[Snap] What ever happened to Snap's excellent customer service?

Forums › 2degrees › [Snap] What ever happened to Snap's excellent customer service?

spagbowl

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Topic # 113684 24-Jan-2013 12:51

Hey fellow geeks,

I've been having a rough time trying to get some customer service out of Snap the past couple months (they messed up my connection again). Has anyone else experienced poor service?

On 25 November 2012 I was e-mailing support with phrasing like this when applying to move service address...

"I have enjoyed the Snap service and I am appreciative of the excellent customer service (despite the original signing-up hiccups).

Perhaps you could also offer a package to the new tenant moving into the [....] address. He will likely be there 2+ years and I would like to further support Snap as a company with offices based in Riccarton [although now in Durham Street].

...to this on 20 January 2013...

"Please have a Team Leader contact me to register a formal complaint."

I'm sorry to those who don't appreciate whinging on the forum board but what ever happened to the quality Snap customer service? Snap always had excellent goodwill from me and I've signed-up four other people to their services since I initially did so. Now they have nothing. And they never did contact the new tenant either so he signed-up with another ISP.

Still waiting on that team leader to contact me too... and getting really sick of calling and having the recorded message spell out every year they won with the now-beleaguered TUANZ!

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BDFL - Memuneh
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Reply # 750153 24-Jan-2013 13:03

If you want to lodge a formal complaint then YOU have to be active and not wait for a call back.

It's not a problem with Snap only, but it seems pretty much all NZ ISPs won't act on email alone.

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RalphFromSnap

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Reply # 750180 24-Jan-2013 13:28

Hey Spagbowl,

Could you please message us your username and or customer number so I can go further with this and see what the deal was?

Cheers ^AL

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www.snap.net.nz

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hads

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Reply # 750225 24-Jan-2013 14:31

I had a rough time with Snap back in late 2009 or so and moved to Telecom for a few years. I recently moved back to Snap and am pleased with my choice.

There has been a few slow responses to queries but overall the support has been very good. Personal assistance from team leaders and engineers who know their stuff.

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sidefx

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Reply # 750240 24-Jan-2013 14:55

freitasm: It's not a problem with Snap only, but it seems pretty much all NZ ISPs won't act on email alone.

Sad but true as I've learned dealing with a number of ISPs over the years, both in NZ and during a stint in the UK. They all seem to relegate email to the lowest of the low level in terms of response times and support. But this is not limited to ISPs I think... If you really want decent support, sometimes forums and twitter\facebook seem to be the way to go I guess because of the public element.

As for experiences with snap, I haven't tried email support through them at all for the reasons above; I always start with a call to their helpdesk and have always been very impressed with the quick response and friendly, knowledgable staff. Must admit I've not had to call them for anything in months though - everything has been running like clockwork. I really hope I'd get the same experience if I had to today! I think the one time in the past when the helpdesk couldn't help me I hit them up on these forums and was again very impressed by the prompt, friendly and efficient response.

networkn

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Reply # 750241 24-Jan-2013 14:57

I guess that people are only just starting to realize that it's pretty much inevitable that when you are small, you tend to be able to have better support because there are less people involved. Now they have gotten bigger, the cracks are starting to appear as expected, and I forsee things getting worse well before they get better.

I am not claiming to have knowledge that this is the case, but normally this can occur because companies like Snap grow much faster by offering lower prices and don't have the infrastructure in place to cope, and from then on, things are reactive.

It happened with Orcon, it happened with 2Degrees (For whom the pricing difference between them and their competitors get smaller and smaller) and a few of the other companies around too.

It takes extremely strong leadership and a fair amount of money to overcome these issues. Sadly most companies aren't prepared to spend the money and instead, apply a little here and there, and the next player eventually comes along and cuts their lunch.

Generally people aren't that loyal any more and will go where they can get the best deal.

One thing that has really bugged me about Snap is that they refuse to answer questions here around why their business services are so much more expensive. To me it seems like "Snap - we love you.. Unless you're a business"

I would like to re-iterate that I am not stating anything above as fact, but rather my opinion and observations.

spagbowl

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Reply # 750398 24-Jan-2013 20:08

I am not angry with Snap, just disappointed. I remained loyal because they are a Christchurch-based company with hitherto excellent customer service. They certainly were not offering the best deal for my needs.

I'm mostly annoyed that I was passed interchangeably between five customer service representatives. I was also treated like an ignorant fool at first instance for daring to suggest that the connection had been installed incorrectly. If one CSR was dealing with my support 'ticket' I believe the issue would have been resolved a lot more quickly.

mattwnz

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Reply # 750418 24-Jan-2013 21:09

networkn:
I guess that people are only just starting to realize that it's pretty much inevitable that when you are small, you tend to be able to have better support because there are less people involved. Now they have gotten bigger, the cracks are starting to appear as expected, and I forsee things getting worse well before they get better.

I am not claiming to have knowledge that this is the case, but normally this can occur because companies like Snap grow much faster by offering lower prices and don't have the infrastructure in place to cope, and from then on, things are reactive.

It happened with Orcon, it happened with 2Degrees (For whom the pricing difference between them and their competitors get smaller and smaller) and a few of the other companies around too.

Have come across this before too with many NZ companies I have used. They begin offering great support, then they may grow or get brought out by another company, and you then end up dealing with a contact centre where they are just following flow charts for support. Or the support quality decreases and time to reply increases dramatically. It is possibly based on life cycles of companies too. I have noticed that Telecom have had a rebirth, and now provide better support than I get from some smaller ISPs, but that didn't used to be the case.

networkn

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Reply # 750420 24-Jan-2013 21:11

mattwnz:
networkn:
I guess that people are only just starting to realize that it's pretty much inevitable that when you are small, you tend to be able to have better support because there are less people involved. Now they have gotten bigger, the cracks are starting to appear as expected, and I forsee things getting worse well before they get better.

