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View Full Version : How incompetent are bt? read on.


EddThompson
17-11-2006, 4:42 PM
Ive had quite a day with bt, thought id tell you lot.

From the begining, i have been with bt broadband since it first became available, circa 2001/2.

The other month I was going to regrade to Total broadband, low and behold, im told im not allowed as i have a business phone line, im not allowed a home internet account on a business line, despite the fact, thats what i had already.

So, i call bt business as I want 8 meg, they say yes no problem we will regrade you. I asked can i keep my current emails, yes no problem sir etc.

Next phone call i find out im not allowed to keep the home emails, i have to pay £5 a month for some business pack that redirects old email addreses to new ones. I say no way am i paying that!, i lodge a complaint and im told ill be called back soon, this was 2 months ago, ive heard nothing.

Today, i got an email saying my new bt yahoo bill will be £68, this is for my home account i have canceled. I call up, im told it was an error in the system, I ask why i got this anyway as im now a business customer, well, i was, and i had a residential account to, ive been paying £30 a month for 2 months because they forgot to cancel my residential account!

Some one tells me while sorting this that i can keep my emails for £1.50 a month (holy moly im thinking) so i promptly signed up for bt yahoo premium mail.

During this process i have the chap on the phone guiding me, he says click this do that etc, im confronted with a page saying "you have 5 sub accounts when you are only allowed 4", fine i think, ill just get rid of that one.

Due to me being a moron, and the chap on the phone wittering in my ear, i have lost all my sub accounts except the one i was deleting.

Never mind i thought, ill get them to undelete them, nope, not going to happen, i have to wait 6 months for the email addresses to become available again, and even then i may not get them!

I ask to speak to a superior, see if he can help, i get argued with and i hang up. So i decide to complain to bt that its a but dumb not being able to get my emails back, i call the complaints people and im told to complain i have to talk to a superior in the department, and get him to escalate it! When i told him they wouldnt let me speak to a superior he was somewhat shocked.

So i call btyahoo back, wait 20 mins or so on hold, get argued with again for 30 mins being told my emails are gone, im trying to explain i just want to complain about the loss of said emails to be argued with even more saying it wont help to complain!

Any wayyy, complaint was finaly logged after 3 hours!

sorry for the rant, but who else can i tell :(

edd

Axion
18-11-2006, 8:19 AM
shocking!

Rygar
18-11-2006, 12:55 PM
Sounds very frustrating indeed. The perfect reason to buy a domain, never worry about changing ISP again.

FWIW I changed from BT Yahoo about a year ago. To this day I can still send and receive from all of my old BT email accounts. Not paying a penny to them, but they all still work. Apparently this is quite common. Either their systems dont work properly, it's meant to be done manually and they forget, or they just plain dont care.

EddThompson
18-11-2006, 12:58 PM
The e-mail address of the account, not the subdomains, is vital, i know they seem to stay, but i cant have it dissapearing on the off chance, for £1.50 a month, i can live with it.

I have a domain, so i can live with the loss of the sub accounts, i just couldnt belive the "you deleted it, its tougth" responce.

I spoke to the busisness side, and they said if deleted a sub account, they could put it back in minuites, why cant the home side be the same?

edd

stratagem
18-11-2006, 1:05 PM
Sounds very frustrating indeed. The perfect reason to buy a domain, never worry about changing ISP again.



A very valid point, I use a number of domains, say £1.99 for 2 years (co.uk) and you have complete control via POP, IMAP, web, etc, you can setup loads of alias's and drop them if spam takes hold, recommed to all.

Rygar
18-11-2006, 1:14 PM
Maybe you should persevere. I have noticed with big companies like BT you get different answers to the same question depending on who & when you talk to them.

A few years back I changed my phone from BT to another provider. This provider went bust so it was back to BT but oh no...they couldnt allow me to keep my old phone number. I talked to many staff, managers & departments many times over a period of about one month. Same answer every time: "we understand your frustration sir, but it is just physically impossible to keep your old phone number" I had almost given up when I talked to this one guy: "What, you want to keep your old number? Sure no probs mate (click, click click) There. Thats you done" I couldn't believe it. After being told by all these people that it was impossible, this guy does it in a matter of seconds while I am on the phone to him.

You just never know eh!

Knyght_byte
21-11-2006, 4:30 AM
any company with a large volume of customers will have call centres where you will get all sorts of different answers....it works this way for one simple reason.......they dont employ people to work in the amount of departments you think they have.....the phone tree system might have 20 different options, 10 of which will be answered by one group of people, 5 by another group and 5 by a third group....of course if the third group is a little short that day (say due to sick days) then group one might take the flack, or group 2......they wont be fully trained but will have access on the system, if they cant find what you want to do tho, they'll tell you it cant be done most likely in the hope you'll say 'oh well, forget it then'......you cant always blame the company for this, whilst they will train folks as hard as they can, they cant pay them as much as it takes to get someone to actually give a toss what the customer on the other end wants...lol....i've worked the last 5 years in a call centre for a company (not ISP related) and can tell you now, apart from me and a few of the old timers who'd been there as long as i had or longer (in some cases a lot longer) not one of the folks who answered you call could care less about your circumstance......why? not paid enough to care.........even tho the job wasnt actually that bad a pay cheque!...(to me that is).....i always did my best, even when i knew i couldnt help the person i made sure their query DID get to the person who definitely could help them and they always understood and believed me when i told them i was helping them, simply by my sounding knowledgeable about a section of the company that i didnt even have anything to do with as i like to find things out.....

yes companies could pay these people more to help you all the time...if they did the cost of your service would increase by around 30% or more if you wanted them to be in the same country and speak the same language AND care about your problem....

ok, sorry about the rant lol....just wanted to show that tbh, its a mix of the customer, the company and the staff's fault a lot of the time, sometimes more of one or the other yes....but thats capitalism....everyone wants something for nothing ;)

Cable Monkey
21-11-2006, 8:32 AM
Their unwillingness to log your complaint is a big big no no and could get them into lots of trouble with the regulating authorities (who measure them quite closely on complaints and how quickly they sort them!;) ). Lots of folks get annoyed at being made to wait and being told they 'can't complain'. Most go away, kudos to you for sticking to your guns.

EddThompson
21-11-2006, 2:54 PM
Knyght_byte, I like everyone have to deal with many call centres, 99% of them are fine, effcient and solve the problem, be it insurance, my credit cards, or techical help with what ever. I run my own business, the customer comes first, BT are the only company i know, who on every occasion i need to call them I end up frustrated and let down.

I dont know if this is because the call centres are in india, this seems to add at least 30% more time to a call re explaining.

The business side, seems to be very good, efficient and reliable, hence i am still with bt.

I will be amazed if i even get a responce from the complaint, BT have managed to completly forget why they exist, for the customer, the fact we are diverted to a call centre 1000s of miles away, and rarely get to speak to anyone more senior than the telephone answerers boss, indicates a lot to me.

edd