Last October, Ofcom said that they expected all major TV platforms to have a Talking EPG, but Virgin doesn't have one, not even on their latest 360 box.
Colin Lamont says that he called Virgin to ask why this was the case as they have been promising one for the past couple of years. He goes on to say that, whenever he calls to ask about this, they keep saying that a voice activated remote control is provided, but this is not what he, Ofcom and other sight impaired people are talking about.
When he tries to complain, they tell him to call them again on 150 and he repeatedly gets through to people in their call centre that don't have a clue what he is talking about and whom only answer off a script!
When he demands to be put through to someone to register a complaint, they just give platitudes, say that they will look into it and then never contact him again.
After repeatedly going round in circles like this, Mr Lamont contacted the BBC to try to get some answers. This programme (from about halfway) spoke to David Bouchier, the Chief TV/Entertainment officer of Virgin 02:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011sg9
Mr Bouchier apologised, said that '
an agent had got confused', and then proceeded to waffle on about other accessibility facilities.
Finally, he spoke about the salient question and said that there had been a
slight delay in providing a solution (it's been available in the USA since 2016) and said that they were currently testing out a solution and that it should be available in the first Quarter of 2022.
When it was pointed out that it was already available on the other UK platforms, his excuse was that creating a solution that involved text to speech was one of the hardest things to do and that their STB was used internationally and changed to the needs of the UK market.
Ofcom are not happy that Virgin had committed to implementing the Talking EPG, but failed to give a time frame. An immediate update on their progress has been requested as a result of the way that Mr Lamont and other sight impaired people had been treated by Virgin.
This whole sorry state of affairs bears all the hallmarks of how Virgin treat their customers. From my experience (and that of numerous others) it goes like this:
Frontline staff tactics & my direct experience of:
- Put them through to someone who doesn't have a clue what they're talking about; who can often barely speak any English and reads off a pre prepared script.
- If this doesn't make the customer go away, pass them about from one person to another with long hold times.
- If this hasn't made them go away, give some hollow apologies, say the matter will be looked into and promise a callback that is never going to happen. Keep repeating this procedure until the customer gets the message.
Senior management tactics and my interpretation:
- Provide hollow apologies.
- Play down the complaint to make it look like an innocent mistake and an isolated incident.
- Waffle on about something that does not address the issue under discussion to attempt to make it look like they are responding to the actual question.
- If the interviewer persists, attempt to play down the problem again and push how difficult the situation is for the company to resolve (despite other platforms managing to do the same thing within a reasonable time). Under no circumstances never give a definitive timeframe.
The way that this has been handled appears to reflect the general behaviour of this company towards their customers, but it seems much, much worse when people who cannot see are still subject to it and aren't given a break.
If any other sight impaired people have been treated like this, please do contact Ofcom in order that they are made aware of how this behaviour has affected them:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/about-ofcom/contact-us
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