Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

And? How is name and shaming them on here going to fix it?

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

People should be responsible & accountable for their actions, & if their direct management won't do anything then perhaps we can/should escalate it to people who will listen & do something.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Neil, burning witches at the stake was given up hundreds of years ago for good reason. If you have a name of someone, specific instances and proof, then pass it onto whichever ntl seniors you know. Publishing stuff like that is NOT appropriate.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Ok....

So what can/should ntl do to improve the same old burning CS issues that have dogged ntl customers for years?

[Edit]-You know as well as I do that proof is hard to come by as most CSRs that mess customers about won't even give a name, let alone a real one.

The employees have been getting away with this for years-the old 'CS-BS©' The old telephone ping pong, the old "Ah yes, someone will call you back"

Different day, same old BS. :td:

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

IMO? Get rid of that ****ty horribly AHT they all have to work to and start focusing on customers rather the the time customers take up. And start paying CS staff better wages - this might entice a better calibre of prospective employee. Will things like that happen? Probably not. BUt naming people on here isn't going to change it either. And TBH, doing that looks like nothing but sheer spite, almost vigilante. This site got away from it's 'hate-site' rep. Naming and shaming will only brign it back. It's a very extremist thing to do - and being extreme hasn't done Islamics any favours, has it?

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

What's AHT? :confused:

Not rocket science is it? :shrug:

You get what you pay for in most cases.

Defo not I would suspect.

I think you're being a bit extreme comparing us taking passing details of ntl employees who muck customers about to managers who can & will deal with it instead of ignoring it to Islamic extremeists....:erm:

Number 1 rule of business-look after your customers.

Number 2 rule of business-refer to number 1.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Average Handling Time - so much is focused on this, rather than the quality of the call.



Indeed.



I know the rules Neil, thank you.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Taken from Richer Sounds website:

ntl would do well to take a leaf out of his book.

Instead of employing idiots who don't give a stuff about customers, why don't they employ someone to take on something like this?

Pay them £40/50/60k PA if needs be, but put the info returned to good use & make sure that employees are dealt with accordingly-by this I mean disciplined or rewarded.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

So, if we encourage people to name and shame, they could be libelling the wrong person?

I don't know the helpdesk management system NTL use, but I would be amazed if it did not log who it assigned a call to. If we refer things to our contact, they should be able to look up that log.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Stu-this has been a major thing for years, CSRs can log in while you're on the phone, talk to you like you're an idiot & yet there's no footrprint when you phone back to complain.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Lets not be naive here, for the amount of trouble the vast majority of NTL customers experience there is something rotten through the whole organisation and not down to just a number of poor agents. Top management know how bad it is and has been for years. Maybe just maybe things will improve with Virgin

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I think you'll find the 'vast majority' of NTL's customers don't experience anything like the problems you infer.

That isn't to say there aren't problems, but not to the extent of 'rotten through the whole organisation' - do you really think the NTL staff who help on here appreciate being labelled like that? Does helping customers in their own time indicate they are 'rotten'?

The main issues NTL need to address, in my opinion, are communication with both employees & customers, and training of their customer service/technical support teams. As you say, that may improve with the Virgin branding, but there is the, not so small, issue of the merger with Telewest to sort out, first.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I've worked on the frontline for ntl - and I know first hand how easy it is to fob customers off with any old rubbish.

In my first week out of training I was listening to someone on my team taking a call from an angry customer who wanted to speak to a supervisor. My colleague had no intentions of passing the call on so he got one of the others to come on the phone, pretend to be a TL, listen to the caller shout and moan and fob him off with a promise to "look in to the matter".

The call was forgotten about as soon as they put the phone down.

At the time I had no idea what to do. With the benefit of hindsight yes I should have taken things further but I'd just started out and didn't know if I could prove what just happened.

But these people ARE out there. Admittedly all companies have people like this but seeing as this is a Cable forum.....

We had a long thread a year or so back where we discussed 'naming and shaming' and I gave my opinions for doing so then, so I won't go in to it again but as Neil says, if ntl cannot (or will not) taken action against these people (or even identify them) then perhaps we, as customers, should be looking out for ourselves and helping them to do it.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I'm sorry I would take issue with this, I know alot of people who have, or have had NTL services, and everyone has a frustrating story to tell about them, the majority just walk away quietly and take up Sky, AOL etc. Of course there are genuine people who really want to get things right and probably a large percentage who would like to help out more but arent encouraged due to the culture within parts of the organisation.

There are obviously serious flaws in their processes and procedures that cause these problems and quality of service is not something they can embrace

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I'm not denying people have problems, but you are inferring it applies to 'the vast majority' of NTL's customers, of which there are over a million. I also talk to people who, like me, have had no problems, in over 5 years, what should I infer from that?