I am not claiming to have knowledge that this is the case, but normally this can occur because companies like Snap grow much faster by offering lower prices and don't have the infrastructure in place to cope, and from then on, things are reactive.

It happened with Orcon, it happened with 2Degrees (For whom the pricing difference between them and their competitors get smaller and smaller) and a few of the other companies around too.

Have come across this before too with many NZ companies I have used. They begin offering great support, then they may grow or get brought out by another company, and you then end up dealing with a contact centre where they are just following flow charts for support. Or the support quality decreases and time to reply increases dramatically. It is possibly based on life cycles of companies too. I have noticed that Telecom have had a rebirth, and now provide better support than I get from some smaller ISPs, but that didn't used to be the case.

Vodafone as well. Their turn around defies belief. It's excellent. It comes from strong leadership.

spagbowl

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Reply # 750614 25-Jan-2013 10:38

Thanks geeks. I'm impressed that my forum rant has evolved into a general discussion of the quality of New Zealand ISP customer service.

I'm inclined to agree with mattwnz and networkn. The larger ISPs do seem to be providing better customer service nowadays. A friend of mine is the equivalent of a Snap Team Leader at Telecom and he offered to get things sorted for me. I declined, wanting to stay loyal to a Christchurch-based company.

And yes, networkn, Snap does seem to have high business rates. I looked to moving my company's broadband services to Snap last year but it wasn't worth the effort (let alone all the mobile phones!).

stevehodge

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Reply # 750987 25-Jan-2013 21:35

networkn: Vodafone as well. Their turn around defies belief. It's excellent. It comes from strong leadership.

Vodafone have been such pricks to roaming users that I'll never have any loyalty to them no matter how good their customer service gets. They used to charge $20/MB and had the gall to claim that it was because they had no control over what the ISP at the other end charged. Really? Vodafone Australia was screwing Vodafone NZ on roaming connections? So how come they managed to drop the price by 90% as soon as the government started investigating?

Even now Vodafone Australia have a perfect deal for travellers: $10 for 250MB. But they don't offer that deal in store, only online, and they won't take foreign credit cards online. They used to, but they stopped. They deliberately made it difficult so that travellers would buy the $30 prepaid package. Companies that pull that sort of thing shouldn't expect any customer loyalty.

At least Vodafone NZ's customer website is a lot better than it used to be. It looked like it was two separate systems linked together before. Now it's easy to use and has some great features. Unlike Telecom who still can't accept credit card payments online. I mean, wtf? NZ's biggest ISP can't accept online credit card payments?

networkn

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Reply # 750992 25-Jan-2013 21:43

stevehodge:
networkn: Vodafone as well. Their turn around defies belief. It's excellent. It comes from strong leadership.

Vodafone have been such pricks to roaming users that I'll never have any loyalty to them no matter how good their customer service gets. They used to charge $20/MB and had the gall to claim that it was because they had no control over what the ISP at the other end charged. Really? Vodafone Australia was screwing Vodafone NZ on roaming connections? So how come they managed to drop the price by 90% as soon as the government started investigating?

Even now Vodafone Australia have a perfect deal for travellers: $10 for 250MB. But they don't offer that deal in store, only online, and they won't take foreign credit cards online. They used to, but they stopped. They deliberately made it difficult so that travellers would buy the $30 prepaid package. Companies that pull that sort of thing shouldn't expect any customer loyalty.

At least Vodafone NZ's customer website is a lot better than it used to be. It looked like it was two separate systems linked together before. Now it's easy to use and has some great features. Unlike Telecom who still can't accept credit card payments online. I mean, wtf? NZ's biggest ISP can't accept online credit card payments?

Well VF weren't alone in their rorting of customers, Telecom were just as bad if not worse, plus their coverage internationally sucked.

stevehodge

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Reply # 751023 25-Jan-2013 22:21

networkn:
Well VF weren't alone in their rorting of customers, Telecom were just as bad if not worse, plus their coverage internationally sucked.

Sure, but Telecom at least could legitimately claim they were at the mercy of the foreign ISP. Vodafone couldn't, and yet used that excuse anyway. So dishonest on top of predatory. But regardless, my point is that any improvement in customer service rings a little hollow for me while they are still doing their level best to take advantage of their own customers. $2/MB is still ridiculous for roaming when they are offering their local customers $0.04/MB or better. As for prepaid plans with time limits on the data - thanks for nothing (all the providers suck in this regard - there isn't much value in prepaid when you getting a monthly bill).

GeoffisPure

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Reply # 751048 26-Jan-2013 01:30

The thing I've found with Snap support is so long as your query is fairly routine, they handle it very nicely. As soon as things start to become a little complicated or demanding, you end up on the back burner and support is less than forthcoming. I guess this isn't uncommon across all large ISPs, though. I still think Snap are the best deal.

spagbowl

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Reply # 751860 28-Jan-2013 11:19

Allan had a look into my account for me. He has organised for me to be refunded for the period that I didn't have a telephone line.

Although I shouldn't have had to post on a public forum just to get noticed!

Either way, thanks for the input, geeks.

XxJAGERMASTERxX

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Reply # 755632 4-Feb-2013 15:44

Snap has given me the best support I've ever had with an isp. I've been with telecom and Vodafone beforehand and both seem to have international call centers (or employ people with very heavy accents) and don't help at all or i cant understand them.

I've been with snap coming up 3-4 months, have had a couple of hiccups but everything got sorted out fast and haven't looked back

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