Have a problem with NTL?

[Mark W]

We all know ntl is far from perfect but lately the ntl related posts seem to be a bit quiet, call me cynical but i cant belive out of nearly 900 members you are all happy with the service you are getting?

any general problems effecting/annoying you, or are there more specific issues getting your goat?

I'm just curious as to whats the worst thing about ntl at the moment from your point of view?

ill start by saying for me, its gotta be the unreliability of the mail servers - things have obviously gotten out of hand when you have to get a 3rd party mail supplier cos you never know when your isp's mail will not work :afire:

[Lord Nikon]

Originally posted by Mark W
[snip] call me cynical [snip]

Ok, You're Cynical :LOL:

[Russ]

Well I certainly hope NTL are getting things sorted. Apart from the shenannigans of my installation, I can't really complain about them right now!

Well done NTL! :)

edit - how about adding another option - 'nothing'?

[Stuart W]

The e-mail problems used to get to me, but I, like many others, have resorted to other mail servers.
Now it's just the customer services that makes my blood boil!!

"I'll get someone to give you a callback" They say this with such confidence, then I cut them down by pointing out that not only do I have *NO* ntl telephone line, but NTL have *NO* contact number for me (acording to CS, CMSupp know my mobile number)

Oh, there's another thing.... "I'm sorry, Biling/support is on a different system and I can not see those details from here." I thought ntl was a network company.... a network company who can't network computer systems.

[Nemesis]

On the whole, I'm happy

TV - Good selection of channels, poor interactive
BB - No probs at all
Email - No probs
Telephone - No probs
Prices - bit pricey, don't like package setups
CS - When I have rung, the wait is the worst.
Sales - The worst, absolutely useless muppets

[Ben]

Well I choose e-mail as a pain :rolleyes:

Again as everyone else uses a different mail server so do I :)

I have also added a "nothing" area to vote on

[SMHarman]

Negatives
Newsgroups - though text. seems to have fixed that.
TV channel guide - something like the sky one or the Time Warner one please
STBs - Sky+ HDD recorder style one please.
STB - cost of second stb (was £5 on analogue - now £15 on digital)
Interactive please
Value for Money - not sure on this one.

But as to the service as it stands...
TV working fine
Customer services - called on Saturday and my call was resolved in 3 minutes
Phone - don't use it
Mail - dont use it use demon, but they also have been having POP3 problems due to the levels of spam these days.
BB fine

[Mark W]

so with the customer service problems, is it their knowlege base, their attititude, telephone manner, hands tied by stupid company proceedures?

gotta say, they have always been fast, helpful and efficient when ive phoned them, never had a problem apart from the time £90 quid appeared on my bill :afire: tho they sorted that pretty quickly to be honest...

[Lord Nikon]

I think the biggest problem is that the various depts tend to treat each other like mushrooms...

[Russ]

Originally posted by Lord Nikon
I think the biggest problem is that the various depts tend to treat each other like mushrooms...

It's more a case of the departments not communicating with each other....anyone remember 1Mb coming down in price??? :rolleyes:

[dieselking]

Emails never used to work & jhalf the time u ccould never get on them but that has been OK for the last few months & works 99% of the time now. The tv at a glance tv guide isn't very good because half the time it says 'programme information not available' which doesn't help when u want to know what's on the telly :)

[philip.j.fry]

Originally posted by Stuart W
"I'll get someone to give you a callback" They say this with such confidence, then I cut them down by pointing out that not only do I have *NO* ntl telephone line, but NTL have *NO* contact number for me (acording to CS, CMSupp know my mobile number)


This has to be one of my major issues also, NTL seem to make very little provision for customers without an NTL phoneline. When you first get through to CS the first thing they will ask for is the telephone number so they can access account details and seem to get stuck when you reply that you do not have an NTL line, now call me stupid but I thought account numbers would be a better way to access details :shrug:

I do not want to have to pay the line rental for a phone that I will rarely use, I only need my cable internet access. If I need to ring NTL CS I will use a payphone because I cannot afford to be put on hold for 3/4 hour on a mobile phone. This causes problems because CS always ask me to check my computers settings if I have a problem, when I reply that my I'm in a phone box and my pc is half a mile back up the road and could they ring me back on my mobile I always get told that they cannot ring me back.

:rolleyes:

So this is my biggest problem, that on top of CS being dreadful, because I do not have an NTL line I am treated as a second class customer.

