GOOD LUCK
 

Since the NTL Telewest merger, things within the company have gone from bad to worse. Staff morale is at an all time low, and the general consensus is that the company has basically adopted an attitude of customers and network second, cost savings and making money for shareholders first. The few remaining staff, bearing in mind the constant threat of redundany, are overworked with little or no support from above. If a company treats it's employees in this manner, what chance for customers? The company is in total disarray with the 'synergies' not working and no plan from upper management to sort things out. You may think this is a rant by an unhappy customer or employee, but I can assure you that I am a relatively happy customer who has a very close friend within the organisation. What will be the long term effect to customers? I guess the title of this thread sums it up.

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

I'm afraid it's the way things are nowadays, not only in NTL/Telewest (or whatever it's now called) but just about every company :(

Be honest ... when was the last time you bought anything that you could genuinely call quality. Almost everthing now has a short term lifespan - it is cheaper to make 3 of something that will last 12 months than produce one good item to last 3 years. Technology is moving at a rate which supports this method - buy something today and it's out of date in 6 months time :rolleyes:

As far as services go it's just a merry go round, people leave one company for another, and are replaced by others moving in the opposite direction. Many are looking for that "great deal" where you get more for less - they're not bothered about how good it is, as long as they have as much as they can get.
We all inadvertantly subscribe to these market forces - Supermarkets throw deals at us (as consumers) and we gladly accept their cheap prices. But those cheap prices mean the manufacturers have to make those products cheaper by either using lower quality (cheaper) materials, cutting back on skilled (higher paid) labour, or reducing budgets for maintenance/repair of existing machinery.
Yes the shareholders take their slice of any cake available, but if its only a small cake there's only a few crumbs left for anything else. Skim 20% off the top of £1000 and its peanuts all round. Skim 20% off £100,000 and there's something left to work with. I'm not advocating we should all pay £100 a month for 4 mb broadband, but I'm willing to bet there are many who would gladly pay more for a better quality product/service. The trouble is that the majority won't ....

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

Well said :tu:

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

Welcome to the world of business!! i bet 80% of companies act like this if not more.

Happy shareholders = increase in shareprice and therefore increase in value of company = Director meeting performance targets = large bonuses

Customers usually mean nothing in terms of bonuses paid to directors

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

I had first hand experience of this attitude on Friday. A year or so back, my sister bought a hair dryer from a "good make". She bought it through her hairdressers and it cost something like £65.

On Friday, she was using it and it got caught in her hair, so when I got home, I had to pull it apart. lets just say that it was held together by two small screws and a whole load of sticky tape. Also the "metal" part of the body turned out to be some sort of coated plastic polished to look like chrome.

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

I think one thing that's often forgotten is that no company woyuld care about customer satisfaction if it wasn't necessary to the profitability of the business.

There is often this sort of attitude going around of "ooh that's bad you should care about your customers" as if somehow that should be the first duty of any business. Well, whether people like it or not, actually the first duty of a business is to MAKE MONEY - be it for shareholders, directors, owners, etc etc. That is the sole and ONLY reason a business exists. Nobody does it because they want to "care for customers" or "give good customer service".

The customer care bit is only done to the minimum necessary to ensure the business can actually function and make a profit. One of the most abused phrases is "the customer is always right". This was initially intended to mean that when planning and running a business, you must always look at what the customer wants, otherwise you won't sell anything. However, it now gets used by people who haven't paid their phone bill for six months when they want another month of unrestricted service without paying anything! "I'm sorry, I cannot reconnect your services unless you pay your bill". "Eh, listen mate, the customer is always right, I want another month to pay..." etc etc.

Unfortunately, telephone companies have a largely appalling record on the whole customer service front. Some are getting better, but I doubt it will ever be perfect. When I worked at ntl, a senior manager once explained it like this....it is often better, when averaged out across the entire business, to let one customer leave rather than spend a fortune throwing good service at them, because it costs less money to acquire a couple of new ones. I'm not sure how true that is at ntl given the installation costs, but I can certainly see it being true at "resellers" such as TalkTalk.

