Cable Forum - View Single Post - NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test

Ignition · 31-10-2004, 17:32

In my experience 30 to 1 against technically minded people is probably an overestimate. Most calls will no doubt be trivial.

I'm just thinking back to the guy who was a network engineer and called into TSB because his cable modem wasn't working. Diagnosis - he hadn't switched it on. Regardless of experience we all make very silly mistakes. Sticking to process all the way through as much as possible eliminates these things. Given the choice of following this or escalating a fault to a local network engineer 'because the customer is in the IT business' then finding out it's a local PC problem think I know which I'd choose.

As the customer base of ntl evolved away from early adopters it required a change of tech support focus somewhat more towards 'hand holding' through things that technical people may regard as trivial but to your average person who thought broadband would be good for the emails, etc, are complete voodoo.

I have all the respect in the world for the TSB, I've done similar but supporting network engineers at businesses, and freely admit I don't have the patience, knowledge, skills or attitude to do their job. Hats off to those lovely people working away under at times extreme pressure, trying to remain courteous and professional in the face of someone furious because an engineer hasn't turned up or their broadband hasn't been working for days, and in turn patient with a technophobic grandmother who is just trying to figure out how to get her email working.

31-10-2004, 17:32	#223
Ignition Permanently Banned Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: South-East London Age: 47 Services: Depends who's being serviced :p Posts: 2,588	Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test In my experience 30 to 1 against technically minded people is probably an overestimate. Most calls will no doubt be trivial. I'm just thinking back to the guy who was a network engineer and called into TSB because his cable modem wasn't working. Diagnosis - he hadn't switched it on. Regardless of experience we all make very silly mistakes. Sticking to process all the way through as much as possible eliminates these things. Given the choice of following this or escalating a fault to a local network engineer 'because the customer is in the IT business' then finding out it's a local PC problem think I know which I'd choose. As the customer base of ntl evolved away from early adopters it required a change of tech support focus somewhat more towards 'hand holding' through things that technical people may regard as trivial but to your average person who thought broadband would be good for the emails, etc, are complete voodoo. I have all the respect in the world for the TSB, I've done similar but supporting network engineers at businesses, and freely admit I don't have the patience, knowledge, skills or attitude to do their job. Hats off to those lovely people working away under at times extreme pressure, trying to remain courteous and professional in the face of someone furious because an engineer hasn't turned up or their broadband hasn't been working for days, and in turn patient with a technophobic grandmother who is just trying to figure out how to get her email working.