[Mark W]

ok, a few points if i may?...but first let me start by saying that no, for course i dont think a 40 min wait is acceptable. one thing ntl HAVE done to help resolve that is take on a whole load more staff in tech support, who are just finishing their training now....

anyway...

If the customer had one free number to call, each call could be handled quickly and efficiently (and immidiately) via a 'receptionist' that could direct the call to the relevent next level, such as faults, BBTS, customer service, etc. Obviously depending on the level of calls of the next level, customers might experience some delay, but at least they are not then subjected to call costs whilst in a queue.

ummm...one number? most franchises now have 0800 0522000 - you call that number and you can go through to customer services, faults or tech support. you press option tech support and you get put into our q....so good idea - its already being done...

From there I think that each region should have its own tech support for internet. Quite often there are network problems in the local area, which ideally the local area should know about first. In my experience, on such occasions Swnasea may not be aware (or at least claim not to be) of these issues when calling. Localised tech support could identify these issues, make local networks people aware and potentially resolve the issue much faster

tech support have had just about the same access to faults as customer services, and have now just got a new, apparantly better system, of finding any faults in that customers area by entering their postcode. AFAIK the whle faults system is done on a national level, and as for local franchises telling local faults.....tech support share the same building as the fault management center - the people who deal with these faults - and there are processes to pass on any possible issues developing onto them.
As an aside, call trends are monitored comming into tech support on a real time basis - so say a pile of people start calling from nottingham regarding connection issues, with no known faults there, that will get picked up and investigated. So if you like, tech support would be the FIRST to know of any developing faults.

If you can back up the fact that a freephone line will generate more calls, then please give examples. Personally I do not believe it will. Why? Becuase I don't want to talk to the people in tech support, unless I have a problem. It's not like I'm going to call you up and talk about the weather is it?

I can back that up. before working in broadband tech support, i used to do narrowband (dialup) support, back in the day when it was £1 per min. you generally KNEW they had a proper issue when they called up as they would have tried themselves first to fix the problem rather than just say "oh, its not working, ill call tech support"
ALOT of calls we take CAN be fixed by the customer themselves, if they work through it, and read avaliable help options. a surprising ammount of people are afraid to do a thing to their pc tho without somone telling them exactly what to do - try it! its not gonna bite you!
as for people calling up about the weather - i had a lady last week call up to ask how to find out about the best heat for geraniums.....

Look at the customers' point of view. Why should I have to spend an hour on hold, paying for the call, to be told that the fault is at your end after all? A lesser person than I might think of that as extortion or fraud!

im not sure, but if it was a definate ntl fault, you would have a case for getting that knocked off your phone bill by customer services - i know that was the case on the premium line

My way offers customers who have connection problems less of an INSULT when phoning up to be told your system is falling apart again

a little while ago i made a record of the sort of calls i got on a particular day
i took 32 calls.
2 were faults with the STB
1 was an outage
1 was giving a customers pid number (something he had lost)
6 were finding out customers email details as they had lost/not written them down
and 21 were altering peoples pc settings to get them back online/better thier connection/setting up outlook express

so out of 32 calls, 3 were things that were ntl issues. ok, admittedly that was a little - and only a little mind you - low, ntl faults wise, but even if you x4 it, that still leaves you with 2/3 of the calls comming in being related to the customers pc. please dont be INSULTED by us assuming its your pc....its just a fact that most calls we take ARE to do with the customers pc, and so thats where we generally start to look for the problem.....

Personally I am not sure that the people in tech support handle that many either

we have strict guidlines on how long the average call is supposed to be, and if we dont make those criteria we get in trouble.... - last week i sat in a disciplinary with a collegue who consistently failed to meet them - and we are not talking by too much either. he is not a bad tech at all, but did his job thoroughly, to make sure that customer did not call back.....

anyway...think this is turning into a thesis