Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

This thread is for everyone to note their good/ bad experiences with Virgin Media's customer service department.

Please vote in the poll, and if you have an additional comments please feel free to leave them here!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

How about adding another button?

"Never had to call them"

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Hold on, Isn't it a little early yet. We haven't got all the services yet. When it's up and fully running then I'll vote.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

rang sales, call answered fast, uk call centre, following the virgin media message I then got a guy answering ntl sales :) so he forgot the new company name.

overall tho since I last rang ntl a better experience.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

when i called to change the package i ordered...

phone answered fast, plesent staff, knew what i wanted and how to give it to me. Quick and efficent..

But the most important thing for me was that they where in the UK.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

rang customer services yesterday and got a guy who answered the fone 'hi, your thru to A*** at the link, how can I help'. I quickly hung up and redialled. :erm:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Haven't voted yet. Mine would have to be somewhere between Generally OK and Excellent, but I think that's because they were excessively busy today with the rollout.

Called to subscribe to V+ and was told it would be a 5 minute wait (by the automated service). Answered in 2 mintues, but told it was the wrong department and put me through elsewhere. Picked up in about 2 minutes, bu told it was the wrong department again. On hold another 20 minutes (automated voice said 10) so wasn't happy with the wait, however was extremely pleased with the service once I got through. At that point the agent knew exactly what I was needing, went through all the things with me, recommended the best package for my usage (and very little difference in price) and told me about some of the new things. I have an app't next week for the install and am only paying £11 a month more than already for TONS more services.

Am reserving my vote to see how it goes over the next few weeks, but overall once I got through it was excellent.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

nobody has to vote straight away... that is why the thread is a sticky! It'll always be there at the top when you have had time to form an opinion.

The poll is open indefinately.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

lol, yeah i wondered how that would pan out!

we reckon you know who your calling so why tell ya?

oh and saavychels, yeah man i see what your sayin there, and the main problem is our 3 billing systems! :( sorry to hear bout it but hope your v+ turns out good :)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I rang Customer Service at 08:00 on Friday to upgrade to the VIP service and, the phone having been answered straight away, was connected to a very friendly lady who, within a couple of minutes, upgraded my service. The entire experience reminded me of the excellent service I receive when phoning the Virgin Atlantic Premier team.

Well done and more power to Sir Richard!!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

voted hit and miss as this week ive experienced both sides, Firstly whilst my net was off I called tech and was given the usual run around test this test that even though the modem ready wouldnt fix and was obviously something network related. Was lied to about fix dates to get me into the weekend and then Indian call centre zone that was as much use as a chocolate teapot but this was all made good by 2 knowledgable engineers coming round and replacing all my old connectors (installed when they dug the street up many years ago and old type) thus giving me back the world so its a :tu: engineers and :td: for tech support.
Then I had my first bill after tv drive and what mess that was I was charged for 2 months BB I was given some of the discounts others were missed and my billing date was changed to mid march from end feb. The end figure somehow was about right but I called to make sure everything was on my account properly. A loverly lass answered straight away saw I was over charged for BB and said she would credit it.I then said this would make my bill to low and she replied so what we have made a mistake this is the easiest way to sort it and of course I said thank you very much . Big :tu: to CS :)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I called the Virgin Media recruitment hotline yesterday and I really was surprised. Things within Virgin Media are really improving!!! Keep up the good work!;)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Is that they are improving, or they will improve when they give you a job :p:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

:Yikes: I had my new Virgin V Box installed today, Engineer took over Two Hours to finalise the installation, he seemed to be having a lot of problems setting it up.

When he had finished he asked if I knew how to operate the system? I told him No, he then proceeded to show me, which went completely over my head, but not to worry as i could view the manual at my leisure-NOT!!

I dont have any manuals said the Engineer, but it is quite straightforward, I will show you again, which he did, and once again was not registering within the old brainbox.

Not to worry, so he left, what i ad not realised was that there were no instructions for the remote either, No problem, I will use the help guides service, if can fathom out how to get to it?

Got to view the help guides, but the remote control they were using bore no resemblence to the "Telewest Broadband"? one that i was given? I coulld not use the volume buttons on this either as it made no impact at all when pressing Vol+ or Vol -

I telephoned Customer Service and complained , they apologised and said the manuals will be sent out soon but made no comment in respect of the remote control manual they did advise that there is a major outage which is why the volume wont operate and this will be fixed by 27th Feb.

Since then the Darn thing has constantly been freezing, and when attempting to view recodings kept requesting a a PIN which was not given to me, so i had to phone them up again last night, i now have my own PIN.

Whilst i appreciate Virgin are just starting up my experience so far is one of complete astonishment, if this is the way in which they intend to continue then i am sorry but I for one will not be remaining with then, I have sent them an E.Mail, which as yet has not bbeen acknowledged,:(

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

sky+ box I notice sometimes can freeze momentarily as well simply watching tv and also lags when doing stuff like switching channels, I wonder if v+ has suffered from the same mistake of not enough horsepower to operate the thing.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

The manual is here: http://www.cableforum.co.uk/files/vplus_user_guide.pdf

The volume buttons alter the volume on your TV, not the STB. But you'll need to program the remote to do this - read the help screens to find out how.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

:waving: Many Thanks Spiderplant, I have now figured how to progamme the Remote and the Volume Control is working fine, would have been nice if the Engineer had done this though.:dozey:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

im pretty sure thats on its way too, techs doing full installs inc programming.


