PDA

View Full Version : Improvements


th'engineer
11-08-2003, 17:25
Just started this thread with everyone in mind to be a constructive thread.

To identify what improvements people would like to see in NTL.

The idea is that is is for both employees and other stakeholders, customers, suppliers, contractors, bondholders to contribute.

Perhaps the team could consider submitting some of the ideas discussed to NTL.

It does not matter how out of the box the idea is but lets try to have a constructive thread with no flamming

th'engineer
11-08-2003, 17:29
Just to get it started here is a suggestion that fault detection is used instread of fault correction to give the customer a problem less service.

orangebird
11-08-2003, 17:31
Originally posted by th'engineer
Just to get it started here is a suggestion that fault detection is used instread of fault correction to give the customer a problem less service.

If you want ntl to take notice of this - maybe you can suggest a way of 'fault detection'? Kind of problem and possible solution type scenario....

th'engineer
11-08-2003, 17:35
Monitoring networks for faults it can be done on bromley do not know about other parts of the network.

Power levels at cabs, server status warnings just in time process for spares for maintainance .

Kanban systems min max ordering system.

Mick
11-08-2003, 18:47
Some of the higher rank within ntl need to be customer orientated some of them just aint clued up when it comes to dealing with customers, they may have all the management skills on paper but having 'people skills', is something you learn by actually talking to people.

BBKing
11-08-2003, 18:59
Improvements in information flow and communication would do a whole heap - timely updates to CSRs would save tech visits, unnecessary mucking around of customers etc.

Fewer, more capable billing/provisioning systems would be nice.

Better testing, more geared to real world use (gaming, uploads, streaming video) and, more importantly, tomorrow's real world use.

Interested to read what comes up here.

Stuart W
11-08-2003, 19:29
How about.... top at the bottom???

ALL the managers should spend at least:
1 day answering CS phones,
1 day in Tech Supp call center,
1 day answering customers e-mails.

Then they could 'get a feel' for the customer dissatisfaction that exists.

Pritch
11-08-2003, 21:06
Communication!

Crypto
11-08-2003, 22:39
Originally posted by Pritch
Communication!
Well, that's a tired old chestnut, we hear it all the time (I work in a service utility). You have to be more specific....Dept A dosen't talk to Dept B etc.

My own view is "monitoring"

How often do we read in a thread that a CS person has promised that such a thing will be done and then it isn't....time and time again. Where are these people's supervisors? Management should get rid of people that don't carry out their declared intentions on the phone.

"Honesty" ?

See above. If a CS person can't do something, say so, don't keep cheating the customer with lies!

My two pennorth

Crypto :)

handyman
11-08-2003, 22:45
i just put forward a suggestion to a manager today to run education work shops for customers on broadband. Basically they could be run once a week/fortnight and educate customers on the use of the product. How to spot problems as their own system and how to protect themselves with firewalls. also theres the old one of how to set up outlook as well :). I'll even volunteer to come in on overtime to do them :0

th'engineer
11-08-2003, 23:32
Would appreciate peoples views on customer forum meeting the local franchise chiefs visits to local call centre csrs sat down with customers aggreeing action plans

handyman
11-08-2003, 23:48
yeah would be good to get some feed back heard at a high level, we get iot all day but they dont want it second hand

Undisputedtruth
11-08-2003, 23:50
Some of my suggestions are:

Making sure CSRs tells the truth

To be passed onto a Supervisor when requested.

Making sure CSRs has adequate product knowledge to answer customer queries.

Making sure CSRs have adequate customer care training.

Get rid of bull*****ting CSRs.

Answer the phones as BT does.

Free voice mail

Free Itemised Billing

No stupid connection charges.

No cap on broadband products.

Make sure there is reliable email servers!

A price cut of £5 on all broadband products.

A choice of having digital TV and telephone or stand alone products, ie have Digital TV and not have telephone. Digital TV prices to compare directly with SKY.

Making NTL checkout possible faults at their end rather than sending out Engineers to inconvenience the customers.

Have caller display.

Be transparent when asked on products availability.

Lord Nikon
12-08-2003, 00:14
Increase R&D onto adopting Eurodocsis so that bandwidth can be increased. Therefore negating the non-enforcable cap and making 2Mbit BB a possibility as well as increasing upstream paths.

