BT: Whatever happened to customer service?

[Dark Knight]

as many of you will know , we have located to the east coast idyll of Kingston upon Hull to a new build
we rang BT before we moved informing them of our move and requested an installation for a home phone line and broadband
no problem you may think, ooh how wrong we were
they originally stated the 19th of June, no one turned up or phoned our mobiles to tell us they would not be coming
we rang to ask them what had happened and they told us they had changed it to the 24th, without informing us, the 24th came and went, no signof BT, no call no nothing
7 phone calls to BT later and I end up talking to somebody, who informed me that they needed to do a survey, then book an engineer then install the line and then another engineer would come and do the broadband at a later date?
during the 6th phone call the person at the other end hung up on my wife ,mid call??
so I asked if they could give me a date for all this to happen, the answer was your date of birth is wrong and your mobile number is wrong, again I asked for a date to perfom this very difficult electrical wizardry and again the answer was your details are wrong and we can't find your house? I asked why then had they said they would be round on the 19th and then the 24th, when obviously they had no intention of doing either date? to which the reply was............they hung up

so I rang the local provider Kingston Communications and they will be round next week to install everything in one go ....job done and the customer service people were exceptional
so BT have lost not only my home custom but my work custom as well, and I bet they couldnt care less, a sad reflection of the lost art of proper customer service

[david63]

And I bet that most of the calls were dealt with by someone with an "Asian" accent

[Dark Knight]

Smurfy, an unintelligible accent to boot and no idea of how to handle a complaint, obviously the booklet they use had a page or two missing

[howard18]

You should have infromed BT that you were the cruise community rottweiler. That would have made them get a move on.

Howard

[Dark Knight]

howard I informed them that they had lost a customer and that the service was disgraceful, but I doubt it made one shred of difference to them, as it is obvious they do not care about service only profit
whereas the local cpompnay have got an engineer coming round next week to fix everything including the broadband, in one visit, in one weeks time, when all BT could do was either challenge my details or hang up....pathetic

[ChesterfieldJohn]

And I bet that most of the calls were dealt with by someone with an "Asian" accent

What has the accent got to do with it?

Poor service is poor service.

John

[david63]

Accent has a lot to do with the call centre being in India and whilst I agree that "poor service is poor service" in my experience there is a vast difference between BT call centres in India and BT call centres in the UK with the level of customer service.

[ChesterfieldJohn]

Accent has a lot to do with the call centre being in India and whilst I agree that "poor service is poor service" in my experience there is a vast difference between BT call centres in India and BT call centres in the UK with the level of customer service.

Many people in this country have an asian accent.

Seems to me that this is bordering on racism.

John

[Manoverboard]

Accent has a lot to do with the call centre being in India and whilst I agree that "poor service is poor service" in my experience there is a vast difference between BT call centres in India and BT call centres in the UK with the level of customer service.

I found exactly the same thing, couldn't understand a word they were talking about so gave up in the end and employed a local ' Comms Specialist ' to sort my problem out.

Interesting thing about the Indian accent is that I can, for example, understand every word spoken by staff in any Indian restaurant we have been to yet we found it quite difficult to understand anybody when we were in Mumbai last year.

ps ... welcome back Rottie old chap

[haveabeer]

I had same problem unable to understand what she was saying i just requested that i be transferred to a UK call centre
which they did guess what i ended up with a Glaswegian accent

[Andrea S]

BT a problem ? try Virgin. I don't know know where their call centre is nut

[Andrea S]

Oops , was trying to say wherever it is you get no sense and no service either. After getting a call telling me that I need one of their mobiles, repeatedly saying no I don't , they insisting I do, I put the phone down. Within minutes I get e mail asking my views on customer service. 0-5 markings. Unfortunately there isn't a minus 0.

[Silver_Shiney]

Oops , was trying to say wherever it is you get no sense and no service either. After getting a call telling me that I need one of their mobiles, repeatedly saying no I don't , they insisting I do, I put the phone down. Within minutes I get e mail asking my views on customer service. 0-5 markings. Unfortunately there isn't a minus 0.

Oh dear, I'm sorry to hear that, Andrea. While I agree their "mobile" arm's customer service isn't wonderful, I've had no complaints about their telephone/TV/broadband customer service. I've been with Virgin for years and would thoroughly recommend them.

Going back to DK's point, BT used to have the monopoly on phone services. Perhaps they still think they do!

[Andrea S]

SS, I also have all Virgin services of which I have no complaint but I find their mobile telesales extremely intimidating. It may seem strange to others but the older I get I do find their insistence of what I want quite frightening. I really can see why people sign up for things they don't necessarily need.