Unless you can come up with more evidence for your statement, than the small sample of the customer base you have extrapolated it from, I'm afraid you aren't doing any more than expressing opinion as fact.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

OK I cannot say it is the vast majority but it is certainly TOO MANY you cant deny that, as a customer you have the right to expect good service and problems to be sorted quickly and efficiently, this never happens with any company all of the time but NTL's poor customer service reputation is renowned and has been for some years. Management should be addressing this once and for all but if anything it 'appears' to be getting worse.

You may be happy to accept this situation but I am not. A week ago I sent a recorded letter to Simon Duffy at NTL, thanks to this forum it has been sorted out but I have not even had an acknowledgement of my letter from him or his office, this I dont feel is good enough from someone in his position. I dont expect him to deal with it personally but having worked in customer relations an acknowledgement within 2 working days is usually built into a companys procedures.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I don't disagree with that, and in the short term I don't see it getting any better, either, until the blood letting from the merger has finished, anyway.

As I've said, my own situation is good, so I don't have anything to 'put up with', but I do sympathise with people who do have problems - and I've been a member of this forum long enough to have seen quite a few of them ;)

I would be amazed if your letter got anywhere near Simon Duffy, there will be someone filtering his mail & I wouldn't be surprised if yours, along with other similar letters are quietly binned... - please note I deplore this, if it does happen.

All I can suggest is to try using the 'responsetek' tool, which I know does get looked at - at least you should get a reply :)

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

For me as an employer its simple. I explain to my staff what I expect of them, I give them every oppertunity to achieve the levels both my customers and I myself expect, should they not achieve that level? Easy, I sack them! No BS no hand holding, they go!

If I were in a high position at NTL I would be hiding my head. I feel they need to toughen up and start kicking out the ppl not pulling thier wieght and coasting.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Excellent customer services TBH.
The phone line is always answered by a polite and friendly machine which proceeds (invariably) to tell me there are lots of people calling and I might have to wait up to 5 minutes (or 10 or 15 depending on how busy they are).
So I give it my phone no. and go through a couple of menus - easy.
Then I way, usually just a little less time that I was led to believe, and asked for my phone number again (hmm.) and then I ge to sort the problem.
Yesterday the engineer was out within a few hours, and gave me a nice new shiny cable TV box, and a new cable for my modem (so when I finish building the office I won't have 5m of cable coiled up on the floor...)

To be honest the "You'll be waiting 10 minutes" sentenec makes ALL the difference in the world, although I wouldn't mind an occasional update (say every 5 minutes).
Taking the phone number twice is a bit superfluous, but the advice they give to try while you wait must save them *so* much work...

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img] Bob, glad to see NTL are getting it right for you :)

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Phoned ntl last night because my browsing speeds were abysmal. I know there are some upgrades going on so I wanted to find out if that was happening in my area.

The CS said he couldn't see anything and put me through to Tech Support.

In India.

I explained my problem to the tech support guy who went through the usual procedure of trying to blame my router (only I don't have one) and then my firewall (same problem with or without it).

He then asked me to do a download speed test and I gave the results of 9.6mbps. As I'm on 10Mb he told me that is a very normal speed to get for that service.

"Yes I know" I replied.

And then......silence.

I then said "So what now?".

He replied that as my speed was normal for my service, he couldn't see a problem.

At this point I hung up. I made it clear at the start of the call that my problem was slow browsing speeds, not download speeds so why didn't he listen to me?

People like that should not be in tech support IMO.

Oh and as for my browsing problem, it seems to have cleared up now.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Have you filled in the responsetek form sir?! ;)

Oh and it sounds like a proxy issue imo... If I were him i would have tried that as soon as you mentioned slow browsing problems.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

No option but to vote AWFUL.

I always thought they were great - until I had to phone them. It was then that I realised how utterly useless they are. Now I actually DREAD having to phone them.

The technical support team are fine, they've always been really helpful but then my problem's never been anything specifically unusual (my mother was told "how should I know?" when she had trouble connecting a new laptop to the internet - 4 hours on the phone over 2 days, still nothing).

Their customer 'service' team in my opinion will tell you anything to get you off the phone - as I mentioned previously, they charged me for 6 films at my old address when i wasn't living there - my replacement bill has yet to materialise and they don't know the meaning of the word empathy. As a representative of NTL, they should stop being so blase and do what they're paid to do, i.e. fix the problem at first point of call.

And don't even get me started on their electronic menu system - for one that new Geordie voice, probably intended to be friendly and calm the irate customer down, but more so the fact that it tells you to call back at a convenient time and then cuts you off after listening to said Geordie voice for the best part of 5 minutes. Why would I ring if it was an inconvenient time? But then this is the crazy, upside-down world of NTL.

