Andy E
19-10-2003, 21:50
Hello everyone
On monday the 13th of october I walked out of my job at Ntl celtic faults,based in Belfast, the reason i,ve had enough. I've worked for Ntl directly for the past 8 months and indirectly as a contractor installer/ Eary Life Fault tech for 5 years,working directly for NTL is a lot better than being a contractor, you are actually treated as a human being, not like somthing that you've just stood in. The job at NTL that i applied for in Febuary was technical service rep. A manager at NTL (1 of the few good ones, lo JB ) suggested that i apply for it, he told me it would be right up my street, dealing with broadband faults 2nd line support, I jumped at the chance. So i applied and at the interview the emphasis was on computer knowledge, operating systems etc. So I gave a very good interview and two days later i got a phone call from someone in NTL (wish i could remember who) offering me a postion in the TSC. Great i thought, then i asked how much, 12k pa, I thought they were taking the ****, but no they were serious, but i was told not to worry, with my level of technical knowledge and my experience out in the field within 6 months i would be earning 15k plus, which although it didnt really impress me much, it was a hell of a lot better than 12k, and 2nd line support was somthing that i was really intrested in doing.
So i started on the 3rd march, there was a weeks induction followed by, 3 weeks systems training. I was trained by 2 wonderfull people Maeve and Jill B ,who still posts here. The first week of training covered telco faults, which i was a bit suprised at, seeing as how I was meant to be doing broadband second line support, the second week was digi faults, i thought wtf is going on here so i asked, only to be told that atm we would be working in faults but we would soon be taking second line broadband calls to ease the pressure on swansea who were up to their eyes in it. Well ok i thought, its not what i came here to do, but i'll stick with it for now and see what happens (should've known better).
So i did my training, bit boring cause i knew it already, but i towed the line and got on with it. and had a reallly good time in training, Training over, I was put into my team and started taking faults calls. Now working in a call center is a lot different than working as a tech out in the field, as a tech you are allowed a reasonable amount of time to diagnose and hopefully fix a fault. in a call center you are allowed 300 seconds, why.....well its to do with statistics, time spent on call, time spent on make busy,calls per hour, nothing at all to do with customer care, fault resolution etc.
I tried to get my head round this concept, but unfortunatley I thought I was there to help customers, but in reality its all about stats, now don't get me wrong i understand that there has to be a way to measure how csr's preform, but surely it should be measured on quality not quantity.
Managers in there arent intrested in fault resolution (with a few exceptions....lo Siobhan , lo Moira ), all they are intrested in is how their team preforms against the other teams in the call center, there are some damm good people working in belfast, who if given the time and the tools could make a hell of a difference to the overall customer expereince.But when you have managers interupting your calls, telling you that its not our problem pass them through to broadband support or customer care, it really really bugs me, and i cannot work like that, if a customer phones in with a problem , then IMHO the csr if they can help should help. not pass the customer from one department to another. For example a few months ago i had a call from a very irate customer in wales , who had been on hold for tech support for half an hour given up and tried faults instead. Now his modem was online according to my diag tools, but his pc kept showing "page cannot be displayed" ,after asking a few questions ,I discovered that he had removed the spyware"newdotnet" by simply deleting it, this im sure many of you will know totallly messes up your internet connection, so i got him to reinstall it (got it through i-mesh) and then go to add/remove and take it out from there. All the guy had to do then was reboot and presto he woould have been back online, but before I could tell him to reboot a (and i know personal attacks arent allowed on these forums,probably just as well) "manager" told me to pass him through to broadband support. That really really got to me , ffs it would only have been 2 more minutes and the guy would have been back online, and a happy customer. But no that doesnt help the call center stats so bye bye sorry but im not allowed to help you, you have to get back in the queue for broadband support. I have also on many occasions gone to customers houses in my own time, using my own diesel to help installers, who have been having problems with managed installs, these guys are my friends, i worked with them for years and if they ask me for help, then i will help them.
A certain "manager support" individual, went out with a tech for a job visit, to see what its all about, she asked the tech if he knew me, the guy said yep great guy, comes out to help us with pc issues in his own time. Apparentley this wanna be manager nearly took a buckle in her eye, and tried to start a big deal about this. Why ???? wtf has it got to do with her what i do in my own time. I dont ask the customers for any money for fixing their pc's I do it to help my friends. The same wanna be manager questioned me bringing my laptop into work, why did I bring it in ? . I brought it in to use as a tool to help customers, I have pdf manuals for most tv,s videos on it, plus a lot of other stuff i would use , in other words its a tool not a toy......it cost me 1500 quid and i was using it to help customers. Now lke Ant H I thought I could make a difference, how wrong was I ?. So on monday i walked the walk, had enough. I left in style my resignation letter is the talk of NTL belfast....lol. But I just couldnt do it anymore, and i would urge any customer phoning in, please pleasae take it easy on the csr,s, I know you have been waiting for a while in a queue but its not the csr's fault, 99% of them will try and help you the best they can, and if they do pass you on to another department its cause they have too....
I would like to thank a few people in belfast faults who really helped me.....firstly Jill B you are a star thanks so much, if i was the CEO i would make you the manager of celtic faults. Anita, Damo, Peter, Barry, Alan , Michelle m, Terry and Siobhan C....thankyou all so much..
