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

Got your number :D :D :D

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

For the basics, such as what the desktop is, and where the 'start' button is, part of the training when I was there was to show customers where they were to be found.

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

I agree.

What I can't accept is customers wanting a full crash course in how to use a PC, then doing the old 'well I'll cancel my services and you can take me to court for the bill' crap, which I now get on a daily basis.

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

Just putting my point across now...

3 calls...

1. pc was in attic conversion, in process of doing out. Cust wanted to register/install bb. Phone downstairs, wouldnt call back once he had installed phone upstairs... 40min of him going up and down... cust happy

2. Very nice old lady, said if i was ever in area i could have tea and biscuits! anyway eventually up and running after advising how to use mouse, os and explaining between upper and lower case, son was coming round in an hour. 35 minutes

3. Cust had 169 on enet, hunted hi and lo for usb... usb install... (not by pc)
20minutes

At the end of the day the customer wants short call waiting times, at the end of the day 'we' dont want to see people crtitising call centres for wait times.

The above calls would take around 1hr 35min, for 3 calls to TSB.. each of those calls could have been halved in time by the customer either being by the pc or waiting for the relative... in that time in theory an agent could have taken double the calls.. now think with x00 of agents all taking similar calls the AHT of the agents could be halved..

Now i dont and will never be rude to a customer, I try to get the cust back online asap and so do the majority of people that these posts are aimed at!
The customers complain but its as a rule the customer that makes the time go up..

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

AS with any organisation or profession there are those who do the job well,efficiently and with great professionalism.Then there are those who are the complete opposite.We all hope that these poor representatives of our professions and jobs get the boot pretty quick. :erm:

I'm also fairly certain that in every job there will be those customers,clients,patients,members of the public who are difficult and are enough to try the parience of a saint.However we can't all have complete and total knowledge about everything.I do not know how to fix a PC,car,broken leg,washing machine,TV.In fact the list of things I can't fix is a whole lot longer than those I can fix.

However I can paint,draw,sculpt,produce ceramics,run a pottery department,screen print,cut a lino print,cook,teach most subjects and talk to the most unruly teenager.I can also use the LOOK.

However I will still need from time to time to phone someone up because for the life of me I cannot actually sort out a problem that seem glaringly simple to the person I'm calling.I just hope and pray that when I do I get the caring,kind and polite professional. :tu:

Incog.

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

Fair enough, but the flip side of that arrangement should also exist, that tech support people have enough knowledge to realise when customers have equal (or greater) knowledge to them. I had to get a new config sent through to my cable modem a couple of weeks back. I don`t want the person in TS telling me that I need to completely power down my PC and cable modem for it to become effective when I know with 100% certainty that going into the cable modem on board diagnostics will allow me to reboot the CM and get the new config without jumping through all those hoops. I don`t want TS taking me through the dummies guide to broadband when I've phoned up and given them a very specific technical diagnosis.

To move away from broadband, I don`t want someone in faults telling me there is nothing wrong with my phone line simply because I can call customer services from a completely different location, despite the fact that I've given them a very detailed and precise description of the problem. And no, before anyone asks, she didn`t check my home line remotely or anything technical like that, she simply couldn`t grasp the fact that the phone at my office had no bearing on my phone at home.

It's one thing to moan about the attitude of customers, but until all the CS/TS staff stop treating customers with contempt and assuming they are idiots then no-one at NTL is in a position to complain when customers get frustrated.

I stressed all in the above paragraph as there are decent, helpful representatives at NTL, but as a rule of thumb, if I have to speak to NTL on the phone I can safely make the following assumptions 99% of the time.

1. The person on the other end of the phone won`t actually listen to what you are saying, almost as though they have a "random fault" generator that they use rather than paying attention to the fault you are reporting.

2. No matter how much information you give them they are likely to ignore it and follow the set crap about rebooting your PC. Lights out on cable modem, reboot the PC, yeah, that's going to work.

3. If you make a specific point that needs to be recorded in notes it isn`t going to be recorded. 4 or 5 calls to NTL a couple of weeks back, specifically stressed that I needed an RGB capable STB for a replacement, each time checked to see if that had been logged in the notes. I think you can guess what the answer was each time.

