andyl

Orangebird, I think you inhabit an alternative universe to many of the rest of us living here in NTLworld. It may be wrong to generalise but why do you think NTL has such a bad reputation for customer service? Is it just a figment of our collective imagination? And the problems I suffer with the email system are not unique to me. I think you'll find very many of us have the same issues (check the Service Status archive)

No I'm not an NTL: Business customer. I have two phone lines, TV and broadband through Home. So the profit should be tidy. I've considered switching to Business so I can at least have a service guarantee but they refused to waive the installation fee. They offered to reduce it but, given I'd be paying an extra £5 a month, why should I also pay for installation in the hope of getting the service that Home should be delivering anyway?

I should point out that I really don't have an issue with Tech Support who are usually very helpful and often disarmingly honest (one once admitted to me they'd told mngmt not to launch a system because it was full of bugs and lo, it repeatedly failed). But CS is appalling - has been since day one of my becoming an NTL customer (many years ago incidentally) when I enjoyed a 1 hour plus wait to be put through to a stroppy advisor who failed to get my my new digital TV service working.

I take your point that enticing marketing deals are targeted at new and not existing customers and that, in normal circumstances, this is a legitimate tactic. But when you're failing to deliver good service to existing customers, taking on new ones is not necessarily a good move. It can be plain bl**dy stupid. If you check the number of registration faults on the Service Status page you'll see that new customers are getting swiftly inducted into the NTL way. Resources being used to build the client base would be better targeted at retaining the existing one. They should get the servers functioning properly before they try to increase traffic with new custom. And while service is poor, existing customers are quite right to question why funds are being focused on potential customers.