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View Full Version : VM customer care is a glorified switchboard


Figgerty
25-08-2007, 23:34
What is the point of having a customer care unit who are unable to look at full details of your account. I had a problem last night with my VM line whereby I was unable to ring any international numbers. I rang customer care and asked them to check if call barring had been activated by VM in error. As I was able to make international calls earlier in the week and was the only person in the house this week I knew for certain that it had not been activated by request.

The customer care operative checked my account details and stated that it was not noted on the account and that she would tranfer me to phone fault reporting. After waiting on line for two periods of 10 mins (waiting time was supposed to be 'up to 5 mins) I hung up and rang 150 again only to be told that they were busy and that I should stay on the line until I got through.
She transfeered me again and after a wait of 29 mins (recording said up to 10 mins this time) I was in contact with an operative in India who after I reported that I could not make international calls and went through security checks again was told that he did not deal with my type of account - an ex NTL account.

I had to start again with 150, explained what had happened so far and asked if I could speak to a manager as I had wasted over 50 minutes without speaking to anybody who could resolve the problem. I was told they could only transfer me again to phone fault reporting as they were the only ones who could resolve the problem. This time I was listening to musak for 30 minutes before I got through to an operative again in India but this time after explaining the problem and the security checks, the operative told me that call barring was activated on the account but there was no explanation as to who and why it was activated. He removed call barring and promised to investigate how this happened and call me back with the result.

I then made the International call and have not heard from VM since then.

QUESTIONS for any VM staff checking this forum.
1. why was the customer care operative unable to see that call barring was activated.

2. what was the point in transferring me to an operative who 'did not deal with my type of account'.

3. why did I have to wait so long before I could speak to the fault report centre - do they have far too many faults or very few operatives.

4. why are VM managers not accountable to their customers.

5. how can Richard Branson be associated with such shoddy customer care.

Any VM customer care/support managers prepared to answer?

trevortt
25-08-2007, 23:47
I think their customer service is appalling, i had a call similar to yours who the person just put the phone down on me and left for the day as her shift had ended so i think maybe she could help but couldn't be bothered or was leaving work.

cybernetic_tiger
26-08-2007, 09:08
Any VM customer care/support managers prepared to answer?

Well I'm not in customer care but I will have a go :

QUESTIONS for any VM staff checking this forum.
1. why was the customer care operative unable to see that call barring was activated.

Because they only have account access not switch access (where your phoneline is "built" and controled)

2. what was the point in transferring me to an operative who 'did not deal with my type of account'.

No point... the CSR was a muppet

3. why did I have to wait so long before I could speak to the fault report centre - do they have far too many faults or very few operatives.

Possibly both... was it out or in hours?

4. why are VM managers not accountable to their customers.

They are but in my area of the business they are rarely around

5. how can Richard Branson be associated with such shoddy customer care.

Money...

Figgerty
26-08-2007, 13:49
Thanks for having a go.

From your response it seems that customer care staff can do very little apart from transferring a call to the correct fault report centre - well some do this, maybe not the muppets.

I was kept on hold for a 4 separate periods of time on Friday evening between 19.30 and about 21.00. Two periods of 10 mins each, one of 29 mins to speak to the wrong centre and finally 30 mins to speak to the correct fault report centre. I think it is unrealistic to wait any longer than about 10 minutes to report a fault to someone who can take action.

I am appalled to find that there are no managers in VM customer care who are willing to address these issues.

I inderstand that the number of customers leaving VM is much greater than those joining - I'm really not surprised at this. There is no point in having a great product if the customer support is non-existant when things go wrong.

Nedkelly
26-08-2007, 17:41
I wish they could look at the switch data as it would stop a lot of stupid fault calls .A customer is late paying the bill they put call barring on the line customer pays bill all services come back on but customer can not make calls.The reason the charge group has been changed :mad:why cant they see this ? it is a waste of a fault call

Figgerty
26-08-2007, 18:38
I wish they could look at the switch data as it would stop a lot of stupid fault calls .A customer is late paying the bill they put call barring on the line customer pays bill all services come back on but customer can not make calls.The reason the charge group has been changed :mad:why cant they see this ? it is a waste of a fault call

Thank you for the insight. I wonder what purpose customer care serve if they can't see something like this. What sort of things are they able to see and do on customer accounts?

It is not surprising fault reporting is so busy if they have to deal with non-fault items.

I first discovered that premium rate numbers were barred on this line about 10 days ago when I had to call fault reporting about intermittent BB connection. International calls were allowed and have been made regularly for years without a problem. I had to contact the account holder in California to get his password so that I could speak to fault reporting. When the BB engineer sorted the connection cable, I told customer support to leave call barring on premium rate numbers only as the accounts department must have ordered that some years ago because the account holder did not know it was there. Since then someone at VM has switched call barring on and included internation calls in the barring.

Rapid Dr3am
01-09-2007, 02:41
1. why was the customer care operative unable to see that call barring was activated.

Prob on the switch happens it's old equipment.