i remember a few years ago when i got TW installed the tech came and setup the mac address online with TW and had my bbi up and running before he left, same with dtv. programmed it all in and set some favourites, shown us how to use etc.

id like to see that back again

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I am sorry to say that my experiences with Virgin Media Customer services have been awful. I sent an email on Friday and I am still waiting for a reply. My wife telephoned on Saturday morning to enquire about the VIP service and was duly told that they could not speak to her because she is not authorised to make any changes to the services that we take. This option was set up in December when I was last on the phone to Telewest CS. I suppose that they have enough customers and don't mind losing some. If CS don't improve I will move but I am willing to give them a chance so I won't be too hasty. I have'nt voted in the poll as yet but it doesn't look as if they will get a commendation.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

2nd experience of CS since the change. Phoned today to discuss the package change and install for Thursday to see if they could upgrade the package ahead of the V+/SACM install and they can't, but that's because the box won't take the 10Mb (which is why the SACM needed), but the gentleman I spoke to was really good, explained everything, and made notes to himself on the acc't and sent himself an email and will take care of the upgrade himself either late Thurs or early Fri (install Thurs afternoon).

Message said through in 5 minutes or more. Was definitely less than 5 minutes.

So far so good.

Just have to see what happens at the end of the week.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I am still waiting for reply. I have also been studying Sky pakages and BT's expectation of the broadband speed I can get in this area. I will drop from the 4 I am getting with cable to 3 with a BT line. I will be paying a lot less than I am just now. I would have liked to upgrade but if Virgin Media can't be bothered answering then it's their loss. My wife is keen on changing too. I can't believe that a broadband provider takes so long to reply to emails. It looks as if it will be a goodbye to Richard Branson & Co. :td: :td:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Give 'em a break Shugdot..remember it is an ntl mailserver!:D

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Sorry, NTLVictim, but it's not just their inability to to reply to emails but they also refused to speak to my wife on Saturday because she is not the principal account holder despite the fact that she is a "named" person who is able to make changes to the account. It was in the beginning of December that her name was "added. I was on the phone to CS and I was asked if there was another person I would like to be able to manage the account and I added my wife's name and I was told that she was immediately able to make any changes. CS in Virgin Media is not so good. Are you listening Mr Branson?

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Do you have a password on your account cause if you havn't then we can't deal with anyone else apart from the account holder. The number of times I get people coming through that have someone named on the account but no password and then they kick off, When at the end of the days its to protect your account, I'm sure if we spoke to some to some 3rd party and they upgraded your services with out you knowing you'd be kicking off a lot more.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Ooh (slightly OT now) does that mean my OH could talk to them in future as long as I approved him and he knew the password?

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Well for as long as i've worked for Telewest its been like that, not sure about exNTL, If they are named on the account (has to be full name not just MRs Smith etc) and know the password we can deal with them, but saying that i work in disconnections, i think for general upgrades and downgrades they only need to know the password as its easyly currected if it shouldn't have been done, I.e charges refunded etc whereas a disconnection is more permanent, but i don't work in Custoemr Care so don't qoute me on that fact.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Cool - thanks for that. Next time I'm on to CS I'll ask them about it and get him put on.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Yes, my wife knows the password and the person she spoke to did in fact confirm that the password that my wife gave was the correct one.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

So far I've emailed VIRGIN twice and recieved no reply.
We've been complaining since before Xmas that our pic keeps freezing on a lot of the channels, usually the UKTV ones and most of the discovery ones
tried all the different reset types.
3 times the engineers have come out and the first time they repaired the cable the idiot next doot had damaged when gardening and it didnt fix it, so they came back and ran a new cable from the street directly to our house, no joy, then they brought a new remote for our box, which made no difference but they downright refused everytime to change the pace box for anything else, new one, same make etc.
the pic is still freezing up all the time and they told us on the phone before the rebranding to Virgin that its the channels, not their equipment.
So I've now tried emailing them as Virgin and so far had no reply to 2 emails.
Gonna try ringing them 2moro to sort out a new lower price bill and insist they change our main box over, especially if I take on a 2nd box for upstairs.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

If Virgin have an email fault, who do they report it to?:erm:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Latest update - install tomorrow afternoon, and today received a welcome pack with all kinds of info in it. Never got this from NTL either when I first joined or when I upgraded.:tu:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

things are definitley looking up, i am now getting the quality service that i was receving with the virgin mobile team. so keep up the good work richard branson.:tu:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

My first encounter with VM today!

Called retentions, picked up after 5 mins wait... was a bit shocked! [use to a 20 min wait atleast!]

All sorted, very helpful:tu:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I've almost always had a great customer service from ntl, i'll have to vote another time if or when i need to ring Virgin Media.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Well - install happened. Technician was great. Apologised as I was only his 2nd V+ install, so he wasn't 100%, but not a problem as he was up front about it and I've spent the last week on here. Got the new SACM and is all up and running. A bit of a hiccup and had to go back and forth between departments as they had upgraded me to 10M on one part of the system, but hadn't actually sent the info to the modem. But everyone was polite and helpful, and listened and no problems at all. A little bit of waiting on hold - more than I'd like overall, but considering the uptake of service etc, it wasn't bad - probably 5 minutes on hold max per time which, to be honest, is excellent compared to what it's been in the past.

The Tech said the whole atmosphere in the company has changed, and it's so much better already, so hopefully it will keep improving.