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

That's why capitalism is doomed to collapse, come the revolution! :D

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

"The customer care bit is only done to the minimum necessary to ensure the business can actually function and make a profit. One of the most abused phrases is "the customer is always right". This was initially intended to mean that when planning and running a business, you must always look at what the customer wants, otherwise you won't sell anything. However, it now gets used by people who haven't paid their phone bill for six months when they want another month of unrestricted service without paying anything! "I'm sorry, I cannot reconnect your services unless you pay your bill". "Eh, listen mate, the customer is always right, I want another month to pay..." etc etc."


Scrotnig, I see your point, however I think that the term " The customer is always right " originated donkeys years ago, with your small corner shop business, whereby mrs jones went to buy her loaf of bread one day, it had only just been delivered an hour before, but as she squeezed it for freshness she remarked " Not very fresh ! "
The assistant would not argue, as " The customer is always right "
I dont think that there was such a demand placed on profits at all costs then, I think that the reverse is true today!
With respect, I dont think that the customer demanding an extra month to pay a bill should be justified in using the phrase? as surely if you leave one company with a debt this debt follows you to your next provider, so under those circumstances if the bill is correct you pay within the time allowed.
The only exception to this is big companies getting too big for theirs and our good such as tescos who will squeeze suppliers as much as they can and still take an age to settle their invoices, they can get away with it because they have another gullible supplier who will step in and lick their boots!
Back to the topic, it makes sense to me that if you have a great product to sell you get your customers onboard and keep them, if the product is good enough, the customer services is spot on if things do go wrong you have customers banging on the door which in turn brings about mass profits that appease the shareholders.
This is thrown in the air when you have over ambitious greedy shareholders who want a fast buck now, they want to buy that audi tt right now not in x amount of years :erm:

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

Yes, but don't forget that consumers are very suspicious that they are being "conned" into paying prices higher than necessary. Things like CDs and DVDs that cost a bomb when released, then come down to £5 or less. Or new cars that can be bought for less in Europe. Or utility companies saying that they have to put up prices to improve the infrastructure, then pay their directors record bonuses.

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

:tu: I think customers are becoming more astute in deciding the best deal for them.
For example, being a big cd buyer, when a new title I want is released I dont go out straight away and buy it regardless of the price, I will use all the means available online to get the best price, as I see it if I save a few quid on one cd this has a roll on effect for my next purchase ;)
When utility companies say they have to raise prices to improve the infrastructure what they are really saying is " If we dont raise the prices we cannot pay mr chief executive his going rate that he could get next week if he walks out on us".:erm:

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

I think the problem is that we as a country have this idea that we should have a profit whatever the cost. I mean ALL sections of society.

The companies have shareholders and boards. The shareholders and boards want the biggest profit possible. Some large companies have a system of bonuses that goes down through the ranks (I know of at least one major mobile phone retailer that does this). Thus, those in the lower ranks are encouraged to increase profitibility. Of course, this doesn't always extend to the poor sap who actually sells the product to the customer and gets the complaint when the product in question fails because it is also cheaply made (again, to increase profitability).

In the meantime, we also want greater salaries, and to make profits from selling/renting our houses. This is leading to a situation where property prices are rising fast (too fast IMO), and we therefore need greater salaries to pay for mortgages/rent.

Companies are facing similar problems when buying land for buildings, or buildings. That, the increased staffing costs, and their own drive for increasing profit at all costs is making them look to other countries for staff.

Now, I am not saying being profitable is bad. Far from it. It's just we seem to be going a bit far.

The example above illustrates (partially) what I mean. People (in my experience) automatically think that whatever appears cheapest is automatically the best deal for them. More often than not, it is. But you often get reduced reliability or a worse service as a result. For instance, to use the CD example above: It costs more to buy CDs in my local record shop, but I can talk to the staff, get their recommendations, and have ended up with some interesting CDs as a result.

