yet though, and we aren’t slowing down our efforts. Large Call Centres can take a long time to meaningfully change, and it’s absolutely a top priority for everyone across the business.

We have already looked at Call Back, and while it does work really well to smooth out peaks and troughs in a call centre, if there aren’t enough troughs it can spread the team too thin and end up creating more work for agents who are under the pump.

2degrees has always prided itself on service, and we want to have this fixed and firing as much as our customers do. We really do apologise to anyone who hasn’t been able to get the service they need. If you’re not having much luck via phone or email, please give us a go via Facebook or Twitter DM. If you’ve gotten really stuck and you need someone to chase something for you please flick me an email on SMM@2degrees.nz and I’ll do our best to get this raised for you. Just a disclaimer, this is not an official Care channel – so I’ll do what I can.

Cheers,
Sarah

Sarah Rykers - 2degrees Social & Digital Media Manager

I'm in the Brand & Comms team. If you'd like some help from our 100% Kiwi customer care team call 0800 022 022.

Nudibranch

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#3044346 3-Mar-2023 16:06

This is a shame,

This is what Snap was good for (and for a time 2D). This country....

Divhon88

99 posts

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#3045544 4-Mar-2023 13:03

mobiusnz:

The irony is you've switched from one vocus entity to another and I'm picking that all 2D customers will all actually become Orcon customers (other than billing..... perhaps).

But by doing it you've had control of the interruption and managed the switch and now you are stable.

The poor buggers sticking it out may well end up with non-communicated outages and issues (Like my daughters change yesterday).

I'm aware of Orcon and 2D being part of Vocus and the buyout. What's the use of me being a member of Geekzone. However, I have no other choice. I wanted to stay with the big 3. Spark, Voda, & 2D but Spark is out of the budget and based here Voda had bad customer service like what's happening with 2D now.

I was with Orcon maybe 2015 then Skinny, the only issue with Orcon then was the disconnection at midnight for about 30sec-1min and Skinny having good deals then.

When I found Geekzone, nothing but praises was given to 2D and how awesome is their Fritz vs what was given by Orcon.

Now my lock-in with 2D is up, Skinny didn't have any good deal so might as well go with Orcon 6 months 50% off is the only decent deal I found and try their Google Wifi Pro.

Good to know that the bet is 2D going to Orcon and not the other way around.

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3046215 6-Mar-2023 10:00

SarahRykers:

Kia ora everyone,

It makes for tough reading, and I just wanted to take the time to explain about where things are at.

We know that wait-times aren’t up to scratch right now, and we have been recruiting as fast as we can. We have 40 more frontline agents than we did a year ago and we have 40 more starting this quarter. Some of our products are complex, so it does take a bit of time to train Care agents - which means it's not a quick fix.

We also have added an additional call centre in South Africa who take Pre Paid mobile queries, to help relieve pressure on our Customer Care team. Despite these steps, we still need more staff, and like many kiwi businesses we’re finding it hard to recruit in a labour market shortage. We have streamlined training and other processes, we have increased pay, we are launching more bonuses and rewards programmes as well to help us retain staff, and we are also moving to a single billing stack, which will make it faster and more efficient to serve customers as well.

As many of you who have worked in this environment know, there’s no shortage of metrics we track, and thanks to this work that’s been happening in the background our SLAs are headed in the right direction – we do know that we’ve a way to go yet though, and we aren’t slowing down our efforts. Large Call Centres can take a long time to meaningfully change, and it’s absolutely a top priority for everyone across the business.

We have already looked at Call Back, and while it does work really well to smooth out peaks and troughs in a call centre, if there aren’t enough troughs it can spread the team too thin and end up creating more work for agents who are under the pump.

2degrees has always prided itself on service, and we want to have this fixed and firing as much as our customers do. We really do apologise to anyone who hasn’t been able to get the service they need. If you’re not having much luck via phone or email, please give us a go via Facebook or Twitter DM. If you’ve gotten really stuck and you need someone to chase something for you please flick me an email on SMM@2degrees.nz and I’ll do our best to get this raised for you. Just a disclaimer, this is not an official Care channel – so I’ll do what I can.

Cheers,
Sarah

Thanks Sarah - Its good to know you are aware. Will 2D still be running their own helpdesk or will 2D eventually be merged into the exact same platform? - What about Business connections??

The one refreshing thing for me is all of these teething issues are signs of actual change - I still have to be put through to a small team in a Wellington dungeon for people who registered their domain name through Paradise many many years ago even though they were purchased by Telstra Saturn in 2000 who eventually merged with Vodafone / Ihug etc.

I know running a help desk like this must be incredibly frustrating. From the user end what I feel works best is if the frontline team are good at handling the "Is the power light on?" enquiries but are well trained to transfer to a level 2 team with better tools and skills to handle the real issues when its obvious its actually a real fault. (Again - I know, easily said from their end of the equation)

I used to value highly the fact I could ring up and the person I spoke to resolved the issue - Sometimes that meant going on hold while they spoke to someone upstream to make the fix but I would always have a resolution by the time the call ended. I think with the scale and size you are growing to thats going to be impossible so it seems better to have tiers of helpdesk staff. That might be a way to make sure the people suited to fix real issues have more time to do that without helping great nana fix her browser issue or put the power cord back in her ONT.