So have finally cast my vote - although there was some hanging about and a bit of 'pillar to post'ing done - overall it was excellent and I'm glad to see it improving.

:tu: :tu:

YAY - 10Mg has arrived!!!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

My first experience of Virgin Media was good, I upgraded on the Existing Cutomer thingy on their website and this morning a very pleasant young lady rang me to say that the online order did not complete (2 for £20) ( although it said it had) and although she did her best to sell me the upgraded STB ( with the HD) I settled for the basic one and she gave me an install date and time. However, half an hour later I got another phone call from someone else in VM trying to do exactly the same thing. I really hope that this is a settling in problem and that they are going to be more efficient than ntl!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Something very odd happened to me. I was expecting an engineer on Friday afternoon, but at 10:30 he called me...

... to say he was going to be early! He knocked on the door a couple of minutes later.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Thud.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I have to say Ive just come back to Virgin Media "NTL" it was about 5 years ago when i was last with NTL/VM, Customer Services has never been so good. Nice One Virgin ;)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Not so easy to upgrade. I have eventually given up waiting for CS to reply to emails and decided to phone. I lost count on the number of times I was put on hold and transferred to another department, at least every time I was put on hold there was a differnt tune playing. I will have to wait a couple of weeks for my upgrade and I am hope that the work will be carried out in the the selected time slot. As an aside, if you have read previous my previous thoughts on the subject, my wife is an authorised named person to make changes to the services we receive and CS do not understand why one of their colleagues refused to speak to her. Will CS improve? I suppose they have been very busy, and still are, since the rebranding of the company. I don't want people to think that I moan all the time. I have to say that they do seem very busy and the staff I spoke to were fairly helpful. Maybe there is just not enough of them for the spate of enquiries and sales that they are experiencing just now.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Phoned up to upgrade to XL got it for nothin!

Seemsm good in my book.

Clan

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Got my broadband put in on Monday. Engineer really helpful. Explained that Bulldog hadn't ported my number and also put me in touch re: the promise of a router when i took out the 10gb service with customer service. Who are sorting out the number and credited me with £40 to my account as compensation for no router. Nice people. Impressed so far.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

sorry to be rude here but why am i still getting india when phoning i thought they were stopping that
line reception is rubbish

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Hi All
First time on here and all becouse of Virgin/NTL.

Had to call them lastw eek as the phone was playing up we have phone/tv/b/band with NTL now virgin.

Called them up and got through within minutes (this was monday) :)

said someone would come out and repair the thing outside the house on Friday between 8 am and 1 pm.

Guess what no show.:td:

I now phone the 0545 no and get routed to india ( I have a braodband phone luckily, but can be a bit hit and miss when it rains!)

Firsta call Friday they informed me that all there systems were down ( at 2pm) and they couldnt get any info for me.

called again at 6pm and guess what still all down, I asked the guy was he in India and he said yes.

So it's been a week without the landline phone.

So I guess were at stop here till monday.

I did have another number to call 0871 275 1111
but this is a recording??

So it goes on!

Cheers
Bob

Ps were based in Cardiff NTL been fine for years

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

they said they may stop it and it will be happening its not happened yet.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I have recently had my V+ box installed, Ordering through CS went very smoothly.

On the day of the installation the engineer called me about 1 hour before he was supposed to arrive to ask if it was Ok for him to come early.

After the installation I had a few problems with the box itself but after a long call (Took CS a while to find the root of the problem) my V+ Box was working perfectly.

Overall my experiences with the 'new' Virgin Media have been very good. Will definately be staying with them.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I called to subscribe to the 3 for £30 deal. Previously I was just an NTL Broadband customer. Call was dealt with efficiently and pleasantly from a UK call centre and an appointment was made. Engineer came and installed the phone and TV service no problems. He said 'NTL' when I answered the door though, but we both had a laugh about that.

Then I read a bit more about V+ and decided I'd made the wrong decision. I decided that paying the extra £15 per month for the V+ box might be worth it. So I called them back. Again the call was handled well. Technically, as my install was now already complete, I should have been subject to the £75 "swap out" fee for having them come round a second time to put in the V+. I pleaded that I'd made an honest mistake when I chose my services. The guy said "If I tell you you have to pay the £75, will you cancel all your services with Virgin and leave us?” I said "..errrrrrr, yes.” He said, ”Okay, we'll waive the charge, and we can get an engineer out to you again on Monday.” Excellent.

So top marks then, firstly on so readily waiving the charge (it was my fault after all, not theirs. And secondly for getting someone out again so quick).

When someone did come out, there were two of them, and they had no information about the appointment. They assumed it was for broadband. They didn't have a V+ box with them. However, they got on the phone and arranged for someone who did have a V+ box to come to me within 15 minutes. It was more like half an hour, but sure enough, someone turned up with a V+ box in his van. Then, 5 minutes later, another person turned up who knew how to install the V+box. They installed it fine between them.

Okay, so it took them 4 separate engineers in 4 separate vans to get it done, but to be fair to them, they did it, and when there was a hitch, they sorted it.

Unfortunately, when I went to use the box, I found that the volume and mute controls were not functioning. I called technical support. Not in the UK (yet?). I explained the problem and the guy seemed very confused. We re-booted the box (I'd done this already, but he absolutely insisted). I drew a blank. He offered to send me a new remote. Then he put me on hold for a spectacular amount of time. Then he came back to me and said that there was nothing wrong with the remote, or the V+ box, but that it was a problem at the Virgin end, affecting all V+ boxes, which they were aware of, but working on. One day, it would just work. I was dubious. A little searching on this forum has lead me to information about codes that need to be entered into the remote to get it to actually control the volume on the TV. I'm still not sure if this is correct? It's fine, but firstly, I don't think it's something I should be having to do myself (surely it should be part of the set up) and secondly, the guy in technical support was clearly fobbing me off, because he didn't have a clue how to resolve the issue.