I work for a large telecoms company myself and if I treated my customers the way they do I'd not only have been sacked but I'd also feel very ashamed of myself.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Never had a problem with CS, always polite and friendly. Recently had a problem with the phone line, was told they'd send a Techie out to me within 90 minutes...

They did !!

Sure enough, within 90 mins a techie was at the door!! Nice chap, problem was located and sorted (the cabinet on the corner of the street). He even came back next day to check everything was ok.

Broadband, well I think I've had maybe three periods of downtime in all the time I've been with NTL, (joined when they were still Cabletel. All were less than 6 hours and all late at night, I presume they were upgrades.

Makes me sometimes wonder why people have problems with them at all.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I don't know, maybe they just have it in for me :D

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Had a couple of issues when I was with them. Some billing probs, some customer service probs, some CS-BS as well which wasn't appreciated. A few technical issues most resolved quickly, one took a very long time.

Overall a fairly poor experience.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Up till recently i had no problems with ntl and in fact thought they were great after being with them for 3 years and in fact i told my MIL to use them they were so good,since i have moved however i have had nothing but problems mainly with customer services and the house moving team although i have to say i have never had any problems with the technical support team.So i have had to vote completely awful as we have had problems every day since moving

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

NTL have been great - I give them 9.5/10. The only aspect that they lost out on was when I first called CS to actually sign up to NTL. This was September 2002 and it took me over an hour to get through to an agent. I gave up and tried a few days later and I only had to wait for a few minutes before I connected to an agent. Once I got talking though, the agent was very polite and helpful.

In June 2003, I moved to another house in the same town, just a mile away from where I was previously. I contacted CS, got straight through to an agent and arranged an engineer's visit so that I could get my existing NTL:120 modem wired up in the new place. This was no hassle at all.

In terms of downtime, I normally get 24 hours of downtime once per year. Last year was the worst when I was down for 6 days. The culprit was actually another house on the same road to where I live. The fault at that house caused my house to go offline too. It took more than one engineer visit because of the knock-on effect from the offending house. Took a while to discover it. Once again though, the engineers were nice and helpful.

This week, my NTL:120 modem went faulty in that it kept on rebooting itself and was rarely sync'ing. I managed to get a same-day engineer appointment. The 120 modem was exchanged for a new 250. Job done!

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

2p

Phoned ntl Saturday as I'm on the 1mb for a tenner deal they did last year, due to go up to normal price in June. Been wanting to upgrade for a while and as they were going to shift the 2mb to 4mb, I thought I'd better do it manually as I know their billing systems are awful - another story!!

Two rings, a bit of Geordie lad (less than a minute) then on comes Wayne.
Explain that I want to upgrade, he replies no problem. Looks at bits, fiddles around his end then tells me he can offer me the 2mb (with the June upgrade to 4mb) for £19.99 for the first 6 months.

Not one to turn down a nice offer, I take it!!!

But, (come on, there is always a but with ntl) the 2mb upgrade hasn't happened yet - still waiting for it to appear. Wayne did say that it would take 24hrs, I'll give it until Wednesday then start shouting.

I'll hold off the vote until then.

hapless
ps. If I'd voted 2 years ago it would be 'kin awful - I was treated terribly and it's still going through legal channels.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

ok, update for you.

Looking at the modem config, nothing had changed so I thought I'd better call them and check up.

Spoke to one lad who didn't seem very sure of himself, so I got put through to "tech support" - in India :rolleyes:

First he accused me of lying when I said I'd requested an upgrade! Nice CS skills, he'll go far!
Next he gave me wrong details and couldn't tell me what the MAC address of the cm was, I told him.
Following his instructions, we went through the online upgrade (why?!) where it kept failing with an error (because the password he supplied was wrong, and I read it back twice!!!!!) and eventually he said, his best CS hat on:
"I can't help you anymore, you'll have to do it yourself!"

Eh?!

So, off to pick the rugrats up, get home, on the phone again but a bit of a wait this time, then through to Mike in Swansea.
Fantastic, did it all there and then and went through all the old account stuff, he's calling me next week which saves a truckload of grief re the legal stuff.

So it's really a 2 bad, 1 good scenario for me - the initial call on Saturday - talked the talk but didn't walk it, the first call today which had me boiling and then Mike saved the day with a courteous and professional manner that was extremely efficient to boot.
Only wish I had a direct number for the lad!!!

Now I just wish I could get TVDrive here and I'd sign up for TV again, as long as Mike dealt with it!!!

