VM's Indian callcentre

[Retrovertigo]

Yes Kursk, my service is that bad. I have had to speak to Indian call centres many times and they fail to help if you try several things which don't work. They get stuck and can't continue, and it becomes apparent that I know more than they do anyway.

I have to try and try to get through to someone in the U.K. It's only when I have done that, that they confess my area is over subscribed, that they are upgrading the service (yeah right) and that when 50meg kicks in things should smooth out.

That is something the Indian call centres can't help with as they don't have the knowledge - or haven't when I have spoken to them - and so instead try and pick holes in my set up, when in fact that isn't where the problem lies. Hence lot's of wasted phonecalls.

Oh and Kursk, it's all well and good saying let others pay extra but you not pay to help service others. But it's ok for costs to be kept down at the expense of some of us having crappy service while yours works ok? Nice

[Blackened]

My last experience with India.
Internet down, TV & phone OK.

India: Reboot, wait 30 secs, etc, etc.
Me: Yes, all done. No change.
India: It's your router.
Me: I've connected directly before calling.
India: What lights are on the modem?
Me: I don't have a modem but there's a flashing green light on my STB.
India: You need a modem now.
Me: I'm not really sure that's the problem right now.
India: You need an engineer to fit a modem [arranges appointment].

Next day internet comes back to life so I ring to cancel engineer.
UK lady tells me no engineer is booked.

Good poll

I have voted 'never'. I've talked to them via email on occasions (when they were using 0845 phone support, and I objected paying for what I suspected might be a fruitless and frustrating phone call) and the experience of getting script-monkeyed every time I tried to explain the issue was very annoying.

[smeagoly1]

To the OP, I decided to add my reply once i noticed the poll had been added.

Like yourself, I had similar problems, when contacting via VM's Indian call centres, to have the same responses, and even getting cut off! once they decided it was too difficult to deal with and pass on... and no i was never abusive or heated in my calls, always polite and inunciating anything they could not understand due to my my accent.

Several calls and a lot of expense i may add, as i am on ADSL and get charged for calls. When I get through to the Uk support...BINGO within a few mins i actually get an answer and within 24 hours my problem was corrected.
I have always backed UK tech support personel, as most will get the gist once you pass on all information needed that you have done all tests etc. And as yet not been stonewalled if the problem isn't on a scib sheet.
Always they ask me if i have my power and noise levels at hand, soon as i give that over, a min later i get an answer and hey presto normaly fixed in an hour or so.

In defence of all call centre staff, i do think a home grown or supported support, have the resources and a more clear knowledge of a range of issues and being able to solve them better, than support situated a few thousand miles away.

Since day one of VM swapping over to overseas support, consumers have always been complaining.
These issies should indicate to VM or any company that deals with it's customers this way...you have a problem.....

P.S if you think VM overseas support are bad..... try BT!!!!! they are 10x worse. But their UK side of things is spot on.

Originally Posted by xocemp

First two calls were terminated by the agent, it would seem mentioning that I had rebooted the modem before calling had thrown them from following their onscreen prompts.
So I played along on the third call.

Note: I am a 20Mbit customer with a SB5100
"Hi I seem to have slow speeds"
He takes my details and continues to give a step by step course of what he's doing and in part why.

"I see your modem is fine"
<snip>
</end_snip>




Think I'll call again tomorrow at 8am, with luck I'll get a Scots or Liverpudlian accent. And I'm willing to bet its SNR or TXLoad.

Got through to a lovely helpful lady in Scotland this morning, Low SNR which is causing slow speeds.
I didn't need to reboot my modem or PC at any time, the call took a at most 4 mins. Thank you.

[Itshim]

I guess a lot of the problems are the script given out in call centres. My vacuum cleaner broke. It was quite clearly a bearing that had gone, but the op insisted that I removed the tube. took off and put back on the dust collecter. You get the idea. A good five minutes later ( and I am paying for the call) I got her to listen to it running . "Sounds like the motor Ill send an engineer" says she. Call centers BLESS THEM. but never never get mad with the person you are talking to it wont help your cause at all ! O` and yes this one was in the UK

I think we should bring our cc back.... I have just voted for never.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Mr_SEO

This violates fundamental British rights that money is spent elsewhere but money is taken from our pockets.. I mean look in our streets, our teenagers commit worst kind of crimes because they had No job. Every bad person has a reason to be bad! we must hold all the co-operate companies and people like Richard Branson responsible for this.

