[carlingman]

Originally Posted by Mark B

Like I've said, no one high up at ntl thinks there isn't a problem, they KNOW there are problems with call waiting times and standards of service, and they know where they want to be.

ntl is sadly not cash rich like Sky and BT and is not able to simply throw money at the problem...this approach rarely works anyway.

Having to do it on a comparatively tight budget means it's more likely to be done right, and that is what we are finding.

Sadly they have and are still aware of the problem and yet do very little to address this at all and the amount of cash they have or have not got is irrelevant as even when they had cash they could not get it right or even find a balance.

A certain 8 million pound call system proves that point as they shelled out loadsa cash on that and consultants and when the consultants left they never had a clue on how to utilize what they had and to my knowledge it is still not utilized to its max even now.

Bottom line on that is they cannot use the tools they have so not really a question of not having the money more a case of not having know how.

What company in their right mind would introduce a brand new state of the art call routing system and install in their primary Cable Modem support office and before it even beds in and proves workable then decide to squander more money by putting 70 plus staff on full pay on Garden Leave for 4 months and transfer everything to a newly trained handful of staff in Swansea.

Originally Posted by Russ D

Yet ntl were able to give ALL tech support agents a minimum of a £3000 per annum payrise back in november 2001 whilst allowing us to work for an hour and a half less per week, all for doing EXACTLY the same job and the same work.

Let's not forget that ntl were in the middle of chapter 11 at the time.

I believe this stemmed back even further to November 2000 as well as whilst working in Newport myself and other colleagues were promised this increase to bring us into line with COCO Customer Service Agents in the regions who were earning more than Tech Support Agents at the time.

It was to do with planning for growth or scheduling for redundancy as we preferred to call it as we never got the pay rise just 4 months full pay on garden leave and a months notice at the end of it.

The same director paid in excess of £50k per year a certain (initials) CS also during this time was paying for his entire block of flats in Swansea to have free access to the full package of ntl channels and I know because a member of my team was seconded for an afternoon into updating all the records on the systems to his name and tagged as associate free packages.

Originally Posted by Neil

Mark (with respect)...

The problems that we are discussing here have been typical of ntl for many years. It's no different now to when I 1st got them to install me some 7 years ago.

There have been many management changes over the prevailing years, but ntl still suffer with the same old problems-BS/no call backs/getting cut off/long wait times etc etc.

Agreed and it was like this 5 years ago when I was there and still is in certain areas.

The decent techs that went out of their way to help customers and solve the problem first time were bullied into assigning the call elsewhere so ntl could enhance their turnover of calls without worrying about resolves.

In their minds 200 calls answered 100 resolved with a 50% first time fix was much better reading than 150 calls answered with a 100 resolved with 75% first time fix and thus eliminating the need for the customer to call back.

Churn was their key word at the time, they did not care about quality just quantity and then and now as it seems they are not even placing a dent in their call wait times as customers sign up agents leave or are forced out.

Classic example I always remember is a Tech from my team phoning in to the Supervisors desk saying his car had broken down and they asked where he was and said a Supervisor would be with him soon †“ oh how considerate he thought they are going to tow me home, how wrong could he be they towed him into work.

Originally Posted by Neil

What about the people that the customers speak to that get told constantly that their PC is to blame, or that some in "3rd line support" will call them back (etc etc) ?


Sorry Mark, but you're wrong.

ntl's only intention when buying NTHW.com was to (try to) silence it's fiercest critics, I don't believe to this day they had any intention of doing anything other than closing it. It was an invaluable & innovative (not to mention cheap) way of showing it's customers that it cared about them, & was prepared to listen to them.

So what did ntl do? They closed the site down.

I don't believe ntl give a flying fig about it's customers, the rot is too seep, the problems are insurmountable IMO.

They haven't managed in the 7 or 8 years I have dealt with them, even after going through Chapter 11, & I don't believe they can change this far down the line.

Spot on, money was short so what were they doing paying people to Mod a site via freebies (oops we wont go there).

But essentially again it was more BS from them by suckering the customers into thinking they were not silencing the critics but ultimately going to produce an all singing and dancing problem solving site.

Community I think it was called but cant seem to find any links to it or mention of it now.

Plus I believe that wasnâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t the only site they threw money at to silence.

I have said it once and will say it again the rot start at the top and unless they clear that out of the way and get someone who actually has an idea what customer service means they have and never will give a flying fig about their customer base.