All this praise sounds a bit gay, but it's not often a cs/ts rep impresses me!

hapless

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I wouldn't hold your breath about that call "next week", I have also been told this and nothing at all happened.

Love the name tho hapless, I was a big Mark and Lard fan too :D

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I coud say the same, except I'm in Tech Support for a software company, not telecoms. I would also actually expect to be fired and rightfully so.


*** sorry for the double post, The EDIT button wasn't showing up***

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Stop....













Carry on!!

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I'd say Waaaaaaap but last I heard there was still a shortage of them. Jobsagoodun

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

When i have phoned them up to request assistance, i had absolutely no problems. When i was first upgraded to 10meg i was having problems. I told them what it was and a tech came round the next day to change the modem. Had little problems after that.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

9 engineers, 6 weeks, 40 odd phone calls to them, 20 odd back, several shirty emails and I'm up and running!
It was finally put right by a subcontractor who said "For a communications company they're not very good at communication."
I can only agree. I don't know how their call centres are arranged, but I get the impression that for all the automation and entering your phone number, etc. that you have to do, very little is correlated at the other end. Every time I've called the person I've spoken to has been staggered at the number of entries next to my name and the length of time the call has been open - so they must have a record of who I am and what's going on, and yet I still had 2 engineers turn up unaware of each other last weekend, one completely unprepared for the job in hand.
Still, at least I can complain on the internet now. ;)

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

My personal experience is that it depends who you get through to. Get someone in their Indian call centre and its nowhere near as quick to get your issue solved but the guys in the UK one seem to go that extra mile, or at least have for me. That may sound slightly racist, but I assure it is not meant as such, and it may be just the people I've dealt with, including the brilliant guy in their Indian centre who used a very special version of the phonetic alphabet including "R for Rajinda" and "B for Bhaji".

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Was that as in:

R for Rajinda,
U for Urdu,
B for Bhaji,
B for Bhuna,
I for India,
S for Sari,
H for Hindu?

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

thats a bit harsh! CS isnt that bad. as long as you speak clearly then its fine.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Why should I have to speak clearly? Why shouldn't I be able to speak like I'm having a chat with someone?

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Because you want the CS Rep to deal with your query quickly and efficiently? He can't do that if he can't understand you.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

But it's not my problem the Indian people can't understand me. I shouldn't have to modify the way I speak because of where they've outsourced their people to.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Truly, they are awful. After moving two and a half years ago and taking TV/Telephone service with me, they were unable to provide me with a telephone line because "there weren't enough in the street", but was promised that this would be resolved soon. After numerous calls over a year and a half of being "ping-ponged" back and forth between sales and technical services I gave up the ghost.

In February this year, despite my aversion to Murdoch I subscribed to Sky TV+ and informed NTL of termination of my cable TV contract. Unlike the NTL subcontract installers, the SKY man was local and a SKY employed technician. He was punctual, courteous, clean and efficient. He was done in less than an hour of arriving FOUR DAYS from when I ordered online.

That's when it really went down hill with NTL. After noticing I was still being billed I cancelled my Direct Debit with my bank rang CS to make them aware of the situation. They acknowledged that I had notified them of my cancellation and the fact that they owed me two months rental. I was told that I was no longer active and that I would receive a cheque within 30 days.

I was told the same thing in Aprill and that it was an administrative oversight and then the same thing again this week, with the little rider that my account was still "live" and that it takes 30 days to deactivate. Coincidentally, it takes 30 days to issue the check. Am I going to wait another 30 days to be told the same thing again? Am I heck. They provide you with no real access to their organisation other than through their customer service numbers and those operators will lie to you and refuse to put you through to supervisors/managers. So what are the options?

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I wasn't having a go at how you speak, and I personally don't like foreign call centres. Just seemed logical though. Whatever the nationality of the person you are talking to, it does help if they can understand you.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

No, I know you weren't having a go :)

None of the people I've spoken to at any of ntl's callcentres have indicated they have a problem understanding me. When I end up speaking to someone in India, more often than not they ask me to repeat things. I didn't ask them to outsource, I wasn't even asked. So why should I have to change the way I do someone when the decision which causes the problem in the first place is down to a company I'm paying £70 a month to?

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Oh dear.....

http://www.contact-centres.com/newsletter.16.06.06.htm

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

although i appreciate the comments, the guy shouldn't really be running a business from a residential connection should he? If he paid for a business connection there would be much better SLAs and i'm sure much faster responses for engineers

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I agree - if you want a reliable business service with fast SLAs you should have and pay for a Business line. End of.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

they ruined my house fascia to install the ntl box, they made a mess indoors (a rainy day and technician's feet smelled), and got off me £130+ monthly for 7 years.