What now ? well I've had a pretty rough year(personal stuff). I,m currently doing a degree part time in telecomms plus a CCNA, I think i'll go full time and finish it off.Good luck everyone
Andy E
On monday the 13th of october I walked out of my job at Ntl celtic faults,based in Belfast, the reason i,ve had enough. I've worked for Ntl directly for the past 8 months and indirectly as a contractor installer/ Eary Life Fault tech for 5 years,working directly for NTL is a lot better than being a contractor, you are actually treated as a human being, not like somthing that you've just stood in. The job at NTL that i applied for in Febuary was technical service rep. A manager at NTL (1 of the few good ones, lo JB ) suggested that i apply for it, he told me it would be right up my street, dealing with broadband faults 2nd line support, I jumped at the chance. So i applied and at the interview the emphasis was on computer knowledge, operating systems etc. So I gave a very good interview and two days later i got a phone call from someone in NTL (wish i could remember who) offering me a postion in the TSC. Great i thought, then i asked how much, 12k pa, I thought they were taking the ****, but no they were serious, but i was told not to worry, with my level of technical knowledge and my experience out in the field within 6 months i would be earning 15k plus, which although it didnt really impress me much, it was a hell of a lot better than 12k, and 2nd line support was somthing that i was really intrested in doing.
So i started on the 3rd march, there was a weeks induction followed by, 3 weeks systems training. I was trained by 2 wonderfull people Maeve and Jill B ,who still posts here. The first week of training covered telco faults, which i was a bit suprised at, seeing as how I was meant to be doing broadband second line support, the second week was digi faults, i thought wtf is going on here so i asked, only to be told that atm we would be working in faults but we would soon be taking second line broadband calls to ease the pressure on swansea who were up to their eyes in it. Well ok i thought, its not what i came here to do, but i'll stick with it for now and see what happens (should've known better).
So i did my training, bit boring cause i knew it already, but i towed the line and got on with it. and had a reallly good time in training, Training over, I was put into my team and started taking faults calls. Now working in a call center is a lot different than working as a tech out in the field, as a tech you are allowed a reasonable amount of time to diagnose and hopefully fix a fault. in a call center you are allowed 300 seconds, why.....well its to do with statistics, time spent on call, time spent on make busy,calls per hour, nothing at all to do with customer care, fault resolution etc.
I tried to get my head round this concept, but unfortunatley I thought I was there to help customers, but in reality its all about stats, now don't get me wrong i understand that there has to be a way to measure how csr's preform, but surely it should be measured on quality not quantity.
Managers in there arent intrested in fault resolution (with a few exceptions....lo Siobhan , lo Moira ), all they are intrested in is how their team preforms against the other teams in the call center, there are some damm good people working in belfast, who if given the time and the tools could make a hell of a difference to the overall customer expereince.But when you have managers interupting your calls, telling you that its not our problem pass them through to broadband support or customer care, it really really bugs me, and i cannot work like that, if a customer phones in with a problem , then IMHO the csr if they can help should help. not pass the customer from one department to another. For example a few months ago i had a call from a very irate customer in wales , who had been on hold for tech support for half an hour given up and tried faults instead. Now his modem was online according to my diag tools, but his pc kept showing "page cannot be displayed" ,after asking a few questions ,I discovered that he had removed the spyware"newdotnet" by simply deleting it, this im sure many of you will know totallly messes up your internet connection, so i got him to reinstall it (got it through i-mesh) and then go to add/remove and take it out from there. All the guy had to do then was reboot and presto he woould have been back online, but before I could tell him to reboot a (and i know personal attacks arent allowed on these forums,probably just as well) "manager" told me to pass him through to broadband support. That really really got to me , ffs it would only have been 2 more minutes and the guy would have been back online, and a happy customer. But no that doesnt help the call center stats so bye bye sorry but im not allowed to help you, you have to get back in the queue for broadband support. I have also on many occasions gone to customers houses in my own time, using my own diesel to help installers, who have been having problems with managed installs, these guys are my friends, i worked with them for years and if they ask me for help, then i will help them.
A certain "manager support" individual, went out with a tech for a job visit, to see what its all about, she asked the tech if he knew me, the guy said yep great guy, comes out to help us with pc issues in his own time. Apparentley this wanna be manager nearly took a buckle in her eye, and tried to start a big deal about this. Why ???? wtf has it got to do with her what i do in my own time. I dont ask the customers for any money for fixing their pc's I do it to help my friends. The same wanna be manager questioned me bringing my laptop into work, why did I bring it in ? . I brought it in to use as a tool to help customers, I have pdf manuals for most tv,s videos on it, plus a lot of other stuff i would use , in other words its a tool not a toy......it cost me 1500 quid and i was using it to help customers. Now lke Ant H I thought I could make a difference, how wrong was I ?. So on monday i walked the walk, had enough. I left in style my resignation letter is the talk of NTL belfast....lol. But I just couldnt do it anymore, and i would urge any customer phoning in, please pleasae take it easy on the csr,s, I know you have been waiting for a while in a queue but its not the csr's fault, 99% of them will try and help you the best they can, and if they do pass you on to another department its cause they have too....
I would like to thank a few people in belfast faults who really helped me.....firstly Jill B you are a star thanks so much, if i was the CEO i would make you the manager of celtic faults. Anita, Damo, Peter, Barry, Alan , Michelle m, Terry and Siobhan C....thankyou all so much..
What now ? well I've had a pretty rough year(personal stuff). I,m currently doing a degree part time in telecomms plus a CCNA, I think i'll go full time and finish it off.Good luck everyone
Andy E