1mbit down / 256k up is a ludicrous ratio....


CSRs to stop assuming ALL BB problems are a result of PC failure
Improve the diagnostic script the CSRs work to, or at least find people capable of working outside the box.

CSRs to email the notes for THAT conversation to the account holders registered email address so no confusion can exist over what was / wasn't arranged.

fraz
12-08-2003, 00:30
Originally posted by Lord Nikon


CSRs to stop assuming ALL BB problems are a result of PC failure
.
statistically you may be surprised :)

chris D
12-08-2003, 00:41
One simple suggestion that isn't aimed at the CS dept!

How about allowing people to select their own Direct Debit date, like virtually every other company in the UK that operates under the Direct Debit scheme allows!
NTL would probably get more money in their bank account then due to the fact that they wouldnt be spending as much on the reminder letters & legal letters & postage to get people on non DD accounts to pay up!

BBKing
12-08-2003, 01:05
Increase R&D onto adopting Eurodocsis so that bandwidth can be increased. Therefore negating the non-enforcable cap and making 2Mbit BB a possibility as well as increasing upstream paths

ED does nothing to the upstream, it's a 33% wider downstream channel only. It is also deployed on half the ntl system already (the other half is mostly non-ED compliant CPE which would cost a fortune to replace, and annoy fraz and the other beardies who own their own modems).

Gosh, I agree with something UDT wrote, there's a first.

Making NTL checkout possible faults at their end rather than sending out Engineers to inconvenience the customers.

Undisputedtruth
12-08-2003, 01:24
Originally posted by fraz
statistically you may be surprised :)

What! You mean NTL are tarring every PC with the same brush.:D

fraz
12-08-2003, 07:47
Originally posted by BBKing
ED does nothing to the upstream, it's a 33% wider downstream channel only. It is also deployed on half the ntl system already (the other half is mostly non-ED compliant CPE which would cost a fortune to replace, and annoy fraz and the other beardies who own their own modems).

Gosh, I agree with something UDT wrote, there's a first.

Oi leave my beard out of this :D

Actually BB does have a point. There are several 1000 (sorry dont know the exact figure) of us on the Langley network who had no option but to cough up £150 for our modems. If they should become unusable on the network due to upgradeswhat should ntl do ? Offer to buy them back ?? Replace with a newer modem FOC and give us 6 months free service as a goodwill gesture ??

Footnote: I actually have an ntl:home120 sat here unregistered. When I moved house the engineers kindly left it for me as I'm on 1Mb now and not receiving a discount for owning my own modem), so its sat here unregistered just in case ;)

fraz
12-08-2003, 08:04
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
What! You mean NTL are tarring every PC with the same brush.:D

tarred & feathered :D :D


No , my main point is that there are plenty of things that can go wrong that are nothing to do with ntl eg dial up authentication failures, you'ld be surprised how many of these are fixed simply by rentering the password because Windows has corrupted it's password file. DHCP renewal problems on BB due to misconfigured firewalls.

Too many people would rather blame their Telco/ISP for problems than accept/check their own PCs out first.

th'engineer
12-08-2003, 09:23
Fraz appreciate your comments on this but we are looking for improvements not defence of csrs.

I hope you can contribute with some suggested improvements within your area of expertise within NTL.

I am sure if you just thought of recurring things you personally are asked by customers in your field of excellence you my come up with an FAQ for that area .


This would possible cut your workload if the most popular questions are answered.

Alan Waddington
12-08-2003, 11:12
Support for the following MIME type so I can put my home coded phone java application on my NTL website in WAP for Over-The-Air (OTA) download. (Last checked a couple of months ago & .jad wasn't supported)


wml=text/vnd.wap.wml
wbmp=image/vnd.wap.wbmp
wmlc=application/vnd.wap.wmlc
wmls=text/vnd.wap.wmlscript
wmlsc=application/vnd.wap.wmlscriptc
jad=text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor


Some of the above may already be supported. The key one that isn't is:


jad=text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor


What happens is you put a link to a .jad file on a WAP page and the phone reads the data in the .jad file & uses it to start download of the corresponding .jar file containing the application.
The .jar mime type is of course already supported.


jar=application/java-archive


On a separate webspace related note: It would also be nice if there were some (known safe) stock CGI scripts (counters & the like). Possibly there are & I just have missed them.