On BT maybe I am slightly biased.
As a GPO trained telephone operator (from the days when you could only dial local numbers) which then transferred to BT the countries telephone service became first class. You could sit at home and dial numbers which took you all around the world. They had real telephone engineers and telephonists who knew every aspect of their job. Sadly we now have a decline of a personal service. Everything is automated as it now comes under IT and BT 's brainwave called CISCO is a fiasco. If is being used by local councils and local hospitals. You are given a number and an extension to ring, if you are lucky you may get through. In most cases you will just get an in obtainable sound which to a customer is poor service. The reason you are getting this is because the person you want is not logged into their computer or they are on another call. The call will not transfer to the operator who could offer you an alternative number so the client will need to repeatedly re dial costing them money.

With all their current advertising you would expect a good service but as DK has found out this isn't always the case.

[Keechy]

so I rang the local provider Kingston Communications and they will be round next week to install everything in one go ....job done and the customer service people were exceptional
so BT have lost not only my home custom but my work custom as well, and I bet they couldnt care less, a sad reflection of the lost art of proper customer service

See Mr DK, you're starting to find good things to say about Hull (or Kingston upon it). I've had one or two problems with Karoo (the local ISP for those outsiders who don't know who Karoo is) but they usually sort them out pretty quickly.

[howard18]

Many people in this country have an asian accent.

Seems to me that this is bordering on racism.

John

Seems to me that racism is in the eye of the beholder. Tolerence is a virtue John.

Howard

[Silver_Shiney]

Many people in this country have an asian accent.

Seems to me that this is bordering on racism.

John

Seems to me that racism is in the eye of the beholder. Tolerence is a virtue John.

Howard

[ChesterfieldJohn]

Many people in this country have an asian accent.

Seems to me that this is bordering on racism.

John

Seems to me that racism is in the eye of the beholder. Tolerence is a virtue John.

Howard

Not quite sure what you mean by this.

Where does tolerance come in to the statement that was made?

John

[Silver_Shiney]

Many people in this country have an asian accent.

Seems to me that this is bordering on racism.

John

Seems to me that racism is in the eye of the beholder. Tolerence is a virtue John.

Howard

Not quite sure what you mean by this.

Where does tolerance come in to the statement that was made?

John

If I might put my three ha'pence worth in, it seems to me that the original comment was a side-swipe at the call centres pertaining to British companies that have been relocated to India. Those dear people with their lovely accents have little, if any, understanding of customs and traditions in this country. There are communication problems because of this, which lead to misunderstandings and longer-than necessary phone calls because, coupled with the sometimes poor quality of international phone calls, things often have to be repeated before either side can understand what the other party is saying.

In addition, there are many people out of work in this country who could adequately do those jobs. I know wage costs are lower over there than they are here, but the jobs should still remain here. The whole wage/cost of living issue is a matter for another debate.

It also seems to me that too many people are far too quick to play the ***-ist card, be it age, race, sex, when a little tolerance and understanding instead would go a long way.

[Manoverboard]

My take however was that ' racism ' wouldn't have been mentioned if you, SS or Howard for example, rather than D63 had posted the comment about accent.

Regards MobiMod

[ChesterfieldJohn]

My take however was that ' racism ' wouldn't have been mentioned if you, SS or Howard for example, rather than D63 had posted the comment about accent.

Regards MobiMod

What do you base that on?

Its the comments not the person that I judged.

John

[Manoverboard]

My take however was that ' racism ' wouldn't have been mentioned if you, SS or Howard for example, rather than D63 had posted the comment about accent.

Regards MobiMod

What do you base that on?

Its the comments not the person that I judged.

John

John ... you have mail.

[ChesterfieldJohn]

My take however was that ' racism ' wouldn't have been mentioned if you, SS or Howard for example, rather than D63 had posted the comment about accent.

Regards MobiMod

What do you base that on?

Its the comments not the person that I judged.

John

John ... you have mail.

Mail read

[mavismumakrill]

Going back to DK's original post: Kingston Upon Hull have always had their own telephone exchange and system. Some of the villages around have a choice of using the Kingston Communications or BT for their telephone systems. In Kingston Upon Hull it is a monopoly of Kingston Communications (or it was and I don't think it has changed). That is why you will have had problems with BT not knowing your address. I believe it is the only city that has it's own telephone and internet system in England.

Mavis x

[howard18]

John,

I trust that SS in his elequent fashion has answered your question.


Howard