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

" The example above illustrates (partially) what I mean. People (in my experience) automatically think that whatever appears cheapest is automatically the best deal for them. More often than not, it is. But you often get reduced reliability or a worse service as a result. For instance, to use the CD example above: It costs more to buy CDs in my local record shop, but I can talk to the staff, get their recommendations, and have ended up with some interesting CDs as a result."



Good point :tu: however if you already know what you are looking for, as the majority of the time I do, and the companies I order from have provided me an excellent service in terms of quality of the cd, ontime delivery etc;
A lot of sites are about that will actually recommend similar music that youre looking for, there was one that I looked at, you typed in the artist you wanted and it gave you other artists, groups etc of the same type of music, you could actually listen to a clip of a sample ;)
But yes, you cannot beat that personal service, when you can get it with all the shops cutting back on staff, but the price you pay will bear no relation to the value of the item, so you are in a way paying extra for personal customer service.

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

Thats a desicion the consumer makes though, rather than looking at the price of something you should be looking at the value of it.
taking the cd example, if you know exactly what you want then the extra customer service of a dedicated shop with knowlegable staff is going to be no value at all so you should go with the website, but if your not sure or want some advise then the customer service is going to be valuable so you pay more.

the same can be said for ntl, sky, bt etc. you can list prices of products and compare them, but few companies offer exactly the same product. my experience with ntl as a customer has genrally been good so the idea of getting one bill for all 3 services not having many problems with the service is quite valuable to me, on the other hand, if your prepared to have 3 bills at different times of the month or not use VoD etc then you can probably save yourself a few pounds by looking elsewhere

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

I picked up on that part scrotnig, because I found ntl to be the exact opposite. If an engineer or technician wanted to get rid of a customer who was complaining and trying it on for free service, customer care would always without fail give the customer free service.

ntl threw huge amounts of money away on a rollersoaster ride where one customer pulled a fast one, and then passed their experience on to X amount of friends who tried the same.

The all time classic customer that I remember attending because it had been escalated, was one who claimed the TV service was giving him epileptic fits. Customer care had given the guy either 6 or 12 months free service, this had come to an end and he was creating a fuss again.

I went along and found no problem with his service, and reported back that his free service should not continue. Customer care poked their nose in and re-instated his free service, I asked what the hell was the point in giving the customer free service if he couldn't watch it, I asked if the fits stopped because it was free.

I personally knew a small handful of friends who were getting free broadband for well over 12 months because ntl gave them free service due to network faults and forgot, and we musn't forget a service that ntl gave free for years costing ntl huge amounts in payments to the service providers.

The excuse.... ntl didn't have a method of billing the customer.

The business department installed a large system and then decided it wasn't going to be part of their porfolio of services any more, the cost to ntl was hundreds of thousands of pounds. ntl let the organistation keep the equipment and didn't charge for any of the installation charges, the organisation ended up with a system installed for free, and just contracted another company for the maintenance.

I only know and have mentioned a very small example of what was going on in ntl, but letting customers leave without wasting money on them !!!

Are we talking about the same ntl?

Re: GOOD LUCK
 

i totally agree with escapee. i have seen accounts that had so much credit applied that thier balance at the end of the month was in credit every month!

ntl are not a charity, i understand when people get discounted rates for problems etc but retentions offers in my view are a waste of time, they are for a limited period so after this expires then the customer wants more and more discounts, they should have more faith in their products that the customer will come back.

another example is a customer service agent put a £30 credit onto someones account, when i asked the reason the reply was it was for call charges as the customer complained that call queues were high that day, they would have had to be on hold for over 8 hours to spend £30 on an 0845 number!!

management need to take a close look at their processes, as whats the point of having a customer that isnt making you any money, and also why throw away money for no reason?