So overall, I'd say it's good. Definitely better. But it has a long way to go. Virgin is a very powerful brand, but in these early stages at least, the guys are still wearing NTL sweatshirts under those shiny new Virgin Media jackets.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

The remote pairs with the TV, not the box - I've never had the tech's set up the remote as far as volume etc - that's always been down to instructions either with the remote when left with the box (ie blue shark remote with samsung), or on screen help with the V+. I got my info from here. Each brand of TV is different, so codes are different. I personally wouldn't expect them to set up my remote.

As for the rest of your post glad you had such a positive experience. Mine has all been good lately as well.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Yeah, I think that's fair enough actually - when I got home last night, I had a proper look at the on-screen instructions and it was dead easy. Volume is now working fine. It took about 10 seconds. If I'd spent a little more time looking at the menus, I would have found it and not needed to call Tech Support.

However, I think a little "setting up the volume on your remote" section in the paper manual they give you wouldn't go amis. It's very easy for someone of a non technical mindset to jump straight in and start using the service before flicking through all the menus, and for them to then go "Oh, the volume's not working... and call tech support. It's not a natural thought process to think I bet the remote pairs with the TV, I'll have a look in the menus to see if there's a code...

Anyway, this is a teeny tiny minor point. The Tech Support guy fobbed me off and didn't know basic info, but I should have looked deeper into the instructions. Virgin have got it right so far.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I got free tv and bb for 6 months from NTL just b4 virgin took over so thought that was a good result mainly down to cr*p customer services and tech problems. Rang virgin when they took over and i got 1st bill it looked wrong but ended up being right lady on end of line said when free services are up call her back b4 I ring sky and she says will beat any deal sky can give me. I was very impressed it was Uk centre as I hate being directed to india always a language barrier and come off phone without satisfaction.Up to now they been fine lets see if they can keep it up. I will be staying with them for now anyway.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I would totally agree with that and thought it very odd that there wasn't just a quick section (even if you then had to look on the V+ itself for the codes in order to save paper in the booklet)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Virgin are a good company . Only problem is NTL brought Virgin not the other way round . Try leaveing the company formally known as NTL to see what i mean . Don't give a stuff about sky . NTL can only supply dial up in my area , gutted especially as mobile is with Virgin and can't get the good deals they advertise .

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Anyone know if VM are still having problems with e-mails ?

Trying to change over to VIP package and only had one responce in 3 weeks.

Phoning not an option so have to handle everything via e-mails, but their "dedicated" web responce team simply won't respond and now getting out of hand. :mad:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

To be fair, I think you said this was sorted on another thread now...

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Sorry AndyCambs. I forgot i'd put this message here and should have added another comment last night.

Yep it's now been all sorted out for me, but i think their e-mail support at the moment is still pretty poor ( when it used to be pretty good) and it's been pushed down the pile in support of handling phone calls.

I can fully appreciate that customer support are very busy with phone calls, but they're also supposed to have a "dedicated" web responce team to handle the e-mail situation, so e-mails shouldn't be getting put to the bottom of the pile.

Anyway, i've had a discussion with my nephew who's a member of the Disability Rights Commission and his concern is what kind of support are people with hearing problems getting if there's no e-mail support.

At the moment there's no support there at all, except to send an e-mail and cross your legs and wait.

Unless customer services manage to get a handle on the e-mail situation, then VM management might find a letter from the Disability Rights Commission dropping on their desks.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

on monday i had to ring customer services regarding my remote control i think i was waiting on the line 3/4 minutes ordered a new one then on tuesday morning the doorbell rang it was the postman with my new remote thats service i know not everyone as good experiences with customer services but generally they are very good and remember i imagine they are exceptionally busy with the sky fiasco

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I've had C&W/NTL/VM for quite a few years now and never had any significant problems to be honest although there have been some minor annoyances. My brother is in a non cable area and has Sky and has had no end of issues with them over the years. Quite a few people here have complained about VM but many have also negotiated new deals in recognition which have saved them quite a lot. My brother's experience of Sky tends to indicate that there is much less room for negotiation - more a 'take it or leave it' attitude. I think this says a lot about the business tactics of the 2 groups in general and this is the main reason I would never trust Sky.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

pretty much everyone except cable wont give discounts for poor service, with the adsl providers as far as they concerned if you have problems and choose to complain about it its too costly to deal with it so its often better to let the customer loose, this is eveident in that customers with problems are often allowed to leave contracts prior to the min contract period. There is a few exceptions but not many.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

:confused: I didn't know the V+ service was included in the 3 for £30 package, as I have the 3 for £30 :confused:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

It isnt , it's £10 pm:(

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I had to call them a couple of months ago due to the cable modem having problems with its upstream. The first time I got some Indian guy, who despite doing his best for us, it was a struggle to get the problem resolved, but he did eventually manage to sort it albeit temporarily.

The second time we got someone from Liverpool and it resulted in an engineer being sent out to replace the box, which is probably what should have happened the first time.