Their favourite trick: Deactivating without letting me know my International Calling plan (due to unidentifiable technical fault) resulting to international calls bearing original costs. Very nasty if you ask me.

Another thing they do is NOT turning up at appointments in concecutive attempts to get them there.

Just being forced to switch to BT. Let's see if they are any better.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

:welcome: to the forum I do hope you have better luck with BT :tu:

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Thank you for your instant and warm welcome. I just got so upset that I made up that site http://www.promo-land.co.uk/ntl/index.htm and "threatened" them to launch it just 20 mins ago until they issue an apology.
I really got annoyed this time..

---------- Post added at 16:34 ---------- Previous post was at 16:32 ----------

...which I'm not sure it will materialise, but I'll see what their approach will be like!;)

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Awsome site - kicks ass! haha brilliant that made my day.

lol im grumpy as it seems everyone else except me has had thier 4mb upgrade... yeah im a moaner, but I dont care, you here me Arrrrghh..

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

You're not alone - here in Leeds we are still waiting (breathe deeply, hold, and..............exhale):notopic:

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Well, as long as I had to stay with NTL I did nothing else by swallowing my pride...

The sh*t hit the fan yesterday though and I arranged for a BT installation. Now I will make this site up, wait, SEO, add solicitors on, wait, SEO, add solicitors on, wait and then make a few more sites like these...

I should get a threatening letter from them, which in turn, I will get to ignore:)

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Hi all in the forum
This is a personal log of events that happend on Friday 22nd June2006. Have been away and switched off the cable box. On returning on 21st June late at night I noticed when viewing TV pictures that all standard channels were there but not my subscribed channels. Phoned customer services at 8:05 Friday morning and got through to a "real voice" after going through all the option menus by 8:10 (l this was timed as I knew I was going to post here). Answered loads of security questions as I didnt have my account number to hand. No problem. Explained my problem and they sent down some signals to try and solve the problem. This took some 4 minutes or so. This did not work after a re boot of the system. Was told to keep the box on as they would then send "Long signals" that may take over 2 hours to activate. Was setting system to stay on whilst at work and no one at home, then the system burst into life and problem solved. The lady on the phone then told me that my broadband has now been activated to receive the 4 meg service and would i like to be included on a free trial for a 10 meg service which i of course jumped at. Alas I am getting only about 6 meg on a good day through a Terayon 210 external modem whiich they say will receive 10 meg, but I have my doubts. If I dont get a 10 meg service then ther is no point in upgrading when the trial period is up, but at leas I will know that I can get 4 meg easy enough. So is anyone getting 10 meg on this type of modem? but generally impresed with the customer service, even though it gets up my goat to have to pay for the phone call.
regards
John Calleja

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Where do i start? Transfered my services to a new property took them forever to even acknowledge i had moved. The day came to transfer they gave me a new phone number which i didnt askk for they dropped my modem to a 1meg from 10 meg and completely ballsed it up. Rang CS and technical support had my modem upped back to 10 meg all sorted or so i thought. recievd a bill for being upgraded to 10 meg WTF? i also got billed in advance for having my services transfered, despite Transfer department telling me that i would not be billed in advance!!!!!! Hence the 3 figure bill from NTL who when i rang them couldnt give a toss and promptly told me to pay 2 months line rental, 2 months cable modem plus the upgrade fee from going from 1 meg to 10 meg which wasn't my fault. Absolutely ****** atrocious diabolical CS blatantly lying and i do mean blatantly lying courtesy of NTLs useless CS department. I am still receiving bills for the prevoius occupants despite me informing them they are no loger here (seperate thread) i have now been threatened with a collection agency calling at my house for bills that simply are not mine, this is causing me untold stress and time to try and sort so solicitors monday morning which i have to pay for........

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I was told it would be free to transfer my account to another address, and always will be. They also failed to acknowledge that I had moved and still phoned my previous address today, even though they now tell me I've been disconnected in writing... only 9 months late then.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

i have been with firstly nynex,then c and w,and now ntl,. since 1992,when cable came to our street.any issues arising with service have been sorted
quickly by customer services or technical assistance,including a guy in india
who talked me thru the process of restoring my broadband connection earlier
this year.for my sins i am not an ntl employee, but work a small corner of what is left of our general engineering industry.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

hehe, i'm not alone then.

Apart from NTL's "outsourced" customer service, choppy TV my main gripe is their broadband.

Customer services claims a DNS outage. I've been experiencing problems for months now, a very long outage I think you will agree.

google.com is currently pinging at an average of 350ms. My current download speeds are less than half a meg (i'm on 2 meg).

I installed a satellite system at a company recently that has similar pings. The sustained download speed is 1 meg.