Alan

fraz
12-08-2003, 14:28
Originally posted by th'engineer
Fraz appreciate your comments on this but we are looking for improvements not defence of csrs.

I hope you can contribute with some suggested improvements within your area of expertise within NTL.

I am sure if you just thought of recurring things you personally are asked by customers in your field of excellence you my come up with an FAQ for that area .


This would possible cut your workload if the most popular questions are answered.

Only responding to an ealier post which in itself was something brought up by someone else.


Personally I'm all in favour of a vote for joe type test as part of the registration process, if you cant answer a few simple questions about the internet and how to protect yourself (eg firewalls.av, OS patches etc etc ) then you dont get registered until you answer the correct number of questions

Stephen Robb
13-08-2003, 23:52
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth

Making sure CSRs tells the truth

What proof have you got to that allegation?

To be passed onto a Supervisor when requested.

Any proof you haven't?

Making sure CSRs has adequate product knowledge to answer customer queries.

Do you know how they are trained? Have you had any training in CS?

Making sure CSRs have adequate customer care training.

Have any proof that they are not?

Get rid of bull*****ting CSRs.

How do you know that they are? Anything to substantiate this?

Answer the phones as BT does.

It's the same all over the world, just pick the receiver up and say "Hello!

Free voice mail

Why? You haven't got a ntl phone!

Free Itemised Billing

We already do!

No stupid connection charges.

When BT and Sky do, I should think ntl: would look at it!

No cap on broadband products.

No cap on mine!

Make sure there is reliable email servers!

Nothing wrong with mine, I have six servers and they all work!

A price cut of £5 on all broadband products.

What, does that include BT and Bulldog?

A choice of having digital TV and telephone

You can if you want! I have.

or stand alone products, ie have Digital TV and not have telephone.

You can if you want! I know someone who does.

Digital TV prices to compare directly with SKY.

They do within reason!

Making NTL checkout possible faults at their end

They usually do!

rather than sending out Engineers to inconvenience the customers.

So it's an inconvenience to a customer for an engineer to come test and repair your equipment?

Have caller display.

Does everyone think that's the end of the world? Replys to UDT please, using a plain envelope with no stamp!

Be transparent when asked on products availability.

Any proof that they don't?

Tristan
14-08-2003, 00:14
Stephen, I'm going to be honest here. I'm not UDT's biggest fan, and he sure as hell won't listen to me, so I hope you will.

You too keeping on having a go at each other is really beginning to get on my nerves. Please could you be the one to rise above personal insults all the time?

Undisputedtruth
14-08-2003, 00:15
Originally posted by Dr. Plummer
Some of the higher rank within ntl need to be customer orientated some of them just aint clued up when it comes to dealing with customers, they may have all the management skills on paper but having 'people skills', is something you learn by actually talking to people.

I personally think the problems are from top down and down up. No one has explained to me what sort of training CSRs had for customer care. Also I think the senior management may have a dogmatic attitude, they think their approach is the best. I wonder how the management go about listening to the customers. Does anyone knows?

Undisputedtruth
14-08-2003, 00:25
Originally posted by Tristan
Stephen, I'm going to be honest here. I'm not UDT's biggest fan, and he sure as hell won't listen to me, so I hope you will.

You too keeping on having a go at each other is really beginning to get on my nerves. Please could you be the one to rise above personal insults all the time?

Too late - I've already have. I didn't realise how important I was to get this amount of attention.:D

carlingman
14-08-2003, 00:47
Originally posted by Tristan
Stephen, I'm going to be honest here. I'm not UDT's biggest fan, and he sure as hell won't listen to me, so I hope you will.

You too keeping on having a go at each other is really beginning to get on my nerves. Please could you be the one to rise above personal insults all the time?

Nope nor me am not UDT biggest fan.

However he seems to have the Mods on side as I have reported a post 3 times only to be told his post towards me wasnt offensive and broke no rules even though i considered it did.