For Business I've always said ISP's could run some sort of training / evaluation online to get people who are certified to ring a number that goes directly to tier 2.

Nothing is more frustrating to a technician than giving an exhaustive description of the steps you've taken to rule out a client side issue only to get the response "OK, now pull the power cable out and leave it out for 2 minutes"

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3046219 6-Mar-2023 10:23

Sorry - Have to come and add something. So I'm responsible for my connection being on 2D fibre, my parents in AKL too (very happy clients at present) and both my daughters being instrumental in 2D fibre on their flats (Managed to talk their flatmates out of the free garbage to pay more for less)

So daughter 1 had the issue where she was down, say on hold for an hour and a quarter to find out they'd reconfigured her onto port 2 of the ONT without remembering to txt her to let her know as the account holder.

Daughter 2 moved into her flat last weekend on the 25th - Her fibre had been put on hold when they moved out of last flat only a week before but they found a new flat quickly so I moved her home one weekend and back out the following (FUN)

She rang to get it reactivated at the new address on the sunday the 26th with her original Fritzbox connected and a nice Enable ONT with the Power and PON lights on and was told it would be online quickly.

2 days later she rang as it still wasn't going and was told "It can take 5 to 15 days!".

So we're now the 6th of Feb and they STILL aren't online!!! This is a flat with university students trying to study and she knows if she decides to ring AGAIN she'll have to hold for at least an hour and probably just get told again "We'll txt you when its ready".

This is absolutely the WORST service I've ever seen. I'm going to suggest she tried port 2 on the ONT just incase they've configured that for some strange reason like my other daughter but it seems like she's just waiting for 2D and Enable provisioning to talk. If it was me I'd be waiting on hold and building up a head of steam to complain but she's already spent hours on the phone on hold to them and she's actually trying hard to keep up with the workload of a 3rd year engineering student.

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

wratterus

1687 posts

Uber Geek

#3046245 6-Mar-2023 11:18

To comment something positive, I did notice the Chch speedtest server is back online after being AWoL for a few years so that's nice. :)

mobiusnz

457 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3046246 6-Mar-2023 11:23

wratterus:

To comment something positive, I did notice the Chch speedtest server is back online after being AWoL for a few years so that's nice. :)

just tried now. It’s nice to see that 3ms ping back :)

some time back while analysing my high internet usage out of interest I saw a very large amount of traffic to an ip at 2 degrees. Turns out the UniFi controller speed monitoring option I turned ok meant it was running speed tests from the chch server multiple times a day and eating many many GB of data. It made a pretty graph but I turned it off 😂

Matt Beechey Mobius Network Solutions

SarahRykers

49 posts

Geek

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2degrees

#3046862 7-Mar-2023 13:51

mobiusnz:

Thanks Sarah - Its good to know you are aware. Will 2D still be running their own helpdesk or will 2D eventually be merged into the exact same platform? - What about Business connections??

The one refreshing thing for me is all of these teething issues are signs of actual change - I still have to be put through to a small team in a Wellington dungeon for people who registered their domain name through Paradise many many years ago even though they were purchased by Telstra Saturn in 2000 who eventually merged with Vodafone / Ihug etc.

I know running a help desk like this must be incredibly frustrating. From the user end what I feel works best is if the frontline team are good at handling the "Is the power light on?" enquiries but are well trained to transfer to a level 2 team with better tools and skills to handle the real issues when its obvious its actually a real fault. (Again - I know, easily said from their end of the equation)

I used to value highly the fact I could ring up and the person I spoke to resolved the issue - Sometimes that meant going on hold while they spoke to someone upstream to make the fix but I would always have a resolution by the time the call ended. I think with the scale and size you are growing to thats going to be impossible so it seems better to have tiers of helpdesk staff. That might be a way to make sure the people suited to fix real issues have more time to do that without helping great nana fix her browser issue or put the power cord back in her ONT.

For Business I've always said ISP's could run some sort of training / evaluation online to get people who are certified to ring a number that goes directly to tier 2.

Nothing is more frustrating to a technician than giving an exhaustive description of the steps you've taken to rule out a client side issue only to get the response "OK, now pull the power cable out and leave it out for 2 minutes"

Hey there,

As the two businesses combine forces we will eventually merge under the 2degrees banner, and during this process we'll be taking the best bits from both sides. This, along with all the current changes we're making to Customer Care, should build a better, more efficient Care process for customers in the future. Our Care teams do currently have different specialists for different products, including Business, and some Customer Care cases do get escalated to other teams if their issues are more complex to resolve.

I appreciate all your feedback, there's some great ideas here, and I'll forward it on to the team as I know they're working on improving processes and structure behind the scenes.

As mentioned if you or your daughter get really stuck with sorting stuff out, please fire a email to SMM@2degrees.nz and I'll do my best to escalate it for you.
All the best,
Sarah

Sarah Rykers - 2degrees Social & Digital Media Manager

I'm in the Brand & Comms team. If you'd like some help from our 100% Kiwi customer care team call 0800 022 022.

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