Now, I have nothing against the service provided by the Indian fellow, he followed whatever script he had been given and did his best. He was as technically able as I could expect anyone to be should I have to contact them about a problem. My only concern is that communication was a bit of an issue with the guy and it made the experience quite frustrating for both of us (I expect he was as frustrated with it as I was).

That in mind I have gone for the middle ground and voted that any time I have had to call VM it has been OK. This is because they should be UK staffed and not outsourced to India as:

1. It can be hard to understand them
2. It can be hard for them to understand us
3. It can be even more complicated to communicate when regarding a technical problem.
4. I do not support a policy of sending jobs overseas, train a bunch of neds to do the job properly and make them earn their cigarettes and alcohol instead, and hopefully give them the opportunity to instill a bit of pride in themselves which could make the country a slightly better place.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I had to phone about broadband not working on a Friday night, rdy light not being lit on the modem. Got through within 3 rings, Indian guy with a heavy accent went through a check list. Every question seemed appropriate to my fault. Diagnosed as poor signal levels. Engineer booked for Monday, between 8 and 1 o'clock. He arrives, 9 o'clock, tests modem and cable, diagnoses fault in box in street. He can't fix this fault, will have to pass on. Thinks to myself another day missing internet. Notice an even bigger Virgin van parked in street at 10.30, thinks can't be for us! Twenty minutes later, a knock on the door, two Virgin Cable men politely inform me Internet should be working now, would I mind checking? All works fine 10 out of 10 Virgin. At least one happy customer!:)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Never had a problem with CS in all the years I've been with cable, initially Cable London, Telewest and now Virgin. Always managed to get through pretty quickly even at the end of February with all the problems over whether or not there was gonna be a new deal with Sky. Even speaking with people in India on occasion has never caused a problem. Overall I'm really happy with the service - just wish VM and Sky would sort out their differences and I'd be 100% made up!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

i cant really say i had a prob with ntl cusotmer service but since they became virgin media it has became top class. I lost my job recently and i phoned today to restrict some of my service. The man was really helpful and understanding and offer me phone and broadband for 17.00 for the next six months until i become employed again. not many other compnaies would do that top class keep it up.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

hi i sent an email to complain about lack of subtitles on channel 4.they say they send the prog asthey get them.i have sent an email to ch 4 wating for a reply .send comments about subtitles

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

My billing credit has run out with VM now and I am free to leave at any time. I had a lot of credit put onto my bill for NTL's appalling service which I won't bore you with details of.

I've been offered a great package deal to stay with VM, it really is better than I would ever get from Sky. So I was persuaded to give VM one last try and much against my better judgement I agreed to give them one more month. I'd lost count of the number of incorrect bills I have had, it's got to the point where even the British staff can't work out what's gone wrong anymore.

Part of the offer was that there would be no repetition of the constant incorrect billing. I would get two correct bills a month and no more mistakes.

My broadband bill arrived the other day. Should have been for £17. Simple enough you would think. I opened it up.....it's for £19.46. Called up VM, spoke to a woman who could barely speak English. I don't say that for exageration, she really couldn't speak it well at all and kept calling me "Mr Alan". Alan is my Christian name. Eventually after insisting on speaking to somebody in customer services, the nice English lady looked at the bill and said she "hadn't a clue" as to why I'd been charged that.

At the same time, the Indian woman rung me on my mobile, asked to speak to "Mr Alan" again and then her next line was "I'm not sure why I've rung you Mr Alan".

I kid you not. You couldn't make this up. I don't even get angry anymore, it is pathetic, just comical. All they have to do is send me a bill for £17 for BB and a seperate bill which is the combined cost of my line rental, TV and Talk Unlimited 24, add on the cost of any international calls I make and there you are.

They just can not do it. They are not capable of doing maths that a first year pupil at secondary school could do. I don't know why, but there you are.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Well I have had the chance to try the VM Support today.

I am not impressed it has taken 5 calls to try and solve a problem and in one call they disconnected me? thanks to the 5 th person I spoke I now at last have some head with an engineer booked.

So sorry to say looks like the same old system with another rebranded name :td:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Well had another quick call for a small query on my bill (which was 99.9 percent correct which was a very pleasant surprise with all the teething problems I've heard about with billing and the new packages etc). Dealt with the most pleasant helpful CS man, who (once we'd sorted the problem) made sure I had no other problems either with the bill or services of any kind. They should all be so helpful. I left that conversation with a smile on my face.

To be honest I've had a few causes to call CS over the last few weeks to try and sort a fault with my TV connection and the V+ - which was finally sorted out last Wednsday (touch wood). ALL of my contacts with CS were very positive and helpful.

Also, ALL my contacts with techs and managers etc were very good. And the tech who finally solved the problem had been a few times and only lived about 10 minutes away from me. He made it his personal mission to solve the problem. In the end he decided that since he had the V+ with no problems and lived in the same cachement, it would be a good idea to test his own on my connection. So got permission from his manager (who joined him on the last occasion where they got it sorted) to bring his round and attach it to our point at the cabinet to see if he would get the fault on his (as they had all tried most everything else). Thank goodness it actually DID show up on his, so they tried moving the connection to another point on completely the other side of the cabinet (he had already moved it once, but stayed in a similar area of the cabinet) and that finally fixed it.

Through it all everyone from the CS to the techs, to their managers (who they had given me direct numbers for if the fault repeated) were all extremely helpful (and baffled), and I can't say enough good.