But thats life cant question a Mods decision in an open forum as hey that would be against the rules.

I myself will from now on play right into UDT hands and keep feeding the troll.

:D

carlingman
14-08-2003, 00:51
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
I personally think the problems are from top down and down up. No one has explained to me what sort of training CSRs had for customer care. Also I think the senior management may have a dogmatic attitude, they think their approach is the best. I wonder how the management go about listening to the customers. Does anyone knows?

Why should they explain to you are you someone of importance then ???

My god for once I will agree from my short time there that you are right the management do have a dogmatic attitude.

Management listen to customers hmm does that mean you still are one (a customer) that is ??

:)

th'engineer
14-08-2003, 07:59
Originally posted by Stephen Robb
What proof have you got to that allegation?



Any proof you haven't?



Do you know how they are trained? Have you had any training in CS?



Have any proof that they are not?



How do you know that they are? Anything to substantiate this?



It's the same all over the world, just pick the receiver up and say "Hello!



Why? You haven't got a ntl phone!



We already do!



When BT and Sky do, I should think ntl: would look at it!



No cap on mine!



Nothing wrong with mine, I have six servers and they all work!



What, does that include BT and Bulldog?



You can if you want! I have.



You can if you want! I know someone who does.



They do within reason!



They usually do!



So it's an inconvenience to a customer for an engineer to come test and repair your equipment?



Does everyone think that's the end of the world? Replys to UDT please, using a plain envelope with no stamp!



Any proof that they don't? :notopic: :notopic: pleasae see here (http://www.nthellworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?postid=36897#post36897) stephen and grow up

Undisputedtruth
14-08-2003, 11:04
The mods would be quick to delete my posts and yet they do nothing to proNTL mobs like carlingman and Stephen Robb.

th'engineer
14-08-2003, 11:37
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
The mods would be quick to delete my posts and yet they do nothing to proNTL mobs like carlingman and Stephen Robb. :notopic:

this is supposed to be a thread about improvements not a anti NTL thread would appreciate if people could keep on topic.

Our resident troll stephen seems to not be interested in improving the service yet he complains about directories in another thread.

Would have thought he would have added his comments on directories in this thread instead of arguing :shrug:

Colin
14-08-2003, 15:36
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
Some of my suggestions are:


Get rid of bull*****ting CSRs.



I actually agree with you there, it annoys the ones who do tell the truth more, or at least equally.

I would like to see a better IVR, and perhaps cut a little of the red tape so csr's can do a lot more for the customer without having to go through to other people

carlingman
14-08-2003, 20:16
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
The mods would be quick to delete my posts and yet they do nothing to proNTL mobs like carlingman and Stephen Robb.

Ok all else seems to have failed.

Can I ask you politely perhpas to stop referring to me as pro ntl.

I reported your post three times so it appears the Mods here are not so quick to delete your posts.

I was an NTL Employee and I was an NTL Customer.

I am not an NTL Employee any longer and I am not an NTL Customer any longer.

I have seen the service from both sides of the fence.

Check around some of my other postings you will see I an far from NTL Pro but in tha respect am not brandishing myself as Anti NTL.

Once again finally please stop referring to myself as Pro NTL, it like as if you have to add that as a little dig every time you reply to my posts.

Howabout add this to mine "nice to see the other site finally wised up to you" find that funny no nor me in the same respect as i dont find you brandishing me as Pro NTL.

Nuff said.

Sorry for dragging off topic.

Now to drag back onto topic.

For improvements it would be nice if NTL adopted a back to basics approach with clear and concise information given at all times and promises kept.

How often have we heard the phrase "ill get you a call back sir/madam"

How often have we seen Tech Support blame operating systems and advise reformats.

No company is perfect but these areas need improving.

Although I believe they are now getting there slowly.

:D

BBKing
14-08-2003, 21:27
Don't feed trolls, for God's sake.

More improvements: allow customers to tech their own connections without having to ring in (simple web page showing account status/modem status/area faults, reachable from any internet connection).

Undisputedtruth
14-08-2003, 21:37
Originally posted by col d
I actually agree with you there, it annoys the ones who do tell the truth more, or at least equally.