2. what was the point in transferring me to an operative who 'did not deal with my type of account'.

xntl vs xtw? well it happens the call tree sometimes misdirects especially 0191 numbers that are ported.

3. why did I have to wait so long before I could speak to the fault report centre - do they have far too many faults or very few operatives.

depends on the platform, time of day, etc. in the end little staff for the busy times to many for the rest.

4. why are VM managers not accountable to their customers.

they are but a billing manager is not accountable for a fault like asda is not accountable for damage caused to your house by something you get there.

5. how can Richard Branson be associated with such shoddy customer care.

he's not remember he's a figurehead who sold his shares long ago

tpick
01-09-2007, 13:47
I couldn't agree more, I had problems with my phone line on and off for a couple of weeks now, and I'm afraid that since Customer Service went to India, standards have definitely gone down. I am ex-NTL (C&W). C&W were very helpful and NTL were ok when they were in the UK. They must bring customer service back to the UK.

dodgem22
01-09-2007, 14:24
i have had lots of faults with my phoneline this year and have decided to switch my phone to a different supplier as customer services were dreadful when i called to have the fault rectified. im happy with the virgin tv service and broadband and will stay with them for that.

MrChef
01-09-2007, 23:19
Its the same old story,Virgin media is ok when everything is working,the technology is good but once something goes wrong its a nightmare and the whole thing goes pearshaped to put it politely

xspeedyx
02-09-2007, 18:26
Well I'm not in customer care but I will have a go :

QUESTIONS for any VM staff checking this forum.
1. why was the customer care operative unable to see that call barring was activated.

Because they only have account access not switch access (where your phoneline is "built" and controled)

2. what was the point in transferring me to an operative who 'did not deal with my type of account'.

No point... the CSR was a muppet

3. why did I have to wait so long before I could speak to the fault report centre - do they have far too many faults or very few operatives.

Possibly both... was it out or in hours?

4. why are VM managers not accountable to their customers.

They are but in my area of the business they are rarely around

5. how can Richard Branson be associated with such shoddy customer care.

Money...


agree completly but I am in customer care but for ex telewest (thank god)

---------- Post added at 17:26 ---------- Previous post was at 17:24 ----------

o btw why should customer care see the switch info as faults have a DIRECT LINE 151

Figgerty
04-09-2007, 22:48
4. why are VM managers not accountable to their customers.

they are but a billing manager is not accountable for a fault like asda is not accountable for damage caused to your house by something you get there.


Not a correct analagy, If I purchase a product from Asda and have a complaint and the customer services assistant is unable to resolve the problem to my satisfaction then I can speak to the CS manager and even the store manager. Nobody at VM would give me a name of a person to speak to. I was told to write (snail mail) to a PO Box number instead. I asked for the name of a person to write to and was told to address my letter to "whom it may concern". That is not what I would call accountability, that is hiding behind a Box Number - just like the companies featured on rogue traders.

dgardner
04-09-2007, 23:19
Hi,
Not sure if i am reading this right but once you know its a fault why not ring faults instead of constantly calling customer services?

Figgerty
05-09-2007, 00:04
Hi,
Not sure if i am reading this right but once you know its a fault why not ring faults instead of constantly calling customer services?

I called customer services as I was unable to make an international call. I did not realise that anybody would consider that a 'fault'. I just presumed that someone at VM had cocked up and added call barring to international calls. I understood a fault to mean a problem with the line not a feature that can be changed at will. When I called 151, I still had to be transferred to fault reporting by an operative - I'm not sure if they were customer services or another layer of fault reporting but they could not help. I then had to wait for 29/30 minutes to speak to an operative who could see that call barring was activated on the account. They could not tell me how it happened to be on the account as they did not have a record.

dgardner
05-09-2007, 00:25
Hi,
Not having a pop or anything just didn't seem clear.
Has it been sorted yet?

Figgerty
05-09-2007, 07:33
Hi,
Not having a pop or anything just didn't seem clear.
Has it been sorted yet?


Yes, it was sorted that evening but I was on the phone for about 80 minutes in total before it was sorted out - a lot of time for what seemed to me a simple problem. I posted details of my short experience of dealing with VM on a VM Forum and I supplied additional details on that so you are only seeing part of why I am so critical of their Cust Care.

This topic has generated a lot of interest, are any of you closet VM Managers?

tpick
06-09-2007, 21:47
Yes, it was sorted that evening but I was on the phone for about 80 minutes in total before it was sorted out - a lot of time for what seemed to me a simple problem. I posted details of my short experience of dealing with VM on a VM Forum and I supplied additional details on that so you are only seeing part of why I am so critical of their Cust Care.

This topic has generated a lot of interest, are any of you closet VM Managers?

Am not saying that things before were perfect but they were better before most of CS moved to India...

douglet
19-09-2007, 13:17
everyone at VM whether CS or faults all use the same system called ICOMS, now this does everything from call barring to wrinting notes about the customer it is a really good system but not everyone is trained in everything and can only do the basics to carry out their role. some who have been there a while know alot and can tell you anything about your account, some just dont give a C*** and say well its not my domain so .....