I know that it depends on who you get, but on the CS side I've had a dozen or so reps I've spoken to in both countries with no problem and I think I saw about 5 techs, one tech area manager and spoke to another tech area manager. Keep up the good work. I know it's not all perfect yet, but it's getting there. In the number of calls I've made I'd have expected one to be a bit of a hassle, but didn't have any. And with the techs I think we must have a really good crew in our area.:clap:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

As the senior exec from Virgin said"customers are getting a crap service". After such a public announcement, you would have thought it (VM) would have made an extra effort to get things right. My gripe(s) are that since the NTL\VM merger services have gone to pot.

Paying for a top of the range TV package, now lost two channels on Sky 9 and 10, movies starting late afternoon instead of all day - bills frequently wrong

V+ box keeps breaking down, picture freezing, load "cracks" randomly sound off, recordings pixillate on playback -

BB connection of 10Mb continually drops to around 1-2 Mb during the afternoon and evening, game play stutters on X Box connection, media playback is rubbish.

On all these issues i have contacted VM support, ref the TV package and the films, nothing they can do the films are controlled by Sky, I ask them "You said VM would not be losing any film channels from our premier package, i would like a reduction" - Not possible as this is beyond VM control!

V+ box, need to replace the box, this was done, now even worse. Tech Dept will need to format the hdd, still no call back yet to do this.

BB - because i can download files from their test site i am OK (according to tech support) but i would like them to sort out the contention ratios for my area, so my son can play his xbox and i can surf the net. Why are VM so reluctant to say what their contention ratios are?

I am stuck with VM, as RB said, anyone wishing to cancel can do so without penalty before the end of March 2007, i was a fool and believed what the CS said about new and exciting things happening on VM, i am now stuck for another 10 months.

May VM go bust in the next 4 years as Alan Sugar predicts.:mad:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Called VM customer services for the 1st time on Saturday afternoon.

Dialled 150, message "5 minute wait"
Near enough bang on the 5 minutes and I was talking to a very polite young lady.
She understood my request, and actioned it there and then, I knew this as the modem rebooted just as I hung up.

So far, so good, 10/10 from me.
Just have to see what it says on my next bill, but going on how the call went I have a good feeling!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

:tu: I can honestly say I've never had problems with telewest/virgin. I've been a customer for 5 years at 3 addresses and all moves have been easy and on time as have been the upgrades.
As a reasonably heavy phone user I've found the 800 mins -anytime any phone- service very good, as I call a mixture of mobiles and landlines. This route costs £2 more than the vip sevice, ie £87 for home phone 800 mins, 10 meg bb, v+ 2nd box and xl with 500 mins any network and 1000 txts mobile at £40.
All this equates to £4.18 per day.

:td: Though my son gave up on his service in manchester (ntl)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I am from technical support and a lot of times I am across the cmr service adviser calling up for our advice on issue they have to handle. It seems they are not thorough with the process and they are employed. Atlest they should be trained properly so that cmr don't have to move between different department. Just to information... Customer Services of NTL is one of the worst in country.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

It's a good job that ntl doesn't exsist anymore then really. Your slating the company that you work directly for. I don't understand why at all. There are other departments in the company that are alot worse that Customer Services. Our offshore centres comes to mind.

Also, customer services would never call you for anything other than a technical issue of which they are not trained to deal with

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Apart from having to wait ages to get through and then getting cut off so had to wait an age again I would say excellent. Once I eventually did manage to speak to someone they rang me back as promised at 9pm on Saturday night and then the engineer came and sorted it as promised Tuesday morning.

So big thanks to John (the engineer from Swindon Way) and the unnamed lady at CC who rang me back. :clap:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

What's a cmr? and what are they (meant) to do?

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I used to be happy with customer service, when it was Telewest. When Virgin 1st took over it seemed ok as well.

But after my experience tonight, I think I'll have to revise that. They have put calls offshore now for 1st line and I spent most of the time repeating the problem and even explaining what V+ was to the person. I have used other companies who are offshore, but had a better experience than this.

My V+ has lost the series link, but recordings are still able to be viewed through the a-z link. I also had another issue with drop outs and random reboots after a menu freeze when recording.

It took over 5 mins for the CS person to get that I can no longer view by series. After spending about 15-20 mins on a call (which would normally be 5 mins total), they said they would have to refer this to another department and that this would take up to 5 days for them to get back to me.

That is a far worse service than we used to get under Telewest, I found most stuff was resolved by remote access to the box and if this was not possible they would book an engineer there and then.

I used to think Virgin had excellent customer service, but this example certainly spoils that view.
Is it just that the company is too much for them to sort out and this is caused by the merger with NTL or is it to save money by moving customer service offshore and not bother about what the customer thinks ?

Any chance of doing another poll with the option were you happier with customer service before they changed it to offshore ?

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Morden this thread is dealing with the onshore/offshore debate. I think it is backing your last point.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/10...s-onshore.html

Jo:)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

On Demand is "still not available" after 2 days, so called 151, got through after 10 minutes, did the old switch-off-switch-on thing, then was told "Second line faults will call you within 4 working days".

FOUR WORKING DAYS!?

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

If any VM customer is expecting a reply from a certain Steve Stewart (so called managing director of so called customer care)then please don't hold your breath. He like the rest of VM CS employees could give a XXXX about their customers as he never responds to customer concerns sent to him. At least NTL took notice of customer concerns if you wrote to them but it seems VM couldn't care less. :td:

H56

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

great never had a problem with them so nice ppl as well

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Really not a happy bunny, just wasted an hour of my life, being passed round from person to person, until eventually i found someone who could help me.
Basically, was trying to order a film from on demand, initially came up with an error, so thought would leave it and try again later, then on a hunch look under "your rentals" and although i never even entered by pin number, the film appeared twice.
As i said spent an hour on the phone talking to several different people, who kept transferring me to other people, blah blah blah. Not happy with the service at all.