Well done NTL, you have the same latency and worse download speeds than a system that has a round trip of 60,000km from space. NTL are a total waste of time. Gonna ring SKY and BT on monday and get a decent service. Just wish I never phoned nynex all those years ago..............

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

you better do that mate. Υοu may not get a significantly better service but at least you'd say that you did what you could.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I emailed using the TELL US WHAT YOU THINK on the website and told them about the problem I'm having where it seems I need to keep rebooting my modem. They actually got back to me and asked some questions which weren't level 1 diagnostic stuff. I told them I'd already ruled out my router by having the modem connected directly to a PC, and ruled out the computer as it's happening on 3 or 4 different machines. I hope to get some good reply, as they appear to have ruled out the line itself by telling me I was online regularly, while this is true I had to keep rebooting my modem to get online at times.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I'm back, and Im BAD baby :)

Just re-connected to ntl, moved to an area that can get it again, yey, but had a few niggles along the way, heres my story:

Basically, 2 days ago, gave ntl a ring, asked for a decent package (Phone, tv, interweb), and got a 4Meg/Basic TV and internet deal, good so far, they said, that they would get an engineer in the next day (Yes, thats what I thought), good so far.

On tuesday, (We were in the process to moving to Rushden), we passed an ntl engineer's van in Rushden, curious, we stopped and had a chat, turned out, we weren't on the list for the day! Furious, I called ntl CS, who were fantastic, put us through to installations, who organised the engineer, came an hour later (Was the one we stopped, heh).

After install, we went to do the broadband set-up, and noticing we didnt get a PIN code, rang Tech support, we got it, easy street, we thought, went to install (Getting late by now, in-between moving and all), and the CD (Tried autoreg, didnt have the 11Char code at that time), gave us ERROR:207, said ring CS, they werent open, so we rang tech support (IBM India answered), said it was a CS thing, fair enough I thought, the install did say this.

Anyway, called CS, and basically this is where the problem began, I asked for the Serial for autoreg, then about error 207, he said its a tech support thing (!), when I asked him why the CD told me different, he wouldnt answer, when I asked why Tech support told me otherwise, he wouldnt answer, when I said that one of you were lying, he flat out called Tech support the liar (Nice to see coherancy, and all-for-one attitudes there then), but I wasnt happy, I asked for his name (Standard practice, I work in Customer support, Ok, not for ntl, but hey, but I am regularly asked for my name, and I give it, as I also ask for the customers name, creates trust, and accountability), he refused, I asked for a supervisor or manager, he refused TWICE, before saying he'll get someone to call back, they havent.

Thankfully, the autoreg went through at the time, without a hitch, and im now on ntl 4meg, however, i'm still distresse to find that there is STILL a lot of commincation issues within ntl, and also, a lack of willingness to go the extra mile, the guy on CS seemed intent on doing as little as possible, and frankly, it wasnt good enough, he could, and should, have put me on hold, and gave TS a kick up the bum for me, if indeed it was their issue, rather than doing nothing, the only downer on a decent installation.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

My experiences are logged at http://nthell.net

NTL is by far the worst ISP I have ever dealt with. Here's a partial list of ISPs I work with:

Easynet
Demon
BT
Be
NTL
Telewest
Zen
Bulldog
Eclipse
Pipex

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I agree,
I just signed in about 2 months now.
I changed my flat after 1 month and my transfer hasn't happened yet. They r just delaying it. Each time they give me time and then no engineer turns up.....................
I have no words to say about there telephone support. ITS AWFUL ...
had to wait 1 hour 25 mins in the home movers que twice.....
i can only cry now for the rest of the contract...........

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

idar21, :welcome: to Cableforum.

If you PM me (click the "SendPM" button at the bottom left of this post) your Name, Account Number and a contact phone number, I can refer this to the site's contacts within NTL. They should be able to investigate what has happened, and if necessary, get something done.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I finally launched it. Let's see what can I achieve long term.
www.ntl-complaints.co.uk

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

If you leave Ofcom on there as a first port of call you will certainly irritate them a bit. They are really the last port of call on the complaints chain. You must attempt to resolve the issue with ntl first, and probably then go via an arbitration before Ofcom.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

As I will be soon as I've tried a letter of complaint and also tried to get an answer through here (its been a week and still nothing).

I'm getting real sick and tired of the whole NTL thing at the moment, I just don't need the hassle, nor does anyone. Service thats constantly like this that causes people to go like the guy in Falling Down .

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Well, to be honest, it is rather Otelo than Ofcom when it comes to NTL and any relevant grievances.