[kronas]

broadband has been excellent for me as has email very solid service from them :)

forgot to add they have been very efficent for me if i have had a small problem when i changed my webspace name it wasent working it was a thursday they called me back on saturday saying they had resolved the issue and if it was now working at my end and it was :)

[Mark W]

Originally posted by kronas
broadband has been excellent for me as has email very solid service from them :)

:erm: talk about tempting fate..... i hope you were holding on to a very large plank of wood when you said that kronas? ;)

[kronas]

Originally posted by Mark W
:erm: talk about tempting fate..... i hope you were holding on to a very large plank of wood when you said that kronas? ;)

dont talk to me about planks of wood i got smacked by one.........:(

anyway back on topic read my edit of that post :)

[bigboab5]

OK Guys,

Telephone Service - Happy with

TV Service - Happy with in the main, some screen blanking now and again, but nothing to cause me to phone CS.

Interactive Service - HA HA HA HA

BB service - For surfing and doing what I do, I have no probs with it, except for the newsgroups, I get typically 30%-70% complete files on it, that is when I can get on it!!! Email in the main is ok, and is much better than it was a few months ago.

So there ya have it in a nutshell


Bigboab5
:wavey:

[bigitup_j]

broadband --> :)
telephone --> :)
digital cable TV --> :) now. the problem i had is now fixed :) :) very happy now!

[tabatha]

:wavey: Hi...For what its worth...
Fone..no probs in 3 yrs..
B.B...installed 6mths...all is fine..600 down to 150..
Email..slow sometimes..always delivers..whats a few minutes??..
TV..had digi for 15mths..first prob 4wks ago..faults at Brighton were brill,foned me 3 times with updates...now fine..
Thoughts...A chance to select from more "basic" channels to make up basepack would be good...will never happen tho IMO..who is going to pick 6/7 shopping channels!!!..I dont need radio either:wavey:

[Ramrod]

Originally posted by Mark W
:erm: talk about tempting fate..... i hope you were holding on to a very large plank of wood when you said that kronas? ;) ...just the Singapore cane:rolleyes: :D

[Escapee]

I am just very unhappy with the email at the moment, it seems that 99% of problems in ntl boil down to money, incompetence or lack of communication!

Allways have done, allways will:rolleyes:

Please note that I am not saying all employees are incompetent! A lot of the technical problems are due to the salary levels paid, hence the skill/knowledge level of applicants. The employees with the weaker skills are unlikely to leave through their own choice.

PS:Thats a general observation from departments and people that I have been involved with in ntl! It is not a blanket description for the many that I have not met or been involved with.

[orangebird]

Originally posted by philip.j.fry
This has to be one of my major issues also, NTL seem to make very little provision for customers without an NTL phoneline. When you first get through to CS the first thing they will ask for is the telephone number so they can access account details and seem to get stuck when you reply that you do not have an NTL line, now call me stupid but I thought account numbers would be a better way to access details :shrug:

I do not want to have to pay the line rental for a phone that I will rarely use, I only need my cable internet access. If I need to ring NTL CS I will use a payphone because I cannot afford to be put on hold for 3/4 hour on a mobile phone. This causes problems because CS always ask me to check my computers settings if I have a problem, when I reply that my I'm in a phone box and my pc is half a mile back up the road and could they ring me back on my mobile I always get told that they cannot ring me back.

:rolleyes:

So this is my biggest problem, that on top of CS being dreadful, because I do not have an NTL line I am treated as a second class customer.

Hi,

Do you have the TV service? Is your internet dial up or BB?

[philip.j.fry]

Originally posted by orangebird
Hi,

Do you have the TV service? Is your internet dial up or BB?

Just the BB

[orangebird]

Originally posted by philip.j.fry
Just the BB

Do you have a phone line at home? Ringing CS shouldn't cost you - it's an 0800 number.

[philip.j.fry]

Originally posted by orangebird
Do you have a phone line at home? Ringing CS shouldn't cost you - it's an 0800 number.

No, that's the point I was making...not everyone has a landline.

[dingosar]

well for me i guess that the real pain in the a**e must be the
NTL Poxy Proxies and the constant search for one that is working
if NTL can't fix the problem of the proxies then they should scrap
them ' after all we know that the system works without them because they turned them off in some areas , infact when they were turned off for a short time in this area the service was better , then NTL turned them back on and the same problems started again, i now use a non NTL public Proxy and my connection has never been better :confused: :confused:

[Russ]

Originally posted by philip.j.fry
No, that's the point I was making...not everyone has a landline.