On top of all this I have only have virgin media myself for a month, however when the chap came and set up the broadband, i had to phone customer service twice because i hadn't received my broadband pin number.

not looking to good so far :(

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Never had to ring them as my service is soo good :)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

All I can say is god help you when it all goes wrong (and it will) because VM just won't be interested in helping. You have been warned!!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

The offshore cs can be hit and miss but I had already phoned twice about erros on my bill and charges so when I called for the third time I just said I want to speak to someone in England, got put through with no problems (they must be used to it I presume), spoke to UK cs and sorted me out straight away, very polite and understanding, I was very impressed, they actually exceeded my expectations :)

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

im a virgin media employee and to be honest, its appauling at the minute, we have the old NTL freedom with us, and we dont have the accounts on our systems or a transfer number so have to give a number to the customer, we have cable customers transfered to our non cable sales when they want to know about there billing, its a complete utter joke for us to be branded the "number 1 ISP" when we fail at so many things, im sick of the stuff that we have to lie about, its time for virgin to learn a lesson that the customers own the company not the shareholders

---------- Post added at 05:53 ---------- Previous post was at 05:52 ----------

also we claim all of our call centers are based in the UK, we use it as a unique selling point for our company, so this is a new lie to me, and one that should be bought around to the customers of virgin media :@

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I have written to them twice and even sent an email.
I have had the standard reply on all three occasions. "Sorry we are very busy at the moment and your reply could take a little longer than normal.
This was the same on the letters and email.
Considering that the first letter was written on the 29th March 2007 and I have yet to recieve a reply I think that the customer services department is a figment of someones imagination and no such place exists. They are all trying to attract new customers and dont give a fig for you once you have signed up.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I've written to to Steve Stewart (MD of so called Customer Care) and he hasn't even had the decency to reply, but there again he may have been sacked for running such a diabolical customer care department. If he hasn't been sacked then he should be, he's useless at his job :td:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Telephone support under VM has been appalling - held on the phone for 45+ minutes without being able to speak with anyone, on several different days and occasions. A definite case of "lights are on but no-one is home".

The people on the ground who do installations etc have done a great job, and due credit to them. It wasn't a perfect service every time, but I was never left for long experiencing a problem before they sorted it.

Under NTL the telephone support could at times be questionable, but generally speaking was reasonable, and I never had significant cause to complain about the technical competence of staff.

Andrew

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Well i belive that th service i got from the call center was okay. Now for my problem! Well ever sinc the new Virgin EPG my STB has been freezing,locking-up,crashing,and needing to reboot. I got fed up so i called them, now this was excellent service. And he sent a engineer round straight away, he claimed i had "low signal." He went outside and boosted it up for me! I thought problem solved. Then the problem still went on, and now i would just have the TV go black. I rang them again and they said there was a area fault, and i was to check tomorow and ring back. Well i got up early in the morning. (could not sleep) went down and thought i would watch a movie. The TV was still freezing,crashing,and locking up!!! I then rang them back and demanded that i had my set top box changed. I was given a apology and told a engineer would be sent round. I arranged for a engineer to come on Saturday 9th.

Well hopefully now as i know what to say, he might change my box. But i have a signal level of 30-40. Isn't this clear that the STB must be changed.

I will wait and see...

UK Sites Customer Care Excellent, India Very Poor!!
 

In my experience lately I have always received great customer care from the UK centres, with friendly staff and have noticed now they are not robotic and more personal when they answer calls and speak to you which is great...

... But the big thorn in my side is India, Every time I have called and spoke to this centre I have had so many difficulties in communication and understanding and getting my issues resolved. Its too scripted and the staff their struggle as much as I do. Usually after 20 minutes going in circles I hang up and call back till I get a UK centre which cant be good for their call queues nor their stats!!!!!!!!

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Ive been an NTL customer for many years now and have only ever had one problem with the service in all this up until recently. line voltage was low on the dial up connection, and this was resolved very quickly.

However I have had ntl Broadband for as long as its broadband has been with us. I am not a newbie to networking and have no problems with my ISP normally.

Since Virgin Media have taken over NTLworld, the standart of service provided has dropped .

What used to be a trouble free service is now barely able to keep me online. Sure they sent an engineer out and all he did was question the router that that i use., Ive used the Dlink 604 for about three years with no problems at all.

I suspect they have downgraded the system or dumped the best ntl engineers.

Whatever the problem is it needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.

THE PROBLEM is I keep loosing connectivity as though the connection fails repeatidly. May be fine for a few hours then its on and off like a jackrabbit.

Im just about at the end of my tether with the Virgin broadband service, and am seriously considering changing to another ISP, after many years of trouble free ntl broadband.

What I do not understand is how can Virgin take an already proven system and louse it up.

The standard of service now is appalling with regular dissconections and when these interuptions do start i can be offline for up to five minutes at a time repeatedly sometimes all day every 5 or ten minutes.

I would like to complain to someone about this as they have ruined my internet experience and i also have an online business to run.