I think I may be changing it to Otelo soon (but have to get hold of a few more solicitors who are propeared to assist the crusade first). However, feel free to pm me if you want to voice your grievances via ntl-complaints.co.uk (I'm currently working on a that bit)

Cheers

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Well been on hold fro half an hour. :afire: Still on hold. All I want to do is tell them i'm moving.

Joke to have to wait so long at 10am not even peek time. Was going to stay with them but after this!!!! No chance. :mad:

---------- Post added at 10:14 ---------- Previous post was at 10:01 ----------

Still on hold. 40 mins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Skunk, make sure that the "Cancellation Dept" is aware that your account is closed.

One of their favourite tricks is to terminate your service after you paid any inflated outstanding amount and then charge you further because...you should have also notified the "Cancellation Dept" although the CS said that the account was then closed.
Just beware..

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Gave up holding after 40 mins totally unacceptable. I ring to pay bill got though straight away. She's trying to transfer me to disconnections and guess what!!!!!

Still on hold!!!!


---------- Post added at 12:31 ---------- Previous post was at 12:24 ----------

Getting so stressed now :grind: :afire: :afire: :afire: :mad: She has only trasfered me to someone not in the depatment and she has passed me back to home mover for anouther 40 mins!!!!!!!!!!



NTL :upyours: You will never have my custome again!!!!!!

---------- Post added at 12:34 ---------- Previous post was at 12:31 ----------

I'm sick off this hold music. How can they be so busy at this time of day?

---------- Post added at 12:52 ---------- Previous post was at 12:34 ----------

Been on hold again for anouther 40 Mins. Total 80 mins of my work time wasted listing to crap music and a stupid women telling me the ntl sevice is improving. Joke.

And still on hold.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Either you are very patient or your boss. I only hope that he's more patient than you (for obvious reasons).

Beware that even after they keep you on hold for ages, they can still put the phone down on you (oops sir, you must have got cut off)... that can take the biscuit!

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Finally got though. Credited me £30 of my phone bill. Have given me 3 months free 4mb Broadband in the new property. Bloody good sales girl that's all I can say to calm me down, and for me to still be with NTL.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Had problems
CS = -0
Not point saying anymore apart from useless

BJW

<mod edit: Chris W> Do NOT attempt to bypass the swear filter- it is there for a reason. Also remember that there are some members of ntl staff on this board- so let's refrain from personal comments- perhaps try to be a little constructive in your criticism- or at least provide some justification.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I'll bet money ntl lieing about that credit on your bill, they promised me the same thing, don't fall for it, it a ploy to tie you in again, now you'll have to give another month notice, she's not a good sales girl, she's just a drone reading from a script. Get out while you can. I've manually discounnected ntl bb, tv and phone and gone back to BT. This cost me a £129 but I've also paid out £40 in one day just trying to get through to cancelation, get my meaning.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

This may be OT, but next time you post racist comments like that, expect a visit from your local police!

NOT funny, NOT clever.

Idiot!

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Huh? Sorry i didnt think that was racist tbh:( Whats the world coming too, freedom of speech etc?

Just to add, i wasnt trying to be funny/clever tbh. Nor was i trying to bypass the swear filter, thats just how i spell. I just didnt realise this forum was so strict about it. None others i go on are, thats seen as the usual way to talk. Anyway t'is all in the past. Let us move on etc!

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

See your PM

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

With freedom of speech comes the responsibility of using it wisely. I remind of you of this site's T&Cs which you agreed to when you signed up.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

He was decent enough to appologise via a PM - I think it was just a poor use of words, nothing intended.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Our main stb went faulty on wed of last week. Phoned CS and was told an engineer would be out on friday. Sure enough engineer turned up and replaced our old DI4001 box with a new samsung 2110 . The guy was very helpfull and took time to explain what he was doing and even did a pretty good job of fielding the questions I had on HD! We have one of big Philips 32PW wide screen CRT tv's but the picture quality we now have is excellent! I'am struggling to see what difference HD is going to make now unless I buy a £2k or £3k high quality LCD tv.Prior to this I had phoned up CS and got reduction in TV package and broadband.So for me thats earned NTL 10 out of 10 for customer satisfaction!

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

hey all im sp4m do im new any probs may i have some help thanx

---------- Post added at 01:41 ---------- Previous post was at 01:39 ----------

hey im justa kid lol

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Here's another option for the poll: "Getting through would be nice".

I tried calling them a few minutes ago. After entering my phone number, then pressing for the department I want, I get told the lines are currently busy and will have a wait of up to five minutes.

A minute or so later I get an engaged tone with a message saying that all lines are engaged as I've tried calling at a busy time, and am advised to call back later before getting disconnected.

With it being an 0845 number I still get charged! This also goes on to the times I couldn't get through last week.