I would like to see a better IVR, and perhaps cut a little of the red tape so csr's can do a lot more for the customer without having to go through to other people

As a customer I like to have an honest straightforward answers. It is the biggest insult when a CSR tries to BS you. I'm not interested in the debate with CSRs about which is better NTL V BT or any other company spin/lies. I just want to get the information/product I want. The CSRs only making a fool of themselves when "spinning" and only succeed in winding up customers.

carlingman
15-08-2003, 00:06
Originally posted by BBKing
Don't feed trolls, for God's sake.

More improvements: allow customers to tech their own connections without having to ring in (simple web page showing account status/modem status/area faults, reachable from any internet connection).

Which troll would that be.

Ooops oh yeh I see which one you mean now, the one who only chooses to answer selective posts.

Thanks.


:)

Mick
15-08-2003, 00:12
The situation between UDT and other members will end now, I am not wasting my time any longer by chasing and deleting those posts by members having ago at one another !!!

Undisputedtruth
15-08-2003, 01:36
Originally posted by BBKing
Gosh, I agree with something UDT wrote, there's a first.

I'm sure you agree with me on a few things!

Scarlett
15-08-2003, 09:27
How about a real billing system, that allows customers to receive all the services on 1 bill ?
From what I understand the majority of NTL is billed using some weird spreadsheet/M$ access process.

There are convergent billing systems out there that will handle this

Benefit to NTL:
Less calls to CS as it can be done from one account.
Ditto for less admin.
Can be implimented over time and various sections bought on line as and when.
Easy and fast to impliment new services/offers
1 database for reporting purposes of revenue etc

Benefit to customers:
1 Account No for all services + 1 point of contact + selectable DD date.

Scarlett.

Colin
15-08-2003, 09:49
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
As a customer I like to have an honest straightforward answers. It is the biggest insult when a CSR tries to BS you. I'm not interested in the debate with CSRs about which is better NTL V BT or any other company spin/lies. I just want to get the information/product I want. The CSRs only making a fool of themselves when "spinning" and only succeed in winding up customers.

As a customer of any company this is what i would like to see, and yes that does include NTL. Of course i would like to see communication improve, not just between depatments, but between NTL and customers.

th'engineer
15-08-2003, 12:11
now we are back on track, a suggestion is what are the top faults with NTL any suggestions so we can get a poll running with your views.

Working on the priciple of 80 20 if the top faults are sorted the 80% of the problems should disappear.

BBKing
15-08-2003, 14:15
That's actually very true, but I'd like to fix the communication problems that result in minor problems like basa's famous database corruption being shunted round the departments, narking him off and wasting money on engineer visits and box swaps. If that had been referred to the right people first off it wouldn't have taken half as long.

th'engineer
15-08-2003, 14:37
Originally posted by BBKing
That's actually very true, but I'd like to fix the communication problems that result in minor problems like basa's famous database corruption being shunted round the departments, narking him off and wasting money on engineer visits and box swaps. If that had been referred to the right people first off it wouldn't have taken half as long.

So its internal communication that needs to be improved, and customer communication

grum1978
15-08-2003, 14:39
Originally posted by Scarlett

How about a real billing system, that allows customers to receive all the services on 1 bill ?
From what I understand the majority of NTL is billed using some weird spreadsheet/M$ access process.

There are convergent billing systems out there that will handle this

Benefit to NTL:
Less calls to CS as it can be done from one account.
Ditto for less admin.
Can be implimented over time and various sections bought on line as and when.
Easy and fast to impliment new services/offers
1 database for reporting purposes of revenue etc

Benefit to customers:
1 Account No for all services + 1 point of contact + selectable DD date.

Scarlett.



this is actually in the process of being done at the moment ;)

Undisputedtruth
18-08-2003, 01:43
Originally posted by grum1978
this is actually in the process of being done at the moment ;)

NTL have been talking about a one bill for all services for the last three years. Why has it taking them so long?

fraz
18-08-2003, 02:06
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
NTL have been talking about a one bill for all services for the last three years. Why has it taking them so long?
I only get one bill for all services (CATV,Telco & Broadband) already from ntl and have done for the last 5 years:)
(ok before anyone gets picky the Broadbands only been on there for the last 2 years)

th'engineer
18-08-2003, 12:19
But if you was on unlimited dial up in certain areas you would get two .