Get your act together virgin before you loose all your customers. I for one will be voting with my feet if these issues are not resolved soon. And from what i read on the internet many others are thinking of changing or already have


Zeanon

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

most of them are retards @ CS i have had so many bad times with these retards

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Absolutely appaling customer service at Virgin. Dare I say it, WORSE than NTL :dozey:

Let me give you a brief run down of events

- 25 May: Moving house so decided to also move phone/broadband to a different company knowing how bad NTL/VM is
- Virgin offer us XL broadband + Phone + Unlimited calls for £20 a month
- Thought this was a RESULT so accepted the offer
- Installer came and connected phone and broadband (he forgot to active the broadband) so after a day or so it was cut off
- Phoned VM who said that it was cut off as no one migrated the service over
- Went through migration over the phone with TS
- BILL ARRIVES today broadband, full price of £37

- Phone bill = £2

- Called Customer Support and also Retentions who say there is no record of this offer ever being given

- Please can someone tell me if we are within our rights to break the 12 month contract as we were told we would be paying £20 a month NOT £39.

This is not acceptable. Whenever I have phoned no one has taken responsibility for the errors which occured, and at times I was made to feel as though I must have misunderstood what was being offered.

This is not the case as we phoned them multiple times to confirm it before signing the contract and returning it.

Please can someone tell me how to break free from this contact? Can anyone help me please? :(

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

A piece of advice, if you do call VM to discuss your problems, do NOT mention that you are using your residential broadband connection to run an online business. :Yikes:

---------- Post added at 14:54 ---------- Previous post was at 14:51 ----------

ALWAYS get the persons name, email address or ext number, when you are offered a fabulous retentions deal, far too many people are offered fabulous deals, that never materialise :(.

If you break the contract you will be required to pay for the remaining months, at the end of the day, its just your word against there's. :shocked:

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Not much else to say other than I have lost faith in VM's ability to see through simply getting a quick buck off their customers. I know not all CS staff are the same but the ones I have spoken to simply lie their way out of everything. I am very disappointed that such a big organisation can be so shoddy :(

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Excellent- I've never had any problems with them i wonder if most of them are VM Techs lol

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Hi,
This is my first post.
I have been with virginmedia for about 1 and a half years and only had 1 prob regarding the V+ box in that i was charged 9.50 for the additional box instead ogf the 5.00 it should have been i called up and it was put right straight away.

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

Any "normal" fault has always been dealt with very quickly, politley and proffesionally...the engineers who come to my house are always brilliant...

Trying to register more technical faults (such as BBCi leaving black boxes on my TV screen) pretty hopeless....

Re: Virgin Media Customer Service- Your Personal Experience
 

I have had three TV boxes, twice i went without services for two weeks as they forgot to update the box after the engineer had called so they claimed it took two weeks to get the services on again!! whatever!

On Demand services was inactive for six weeks, wouldn't update, before that it would only update so many programs and miss others e.g the last episode of a series!! how annoying to miss the last one!!

Even now it still doesn't work properly, i rang only last week to say once again they had missed off episodes, so its rendered useless as you cant miss an episode for fear it wont be on the next day, pointless service!

Internet often slows or stops for periods of time where they have no explanation, in fact you you do ring, take the chance of becoming bankrupt! your service miraculously starts up again once they know who you are!! strange!! these calls are now 25p a minute! as if im going to ring them anymore! they are at fault if something happens so why charge us! especially as they clearly do something to get people to ring in the first place!

Tv Choice was payperview for most programs so they decided to charge £5 a month and all programs were free to watch, firstly i wasn't informed of the charge and they just slapped it on my bill which i had to pay despite the fact i hadn't used the service!! there was no letter, no notification just appeared from nowhere.

TV Choice again is now charged at £5 a month yet the programs worth watching you still have to pay for as there is now a payperview section which all the fantastic programs are in eg, Greys Anatomy, Lost, Nip Tuck! or at least will be eventually.

We were promised they would replace Sky channels with other ones to compensate, haven't seen any yet! and we would eventually be able to view Lost and Nip Tuck which we lost on Sky One, again hasn't materialised, Nip Tuck goes up to the episode just before losing Sky. Greys Anatomy is shown, the first Series, mmm i think we have seen that one seen as we are on the 3rd!!

Recently tactics are being used to get people to upgrade by giving people with L and M packages new channels to watch, what they don't tell you is that these are only promo channels and will only be shown for about six weeks then you will lose them and only be able to receive them on XL package, these channels usually appear just before a new hit series starts, like Dexter on FX, so any new channels that appear are not worth watching as they will eventually be lost, they should be giving us channels not teasing us with them, they don't have enough respect for us to just let go of that one!!

The call centers are no longer worth ringing as i can no longer understand anyone i speak to and often find they answer with no connection to my question, my guess - scripts! now what the hell are you supposed to do if you have a problem and they just cant understand what your on about!

Call center staff have no concept of what channels are available on Virgin, UK or India, if a channel is faulty or a program is missing out of On Demand they have no idea what channel you are on about or what program, does this mean Virgin staff don't have Virgin!!

My bills every month are over charged, i am supposed to be on the 3 for £30, i have had bills in the region of £80, £70, £60, £50, but yet to get one for £30! marvelous so every month i have to ring up and inform them that i have been charge for services i don't use and yet again i have been charged two or three times for the same services, all i can say is a good job i look at my bills or i wouldn't know how much they are taking out each month, i think thats the idea!! i guess they will stop eventually once they know i look but some of you don't!!

And it goes on, so yeah, good for you Virgin, great job!!!! you must be really proud!!