Why do British has to save the world and take on their burden? Oh by the way my grand-parents are from indian subcontinent too!!!

Could you pass that Daily Mail when you're done with it please? I need something to wipe with.

[pabscars]

Having only been with vm for 6 months or so, ive not had the need to make too many phone calls to tech support, i,d estimate approx 35 to 40 so far, all i can say is the overseas call centre's although very polite indeed, never managed to leave me feeling releaved that the problem had been sorted.

it was more the extent of the bs i had to go through, and idle promises of return phone calls, waiting days for a responce, which never materialised, and this was before i managed to get the broadband working in the first instance.

1 week later still no broadband, so i made 1 customer complaint, got a responce from a uk chap, who put me through to a top bloke in uk line 2 tech support, who had problem sorted in 1 hour, and even rang me back when he said he would just to see if it was working correctly.

when i came off the phone, all faith had been restored with vm and all was well with the world, and i even managed to make friends with the dog again.

it doesnt take much to keep us happy,,,,,

i dont mind the language barrier
i dont mind the scripted approach
i do mind being lied too and blatently given the run around just to get me off the phone asap.

[Kursk]

Originally Posted by Retrovertigo

Oh and Kursk, it's all well and good saying let others pay extra but you not pay to help service others. But it's ok for costs to be kept down at the expense of some of us having crappy service while yours works ok? Nice

Yes.

Originally Posted by Retrovertigo

Oh and Kursk, it's all well and good saying let others pay extra but you not pay to help service others. But it's ok for costs to be kept down at the expense of some of us having crappy service while yours works ok? Nice

Heehee . It's about market forces Retrovertigo. Cost is everything as far as I'm concerned.

[Mick Fisher]

Originally Posted by Kursk

Yes.



Heehee . It's about market forces Retrovertigo. Cost is everything as far as I'm concerned.

But VM are not cheap. Be are almost half the price and there off shore support is immeasurably better that VM's.

Seems to me it's all about VM ripping us off.

[Peter_]

Up to now we have over 80% of voters not happy with the Offshore call centres and this is only a very small snapshot of people on this forum as not all members view this section, if this included the television and telephone sections how many more votes would we get in a similar vein.

[cook1984]

Originally Posted by Kursk

And who will end up funding that investment? I like my broadband fast and cheap and I don't want to pay for a gold-standard, UK-based, oxford-English-speaking, super-skilled, supertech on tap for the odd time I might ring them.

It's a shame that all you can get is an expensive, barely even fast enough to be called broadband service then. Consider that we pay far more than the European average and that the US has recently decided to define the minimum speed required for a service to be called "broadband" as 5mb down and 1mb up, i.e. by their definition VM's XL service narrowband.

I wasn't being serious about all that training. As they say, you can't polish a turd. The only thing to do is ditch them completely and employ UK staff.

The technology exists to make a computer read a script and respond to what is being said back. Indians are just cheaper, and equally effective after some careful de-humanisation.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by cook1984

It's a shame that all you can get is an expensive, barely even fast enough to be called broadband service then. Consider that we pay far more than the European average and that the US has recently decided to define the minimum speed required for a service to be called "broadband" as 5mb down and 1mb up, i.e. by their definition VM's XL service narrowband.

Broadband is the big margin maker for Virgin Media.

That said note the other thread I produced which pointed out our services are more expensive than a number of peer services in Europe. Even Sweden famous for cheapy providings has not dissimilar charges and 3 out of 4 cable companies in the Netherlands are kinda expensive, though all 4 offer better upstream.

Likewise the US shows huge price swings, in some cases more expensive than here, in others far cheaper.

Companies charge what they think they can get away with and provide the lowest level of service they think they can get away with.

EDIT: Saying that in France you can get 100M and telephone for 20 euros a month over cable, which is nice, 30 euros at full price, and no screwing around with M / L / XL - pay your 30 euros a month you'll get 100M/5M if you're in the 80% of network that has it, and 30M until you get upgraded if you aren't.

[Russ]

This thread is for the discussion of VM's Indian callcentre only.