4. If you aren`t getting good service and ask for a supervisor the person on the phone will refuse point blank unless you persist on the line for an extended period. It normally turns out that the supervisor is even less helpful than the person you first spoke to.

5. If you ask for a call back work on the presumption that it isn`t going to happen.

There are exceptions, and as I posted on another thread (or possibly this one) the guy I had to deal with on Friday night was polite and went out of his way to be helpful. But in the main I can apply these rules and they`ll be an accurate representation of the process.

Finally, I forgot to mention this in an earlier post, while suffering my woes with NTL over the last few weeks I was forced to make a call from my office. After about 25 minutes on hold one of my colleagues asked me who I was waiting for all that time. I just told her to guess. Her immediate answer was simply "NTL". I had not said a word about who I was trying to call, simply being on hold for that long is enough for people to assume you are calling NTL. They really do have a serious reputation problem.

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

not all the the staff do.

so you don't mean all of the staff then... or do the "decent helpful representatives" treat the customers with contempt too...?

Yes how worthwhile that would be... actually don't bother telling them what the fault is next time, and you can play a little guessing game instead.

The process is there for a reason- we run reports on the modem and this has to show that it has been rebooted. If it cannot be seen from the logs that this has been done, the chances of the region refusing to book an engineer are much higher, hence customer doesn't get a phonecall back, gets annoyed etc etc. How long does it take to reboot a modem?! 30 seconds... and it takes that long to fill an engineer request in anyway. You might as well just do it. And actually, it very often does work. Why do you think there are IVRs when you call TS telling you to reboot? why do you think we get you to do it...? I can assure you it is not just to waste your time and frustrate you.

If someone asks me to note something i will do it, after all, if you want to you can request to see all your account notes (Data protection act) so you would able to see who has/ has not recorded what you asked them to.

Not me... if someone wants to talk to my manager that is fine by me! I won't do anything at all to stop you, because i know i am good at my job, and my manager is paid more than me to deal with escalations. Why should i stop a customer moaning to a manager when i want to :shrug:

I will not promise a callback, unless i know i can do it myself, or guarantee that someone will do it for me. It does wind me up when people ring up and demand callbacks because they have been waiting... why should we call you back and keep the other XX customers who are queuing waiting even longer? Don't think you would be happy if you were one of the other waiting customers....! If you rung me in TS and asked for a callback, unless their were very good grounds then i would say no. You could complain to my manager as well, but that is your prerogative :shrug:

Agreed, there are always exceptions. But also remember it is the people who have bad experiences who talk- i always remember being taught in business studies-

if you provide good service to a customer, they might recommend you to one friend. If you provide bad service to a customer, they will tell at least 3 of their friends.

I think ntl's reputation (aside from this forum) is not bad, most broadband isp reviews that i look at rate ntl as average, definately not one of the best, but also not among the worst either.

From a person point of view, i would recommend ntl to anyone, and i regularly do (check my sig ;) :p: ) . This is not just because i work for them, but because from a purely customer point of view, i have never had any problems. Never had to wait more than 5mins for CS to answer, only once lost connectivity for literally a matter of hours overnight, and always had a good phone service. So me happy :) but i appreciate that many others aren't... so come here and express your problems... isn't that what cableforum is here for ;)

Anyway... just to bring this back on topic... the call wait times for TS are indeed very long :) ;)

MB

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

I'd already stressed that it wasn`t all of the staff, sadly the exceptions are rare.

Well, the idiot I was speaking to towards the end of last week certainly wasn`t listening to what I was saying. Perhaps if she had actually paid attention to what I was saying I would have been off the phone more quickly, contributing to reduced wait times for others. I don`t use the term "idiot" lightly here, she seemed incapable of either listening to what I was saying or comprehending the nature of the problem.

Not my problem if the system has been designed with this inflexibility. I don`t see why my time should be wasted jumping through those hoops. If it is a problem that is clearly not going to be solved by rebooting the cable modem and I can report back to the TS what the modem is reporting in the internal diagnostics, a problem that a reboot isn`t going to solve, I begrudge a reboot simply so they can tick a little box on a form. I particularly begrudge being told to reboot the PC simply when the cable modem is being sent a new config file, rebooting the PC has *nothing* to do with the cable modem's capability of receiving a new config and I`m not going to do it.