Chris
18-08-2003, 13:45
I get separate bills for TV and phone call charges. I used to get monthly bills for broadband, charged for as if it were an analogue TV service, but then one day they redesigned the bill so it looked great, sent me one, and that was the last I ever heard from them. That was about a year ago. They still request and take my monthly direct debit for BB tho'.

nighthawk
18-08-2003, 18:13
Originally posted by fraz
I only get one bill for all services (CATV,Telco & Broadband) already from ntl and have done for the last 5 years:)
(ok before anyone gets picky the Broadbands only been on there for the last 2 years)

I get one NTL bill, but it is broken down into un-understandable (is this a word:shrug: ) bits. All i want is a list of the charges & what they are for, not 15 pages with no logical way to read.

Macca
18-08-2003, 19:38
Originally posted by Undisputedtruth
NTL have been talking about a one bill for all services for the last three years. Why has it taking them so long?

There was no point in doing it until packaging was the same across the board. I think we are almost there with that now. We have now found an effective system that, fingers crossed, will hold details for any customer nationwide, send them one bill and could be dealt with by any agent from any area. I would say it will probably take about 6-12 months before it is fully implemented by all offices (just my opinion of course).

With regards to your CS training questions, feel free to ask anything regarding this as I used to be the trainer for my franchise until about a year ago.

Undisputedtruth
18-08-2003, 21:39
Originally posted by Macca
There was no point in doing it until packaging was the same across the board. I think we are almost there with that now. We have now found an effective system that, fingers crossed, will hold details for any customer nationwide, send them one bill and could be dealt with by any agent from any area. I would say it will probably take about 6-12 months before it is fully implemented by all offices (just my opinion of course).

With regards to your CS training questions, feel free to ask anything regarding this as I used to be the trainer for my franchise until about a year ago.

Thanks Macca.

I can imagine it is very difficult to find the right package which meets the needs of a certain specification. I will PM you privately to discuss the issues of customer care training and the shortcomings of customer care.:)

Florence
31-08-2003, 17:02
Originally posted by BBKing
Don't feed trolls, for God's sake.

More improvements: allow customers to tech their own connections without having to ring in (simple web page showing account status/modem status/area faults, reachable from any internet connection).

I have been asking for s imular thing where you can monitor your online usage to stay inside the AUP guidlines. It against NTL company policy to give the webaddys for STB out to customers.

We really need access to this will NTL now consider a way to do this?

BBKing
31-08-2003, 18:26
I think this is a good idea but it would have to be done from the ntl end really, i.e. we collect the stats. I can't think of a way to let customers access the interesting bits of the STB without being able to access the more restricted bits of the STB. Unfortunately someone's going to come up with the 'how can we trust ntl' argument, but my ISP has a wonderful page that I can log into with my ADSL username/password which gives me total usage statistics by IP address by hour. Dead handy, it even colour-shades it according to how close you are to their guideline level of usage. I'd love to make something similar available to ntl customers.

Also not everyone has the required technical knowledge to run mrtg and similar. I'd warrant that a large majority of ntl customers wouldn't, in fact.

Florence
31-08-2003, 22:35
Originally posted by BBKing
I think this is a good idea but it would have to be done from the ntl end really, i.e. we collect the stats. I can't think of a way to let customers access the interesting bits of the STB without being able to access the more restricted bits of the STB. Unfortunately someone's going to come up with the 'how can we trust ntl' argument, but my ISP has a wonderful page that I can log into with my ADSL username/password which gives me total usage statistics by IP address by hour. Dead handy, it even colour-shades it according to how close you are to their guideline level of usage. I'd love to make something similar available to ntl customers.

Also not everyone has the required technical knowledge to run mrtg and similar. I'd warrant that a large majority of ntl customers wouldn't, in fact.

Wish something was done I have been struggling to get something like that since the cap. I have MRTG installed but NTL have held me back all the time. STB wasted only supplying interent. Can't change to SACM unless its a new contract, Blueyounder change the STB to a SACM if the TV package is cancelled. The STB is of more value to them in suppling both services instead of just Broadband.. And no new contracts..