What a bunch of robbing sods. I'm sorely tempted to tell ntl (if I ever get through to them) exactly what I think of them and that I no longer require any of their services - even if it means paying £120 for BT to put a line in to replace this one.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Have been with them for over 3 years and hadnt had much of a problem, until my housemove which took 2 weeks to sort out. Im still feeling the aftermath to this day.

Luckily being the bulldog I am I never gave up till I got my services installed. If I wasnt pre-warned of this site how bad house moves can go, I would of jacked them in a long time ago.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I am a newish ntl customer and find that since the change of numbers the company has become loutish in its attitude towards its customer base. Ive been kept on permanent hold, never called back when promised failed to resolve issues and just cant wait until my twelve months is up! still four left. I am wondering if this is a regional thing? after all they take our telephone numbers before we talk to customer services? My area is really bad in this regard mind you sometimes I end up talking to somebody in india and I cant understand a word thats being spoken. then its the phonetic game for a while before eventually giving up!
sad really because I thought I would have benefited from ntl broadband being a seperate cable to my home *sighs* oh well we live and learn.:wavey:

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

if you have any specific problems, post them (minus your personal details etc) im sure someone may be able to help

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Hi, I am just posting about my personal experiences and the rather poor customer care I have received. I am sorry I thought the thread was about how we were treated? I feel I have been treated badly, my complaints un resolved hence in four months time I will be leaving and going back to my BT line at least BT whom supply my telephone line dont threaten to charge me if it gets cut. They take care in their installation of telephone lines to keep them out of reach. Ntl on the other hand just throw them across hedgerows then blame the customer when they are cut! I mean common sense tells you you dont lay a cable ontop of a hedgerow the full length of it too,
a botch job from a botch team of a botch company is all I can say (in my opinion) and based on what has happend to me.
huggs kat2

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

It is. However, if you start a new thread in the relevant forum, you may find someone on here who can help.

Edit: BTW, I recommended you start a new thread as if you post your own problem in an existing thread, it gets difficult to keep track of who is answering what.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Hi, Stuart,
sorry I thought this was about the way customer services treated you? I was responding to how I was treated sorry.
huggs kat2

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I had the bad luck to contact CS.
This is due to me cancelling my TV and going just Broadband, which needed a new DD, what i did'nt realise is that they tried to be me on the old DD which i cancelled.
They sent i letter, they stated, to my PO box which i don't collect regually, although they know me e-mail address and home address!!!
I found this out on Saturday, after i found no Broadband and Phone, so had to use my mobile to call CS India and then call CS in this country.
It seams they have two Dept's who do not communicate and you are left piggy in the middle until you pay the bill you did not reliase you had, so much for DD's.
As you can understand in December i will be looking for another ISP:mad:
michael

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I recently switched banks and transfered my NTL Direct Debit to my new bank.
Ntl sent me a letter asking me to ring them to confirm my details.

Less than 5 Mins on the phone and the nice chap said it was all done and sorted.
Nice one NTL.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Pity work didn't get your wages right, eh! ;) lol

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

well to be honest i think customer service is good. ok could and will be better but i generally think the customer services are great.

and yes i do work for them ha ha ha:dunce:

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

I've not had to phone them too many times, but they were helpful when I did. I phoned them once to tell them that the DTV had gone off, and I didn't know why (the bill was paid). The tech guy was puzzled as well, so he did some checking and found they'd cut the wrong person's TV off! Yeah, mine! LOL. They put it back in within 20 mins so not too bad.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

[QUOTE=Chris T;76262]OK, let's have a definitive answer to this thorny issue. What is your own personal experience of NTL customer services?

I change over to the £30.00 plus calls my calls came to £3.72 but had billing for £38.71.
When I tried to contact customer service and told them I am deaf and cannot here what is being said on the phone, would they please do it by email.

And all they done was to requote the telphone number.

This has been going on now for over three weeks. but they will not buge

Would be greatful for any help please

mmole331.

---------- Post added at 14:49 ---------- Previous post was at 14:45 ----------

[QUOTE=mmole331;34107181]

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Ok. looking in your crystal ball. when will they get better? ;)

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

Was talking with retentions today and at the end off the call I asked how much i was paying for this call cos the web site said it was 5p a min from a BT line, he said i was paying 20p a min:shocked:.


17mins 1st call b4 i was cut off and 25mins 2nd call, it soon adds up.

Re: NTL Customer Services: Your personal experience
 

unless you were calling of a mobile thats not true. its just over 6p pm during the day, just over 1.5p pm evenings.
thats providing you called the 0845 CS number.

you would have been better calling the free one though. 0800 052 9403