[Mark W]

Originally Posted by andygrif

Plus by screening via a human being and low level call handling, it has been proven that the people who are grouped by area of expertise are more focussed, more efficient and have high levels of morale than those who arean't.

screening and low level call handling?? the virus team was mentioned earlier - that was screening. you have NO IDEA how many irate customers we had, when we told them "no, sorry, this isnt tech support, we are just doing a few checks on your pc, then well pass you onto ANOTHER call q to get your problem fixed".....trust me, ive been there - that screening idea does not work
also, make your mind up earlier you said that the local franchises should do the tech support - tho they are only really customer services. so they would become a jack of all trades - hardly "grouped by area of expertise". i agree with you - people are more focused that way - hence tech support is all grouped together in swansea.

I'm sorry, that is not a reason for a customer not to call, just becuase you don't consider their problem to be 'real'. All problems are real to the customer - and the long term damage of them suffering from such problems is that they will get fed up and cancel.

very true, but this thread is about q times. the point i was trying to make is that whilst the customer undoubtedly has a problem, they are often able to fix themselves if they just tired. if they did that, they would fix the problem, they wouldnt have to call us, the call q's would drop.

What? Every time? At the time this is all well and good, but it's more hassle than it is worth - whilst still being a big bone of contention. To have spent an hour in a queue to be told there is something wrong, following a call to the status line that tells me nothing is wrong, the concept of sitting in another call queue to claim my 2 quid back is silly. But when you add up how much extra month ntl has leeched from my account becuase of network problems I take offence at it.

I KNOW you will get reimbursed for network problems - but i cant really see how you can take offence at them taking money out of your account if you refuse to tell them you have had a problem with your service??

Which is again why my system would work, as it would operate on a pay per incident support method.

I SHUDDER to think of the average customers response if we turned around and said "yea, we can fix that, but it'll cost ya".
at the moment we will do all we can to get that customer back online, or improve his service. even if its because they thought they were bill gates and played with the settings of their pc or done something themselves to knacker their connection. often that means an overhaul of most of the settings in their pc. all for a local rate call. i personally dont think thats extortion......