Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

Sorry Russ, not often I disagree with you but I do here. Harsh as it sounds NTL don't provide support for pc problems or training on pc's for new customers. Customers sometimes see something wrong with their pc and assume it's NTL that can either help or are responsible. I often suggest to customers that they try night school etc to try and gain confidence/knowledge because as you know God helps those who help themselves ;)

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

I agree here.

The number of times I have to deal with people who don't know what the start button is, or don't understand what 'press enter' means.

These people usually expect me to run through a crash course in using computers over the phone...this is NOT what we exist to provide.
We exist to provide a broadband service, which is what we provide, and if customers cannot use a PC, then they need to learn to do so, I'm afraid, not expect their broadband provider to teach them for nothing.

Similarly, you get people who suddenly decide that the corrupted version of IE they've got that won't even load up and comes up with missing DLL errors, used to work perfectly until we fitted a modem in their lounge, which hasn't even been connected yet, therefore we must pay them £800 for a brand new PC or they'll be off to trading standards!

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in the trading standards office when they go in!

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

MMMmm can a car garage fix a car when its sat on a drive? no you have to take the car to them or have to wait for them to pick it up!!
same way of thinking exept the people who have to wait is the next customer......

Unless they cant speak english i dont see that being of any relivance.....

We dont provide customer education, simple things some customers have problems with..

FYI the screens currently display faults and are used for communication means....

Talking customers through procedures trying to maintain a shorter call as possible to take another call!! thats doing nothing is it!!??

SUCH A STUPID COMMENT THAT ITS NOT WORTHY OF A REPSONCE

I get put out by comments made by people like yourselves who have no idea, do you really think we keep customers waiting on purpose..

My point is that SOME customers generally dont help themselves, by not having basic knoledge..

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

Problem number one.

Your a support agent, you are not god you do not know everything. If you think you do you wouldnt be working as a support agent. I work in a similar job doing support for all aspects of IT, we do not support procedural issues, but because I offer a level of customer service I will ALWAYS yes 100% of the time, try and explain how to do things we dont support.

Problem number two.
Members of the general public do not need a computer qualification to have BB installed. Therefore you cannot expect the general public to always understand what you mean when you talk to them. Because you have "some" techniacal knowledge that permits you to read a script and do basic fault finding over the phone does not give you an intellectual superiority over the person calling for help.
When I call I know my connection is down, I have re-booted several times I have everything I can find that may be of help including MAC address, yet I have still had Agents try and convince me that the reason my Modem does not work is because it was using the wrong power supply cable!!! Funny that really, because it did work then it didnt then it did (and miraculously after an engineer visited I had an extra power cable sat in the bedroom on the bed but there was no space for it to have come from.)

Problem three

Patronisation of the said customers on an unofficial forum where said customers come for help also is a bit dim IMHO.

problem 4

You are there to offer a support service for the users, if you dont have the patience to deal with the customer then I suggest you get yourself another job. Yes it is frustrating having to deal with the same problem for the 100th time that day, but thats what the job is about.

Problem 5

Some people dont phone because they dont understand what the problem is, some people know, but cannot fix it without intervention of NTL, they then have to contact NTL. Yet these people can be treat like a piece of **** because some pimply faced IT God has lost his temper.

You work in a service industry once again, if you dont have the right temprament to work there get out, do something else where you dont feel obliged to slag the customers off.


Its a sad fact that in the IT industry frist line support agents are the lowest of the low. We are ridiculed we know quite often less than the tip of the iceberg. Yet a high popercentage of first line support agents think they are gods gift to IT. What we do has very little to do with IT support. Get used to it get on with it and offer a level of service the customer needs instead of bitching about them on a forum.

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

:erm: didn't Russ used to work at tec support in Swansea?

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

You are, of course, quite right in everything you say.

What concerns me (and I should state, I don't work in tech support, however, I often end up performing a pseudo-tech support role in my existing job because of the relevant skills I have and the nature of said job) is that too many customers come on without apparently having ever touched a PC, and expect us to teach them how to use one.

I have no problem at all explaining things to non-pc literate customers who are just a little baffled, or even a lot baffled, that's part of the job. I do have a problem with customers who simply won't do anything to help themselves and threaten to take us to court etc because we won't spend two hours on the phone explaining what Windows is, what a keyboard is, what a start menu is, what a browser is, what the internet is, etc etc.

We can talk these customers through doing what they need to do with little difficulty, but they don't want that...they want a telephone crash course in using a PC, and if I do that, lots of other customers are waiting in a queue for their call to be taken, and that's not on.

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

In all fairness the reaons why I see things my way is that I work on a government contract, so we dont get general public as such. But yes I concede that some people want everything from you, sometimes its fairer to say sorry I cant help you any further, if you wish to make a complaint then......etc etc.

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

TW, I don't think any of us are "slagging" customers off, what we are trying to say is that we find some calls are lengthened by a customers lack of knowledge. As we all know we all had to start somewhere with computers but we are not there to offer over the phone pc knowhow. I once spent 37 minutes with a lady trying to help her to get the computer turned on, she couldn't do it no matter what she tried and that was before I even tried to help her register for Broadband. The computer was her sons and she thought she would try to help him by getting his broadband registered but she'd never worked a pc before.

As this thread is about waiting times that is an example of why I wasn't able to take more calls that day, leaving more customer hanging on. It's difficult trying to strike a balance between excellent customer service in the quickest time possible to try and reduce waiting times for customers in the Q.

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

Do i profess to know everything ...NO...

Personally i like to assist the lesser imformed customers, however if people complain about the wait times it is to do generally with us techs providing a basic level of support..We cant flippen win..

Majority of the issues are reoccuring, though that is what we are there for right?

You will find very few in here..

I'm attempting to point out that its not the techs fault of the q's

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

Thats fair enough, yes it happens. But you also need to understand that if 20 people can support 140,000 users and answer 90% of calls in less than 30 seconds, then NTL must have some major problems somewhere.
I understand that NTL support a higher number of customers, and I understand that NTL will have more than 20 people working on tech support. However it does not excuse the fact that even at silly times of th enight you still often have to wait.

It doesnt excuse the fact that in my oppinion agents are blaming the caller for their inabiolity to control the call. Possible training issue? I dont know but its not the customers fault that they think they can get precedural support, its the agents job to inform them firmly and politley and then on with the next call. I have a target of 45 calls a day minimum and an average call length of no more than 5 minutes. In that time I sometimes have to call external companies such as Fujitsu services and Orange.
I'm not the perfect call agent, far from it, but the answer to the problems isnt to blame the customer.

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

I've never said that you sit around doing nothing. Read my comments again.

And btw I DO have some idea, seeing as I did your very job for 2 years. Plenty of techs there at the time who, having run out of ideas on how to solve someone's connection problem, would tell them to go away and reformat their HD.

Very helpful.

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

I don't work in technical support so don't know what the Q's are like for them, Monkeybreath would be in a better position to answer. I think this is going slightly astray as no-one here is blaming the callers, I did mention this topic earlier in the thread about helping to reduce call/waiting times. Easiest calls are credit card payments, I've asked to do them permanently but been told no :(

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

As I've said many times, there are two things that will improve call times, one is definitely happening, the other needs to happen:

1) Harmony.
2) Training.

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

Sorry Russ but I cannot agree with you here. It's not the job of NTL (or BT ;)) Support people to solve peoples pc problems, and people should have some basic knowledge of their system. How can you help someone who cannot answer any questions, and is often not even close to their pc or cm ?

Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
 

Anyone who has called tech support will tell you that the queues are not short ;)