Again, the exception, but whenever I ask for something that should be in the notes to be checked it isn`t there. I can only go on experience, and that is one that does engender trust in the person at the other end of the line to actually get the job done correctly.

Again, the exception. In my experience unless you browbeat the CS/TS representative they will refuse to escalate a call to a supervisor. As far as I can tell they hide behind this excuse as a cover for their lack of competency.

I`m not talking about the times when I've asked for a callback, I`m talking about the times when the CS representative claims they can`t deal with an issue there and then and I`ll receive a call back. In my mind the offer of a callback equates with a feeble excuse to get the customer off the phone.

If my work performance was rated as "average" I wouldn`t be happy, equal mediocrity isn`t a valid defence.

Whereas if I even get a sniff that someone I know is thinking of going with NTL they are warned not to in extremely strong terms. This isn`t just me, I don`t personally know anyone who is happy with NTL and wouldn`t switch from them if they had a reasonable choice (by reasonable choice I mean I stick with NTL because I`d need to get planning permission to get a Sky dish put up, and even then there is no guarantee I`d get the landlord's permission).

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

Some comments on this thread:

Russ, IMO, it's entirely reasonable to expect the customer to be near their PC/Set Top Box/SACM when reporting a fault. You don't need to know anything about computing to realise that, it's common sense. If, for example, your TV wasn't picking up the terrestrial channels and you phoned the manufacturer about it, wouldn't you be near the TV when they answered? Still, maybe NTL should advise people somewhere (maybe in the welcome pack, or on the bills etc) to do this.

Regarding insults. The only insults I have seen in this thread have been from the customers.

As stated by Dr Wadd, the staff can sometimes come a but unstuck when dealing with someone who is knowledgable about computing, and do repeat the same script. It also seems that their only response when dealing with faults is "reboot the STB/SACM"..

The problem with NTL is that (in my experience) they never seem to make notes on the customer's account of when the customer reported a fault, and what actions were suggested. In my case, this wasted both my time and NTLs when I was having problems with my broadband connection (it died frequently, and each time I phoned, I was told to reboot the box). After three or four phone calls, they eventually worked out that the Set top box was faulty and replaced it. Each time, the CSR appeared not to know I had the problem before.

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

Name something. The average user isn't going to be able to look at the internal diagnostics, and a cursory glance at the cable modem's internal diagnostics doesn't tell you anything useful for sure anyhow. You may not think a reboot will help, but experience tells us otherwise.

We do! It's part of the voice recording heard when calling Technical Support! But, of course, a large percentage of customers ignore all the recordings completely, and persist in holding for however long to speak to a person, only to be told what they've already been told in recordings. If people would just listen to the recordings, we wouldn't have such a long hold time!

There is no script, and I don't know why people think there is one. And to say the only repsonse is to say to reboot is a little unfair, I think.

I obviously can't speak for the CMCs, but everything I do (and everything my colleagues in the TSB do, I would hope) is recorded in the customer's account. It is a procedure, and there are disciplinary policies for those who do not follow procedures...

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

Not round here the're not. I have had to ring CS/TS about 6 times in my time with ntl, and always got a helpful person. So either I am incredibly lucky, or they are not as rare as you think. I know which of those options I believe. :)

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

Apparently NTL have said that an explanation for the long wait times is "Coming Soon" ;)

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

There are many customers who do not know what tests ntl can run. Perhaps they are going to send an engineer out? Perhaps they can do something their end? Of course, the majority of us know this is not the case because we tend to understand the technology - however this does not apply to the many people who do not understand what goes on.

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

Any company like ntl is going to have compromises when employing people to deal with customers on the phone.

The only way around the problem of employees reading from scripts, is to employ experienced people. This will never happen, the wages would have to double and they wouldn't find many engineers happy to sit on the end of a phone all day anyway.

I think sometimes customers are hoping for too much.

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

3) Better tools?

Obvious answer is for you to be able to reboot the modem remotely. AFAIK STBs can be rebooted remotely. If you want this, ask your management (ask me too, of course!).

As for dr wadd's internal modem diagnostics, having them available to the TS people would definitely help.