What's the best time to get through to VM UK call centre?

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by Rillington

It now seems that retentions has now been offshored. Are there any parts of the VM customer service operations that are still based in the UK?

When (date and time) did you ring them? I rang retentions two weeks ago at 9am and got UK.

[Inactive Digital]

The UK team seems to have become a de facto 2nd line retentions team.
The last couple of times I've called and selected 'thinking of leaving' I've spoken to three different people on each call, with a structure something like the below:

1. > Usual CS who make an initial offer to stay which I reject, then transferred to:
2. > 1st line retentions (seems to be offshore) who make another offer I reject, then transferred to:
3. > 2nd line retentions in the UK who make a final offer before processing cancellation notice.

[Frazz]

I call about 1950 and usually get through to a UK call centre just before they close

[RichardCoulter]

After Marks & Spenver closed our store, I decided to try buying some clothes via their website. I have had far too many problems to go into, but I was shocked to find that this once great company now uses an offshore call centre.

The nonsense and blatant lies have been jawropping. I am so disappointed that this once bastion of excellence customer service have reduced themselves to this.

After many decades i've decided to stop using them.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

After Marks & Spenver closed our store, I decided to try buying some clothes via their website. I have had far too many problems to go into, but I was shocked to find that this once great company now uses an offshore call centre.

The nonsense and blatant lies have been jawropping. I am so disappointed that this once bastion of excellence customer service have reduced themselves to this.

After many decades i've decided to stop using them.

2 questions:

What's this got to do with the best time to call Virgin Media?

Why have you packed in Marks & Spenser because of their terrible offshore call centre but still use Virgin Media despite spending years complaining about their offshore call centre at every possible opportunity? I genuinely don't understand why.

[Mr K]

9:53am is the sweet spot I find. They've had time to have a coffee and arent too hacked off yet.

[Rillington]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Yes

Thank you for the reply.

Which aspects of VM's customer service is still UK-based?

---------- Post added at 12:59 ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 ----------

Originally Posted by daveeb

When (date and time) did you ring them? I rang retentions two weeks ago at 9am and got UK.

Mid-morning iirc.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by Rillington

Which aspects of VM's customer service is still UK-based?

Can be any of them. You call gets routed to whoever is available.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Can be any of them. You call gets routed to whoever is available.

And if you don't like who/ where you get , terminate the call and try another time. If you get someone with a Scottish accent its usually a good sign

[Rillington]

That's exactly what I now do regarding retentions as most of my calls to VM are retention-related.

[Saul's Grandad]

I'm posting to revive my old thread, as I've just had a quite frustrating VM CS experience this morning. I'm interested to know if there is still a UK-based Retentions Team for VM, as I felt like I was banging my head against the wall, speaking to an overseas CS agent.

The reason for this is that I rang CS as I had an issue logging on to VM apps on my phone and my account generally because I had set up a VM/O2 id a few months ago and was unable to link this to my old VM account...long story short - I can't get at my old VM password (my fault, didn't record it last time I changed it), so I couldn't link them online.
The lady in the overseas call centre was polite and trying to be helpful but couldn't do anything to help sort out my passwords, other than raise a job with the team who could do it.

She then went on to say that she'd noticed my current contract was nearing an end and did I want to discuss it. I said that I normally spoke to Retentions about this and she told me that she was Retentions level one. She then made me several offers which I wasn't bothered about. I suggested that she send these to me via email so I could consider them. She then told me (scammer playbook alert!) that these offers might not be available if I delayed. I said that I didn't commit to anything on the spur of the moment over the phone and that I would need to discuss with my wife, so please send details in an email. She reiterated that these offers might not be still available and then sent me a text with a link to my pre-contract docs, rather than an email containing details of the services that we had talked about.

Long-winded I know but does anyone know if UK Retentions team still exists and the best way to contact them if they do.

[1701-e]

Originally Posted by Saul's Grandad

Long-winded I know but does anyone know if UK Retentions team still exists and the best way to contact them if they do.

Yes it still exists. You should have stayed on the phone and told them that you want to give 30 days notice.

That's when you get through to the UK staff in my experience

[jem]

Originally Posted by Saul's Grandad

Snip...
She then told me (scammer playbook alert!) that these offers might not be available if I delayed. I said that I didn't commit to anything on the spur of the moment over the phone and that I would need to discuss with my wife, so please send details in an email.
....Snip

And that is VM’s method of working, the offers are ‘of the moment’, which is perfectly legal, they make an offer, you accept it or don’t. If you don’t then that offer is gone, you might get it offered to you again, but don’t count on it!

One good bit of advice is that if they make an offer which sounds even half-way decent then accept it on the spot, because you can always cancel under the statutory 14 day ‘cooling off’ period and revert back to what you had before.

There is still a OK based support provision but it is impossible to get directly through to them, if you call the standard number, their IVR system will route you to the next available person, who m ay be in the UK or anywhere in the world - they also have no ability to transfer you, so no point in asking. It used to be accepted that calling just after 8am would give the best chance (no guarantee though) of being put through to a UK-based person, but more recent reports suggest that this is no longer true.

The only, only way of getting a ‘good’ deal is literally to cancel, put in your 30 day notice period, then and only then might they call you back with a better offer. But they might not, they might take you at your word and let you cancel. Whatever you do, don’t call them back and grovel. If you do a massive flag will be put on your account along the lines of ‘In future offer this person NOTHING - he’ll threaten to leave, but won’t, in fact increase his price’.