With respect there is very little techs can do if you're not at your computer.

And just to clarify, if your BB connection goes, it's Tech Support who you need to be speaking to, not Customer Services....

[SMHarman]

Originally posted by philip.j.fry
No, that's the point I was making...not everyone has a landline.

Theres two points.

1. some mobiles charge for 0800 calls. "This call is not free of charge from this mobile - the call will be charged at your standard network rates" Not helpful if you don't have a landline. Solution get Orange as your network provider and use one of their equivilancy plans.

2. When you call NTL the first question they ask is for your phone number. What they mean is your NTL phone number. I have BB/TV and Phone, but as BB was not availible and number portability had not kicked off for landlines I got (and still have) Home Highway and use the BT numbers at my house. The NTL phone socket does not have a phone plugged into it and I find it difficult to remember the number at the best of times (helps that it ends in 69 (ooh er). Those without TV/Tel cannot enter such a number. If NTL want you to reference by phone number they should give you the option of what phone number to use.

[Pritch]

As far as I'm aware, the business of entering your phone number is only to do with making sure that you get through to the right place. If I ever ring customer services for the Swansea area, I usually just key in 01792222222 or if I need to contact the London region, 02088888888 when it asks me to enter my home phone number.

[SMHarman]

Well Luton seems to be more advanced. I typed in my BT number and it said it was not recognised.

I know it also acts as call routing, thats why when I am at work in london I call the 01582? number for the centre, not the 0800 number.

[philip.j.fry]

Originally posted by Russ D
With respect there is very little techs can do if you're not at your computer.

And just to clarify, if your BB connection goes, it's Tech Support who you need to be speaking to, not Customer Services....

That's the point I was making though, there is very little the techs can do if I'm not sat at my pc which is why I need them to ring me back.

I own a pay-as-you-go mobile which suits my needs but because 0800 calls from a mobile are charged at the standard rates there is no way I can afford a call to CS/TS. Therefore, I use a payphone if I need to get hold of them, because 0800 calls are still free from a payphone. When asked if I can check some of my settings I explain the situation and ask them if they can ring back on my mobile after giving me enough time to get home, to which I am always told that they cannot do so without giving a reason as to why.

I am able to fool the automated system by simply typing in the area code it's when you actually get to talk to an NTL representative that I am asked for my NTL telephone number, stating that I do not have one seems to confuse them.

[Russ]

The problem is that when I was at NTL, it was only the seniors who could call back, and they had long enough queues as it was..

[Undisputedtruth]

A lot of NTL staff need proper training in customer care. They are quite good at blaming someone else rather than resolving the problem. A look on this thread shows this clearly.

[handyman]

Just to clarify from teessides pov.

We ask for your number as we deal with 3 different franchise areas, each with different accounts systems.

If you call from kirklees and say '01484' we dive for SOP, Cable master (2 types) for midlands and Teesside.

If you don't have a ntl number then its ok we just need a post code an house number and we are there. Asking for the phone number is another way of confirming DPA a well.

Account numbers however can be duplicated on the systems so don't help us much.

Hopefully this will all change shortly for the better and we can go back to account numbers as they are more accurate for finding people.:)

Mark J

[Maggy]

You forgot to include the useless interactive tv software that never works as it should.The usless EPG and THE RED BUTTON.I'm sick of pulling the plug at least 5 times a week.

Other than too many shopping channels,overloud ads between programmes and the loss of sound between ad breaks(especially if I'm recording a programme late at night) I'm quite happy with everything else.

Incog.

[Lord Nikon]

A question about the "Can I have your phone number"

You place a call to NTL, assuming you don't withold CLI (which should still reveal to NTL themselves anyway) the system COULD log the phone number.
The phone number is linked to your account. Meaning that the system should then be able to display the records for you

Why isn't it?

NTL are a COMMUNICATIONS provider!

When I had a BT line I had CLI on my modem. When someone phoned me if I had dealt with them in the past and had notes on my system regarding them, it would hand the CLI to the PC and bring up details before I answered the phone.

(Small C program linked to Act! 2000)

Unfortunately I can't do that at the moment though as NTL don't offer CLI in my area. (Ex C&W Franchise)

[SMHarman]

Originally posted by handyman

Account numbers however can be duplicated on the systems so don't help us much.


Now there is a sensible answer. Hopefully as you say consolidated billing should sort this.