VM Community Forum Move

In my experience, "Support" bots are generally just completely useless, on any site.

[jem]

Originally Posted by Paul

In my experience, "Support" bots are generally just completely useless, on any site.

Yes, although they will start with the basis that you haven’t tried the obvious ‘turn in on and off again’ process; which, naturally you have, not being an idiot, but the bot doesn’t know that, so insists that you do it anyway.

And to be fair, a good majority of issues can be fixed with a reboot, yes I know it’s a bit of a cliche, but it does actually work, well, say 80% of the time. So you can see why a bot will default to that.

The issue comes when you have a more complex issue which won't be fixed by simple measures. How many resources will VM expend on fixing a ‘possibly tiny’ number of issues?

Now they may make a business decision that it is better to simply concentrate on the simple fixes, using AI, and as for the more complex ones? Tough, just leave! Not good from a customer service and long term view, but from the bosses perspective ‘just get my bonus based on short term....’ maybe it’s suddenly understandable?

[Mr K]

Tick, tock...

Last time VM did a forum 'upgrade' it took a few hours....

A month later, after the latest hiatus, and they are hoping the punters have forgotten.

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Tick, tock...

Last time VM did a forum 'upgrade' it took a few hours....

A month later, after the latest hiatus, and they are hoping the punters have forgotten.

This is more than an upgrade though, it's a merger of two forums and we know how well combining VM and O2 services has gone for many people so far. I'm not hopeful we'll see anything any time soon. I'm thinking more of the timescale with the email debacle a year or two ago which went on for months.

[jem]

Originally Posted by daveeb

This is more than an upgrade though, it's a merger of two forums and we know how well combining VM and O2 services has gone for many people so far. I'm not hopeful we'll see anything any time soon. I'm thinking more of the timescale with the email debacle a year or two ago which went on for months.

Yes true; but you would have assumed that the two companies, knowing they were intent on doing this, would have worked out beforehand the practicalities and how exactly this would be done. I’m certainly not suggesting that not is easy, which is precisely why it it should have been meticulously planned out ahead.

Why is the old VM Community forum still up, albeit read-only? I understood that the contract with Khorus expired at the beginning of the month (which month is vague, presumably Feb.) so it should be down. Why isn’t it?

There are a couple of of posters on here who are also VIP members on the (now defunct) VM forum, and, presumably have some back-channel information as to what is going on and could comment on here. Except they won’t, it’s more than their status is worth!

VM in Ireland has no equivalent forum and relies on social media, and that's the way it’s going.

[adduxi]

Originally Posted by jem

<snip> There are a couple of of posters on here who are also VIP members on the (now defunct) VM forum, and, presumably have some back-channel information as to what is going on and could comment on here. Except they won’t <snip>

Not true as far as I am concerned. I know as much about what is going on as you. Hopefully the Fourm will come back at some point, however the decision is ultimately down to cost. It could well be deemed too expensive and that would be the end of it. As for moving to "Social Media'", I did read somewhere around 50% of VM's queries are on "X", so that is also an option. If that did transpire, I'd be off as I'd rather eat glass ...

[jem]

Originally Posted by adduxi

Not true as far as I am concerned. I know as much about what is going on as you. Hopefully the Fourm will come back at some point, however the decision is ultimately down to cost. It could well be deemed too expensive and that would be the end of it. As for moving to "Social Media'", I did read somewhere around 50% of VM's queries are on "X", so that is also an option. If that did transpire, I'd be off as I'd rather eat glass ...

And yes I would agree, I have no Social Media presence, and I am not going to create one for my 88 year old mother who is still a VM customer - although probably not for long, well as soon as I sort out the Power of Attorney details.

"I know as much about what is going on as you.” - hang on, you are a VIP member on the (now, obviously defunct) VM Community forums no? So they hold you in as much contempt as all the rest of the contributors; Kei has told you nothing at all? Yeah, sounds about right.

It is a massive shame, the forum staff were the one and only way of cutting through VM’s deliberately customer-hostile support provision and actually getting some help.

[TheDaddy]

Can people not get help on this forum any more?

[jem]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Can people not get help on this forum any more?

No all, of the threads are ‘read-only’, no new posts allowed and no new threads requesting help or advice can be made.

The claim was that the forum needed to he moved to a new platform because VM’s contract with the old provider ‘Khorus’ was ending and for whatever reason they didn’t or couldn’t renew it. Absolutely fine, make arrangements to move one it to a new provider.

A post from the VM mods back in January stated that the forum would become ‘read-only’ soon, then be completely off-line 'for a while', at the end of the month - presumably end of January. This came and went and the forum still worked, and then suddenly all of the threads were locked, no new posts allowed in early February, so OK a slight mess up and it all needs to change by end of February. Fine.

And here we are, 6th March, the old VM community forums are still there and accessible but still read-only; you can’t post anything or request help.

So what of Earth is going on? It does have all the hallmarks of VM’s legendary ‘confusion’ as the staff used to claim on the forum. To which a number of posters would point out that by ‘confusion’, please do read ‘complete incompetence’!

[daveeb]

Originally Posted by jem

No all, of the threads are ‘read-only’, no new posts allowed and no new threads requesting help or advice can be made.

The claim was that the forum needed to he moved to a new platform because VM’s contract with the old provider ‘Khorus’ was ending and for whatever reason they didn’t or couldn’t renew it. Absolutely fine, make arrangements to move one it to a new provider.

A post from the VM mods back in January stated that the forum would become ‘read-only’ soon, then be completely off-line 'for a while', at the end of the month - presumably end of January. This came and went and the forum still worked, and then suddenly all of the threads were locked, no new posts allowed in early February, so OK a slight mess up and it all needs to change by end of February. Fine.

And here we are, 6th March, the old VM community forums are still there and accessible but still read-only; you can’t post anything or request help.

So what of Earth is going on? It does have all the hallmarks of VM’s legendary ‘confusion’ as the staff used to claim on the forum. To which a number of posters would point out that by ‘confusion’, please do read ‘complete incompetence’!

I think the writings on the wall. The prospect of VM and O2 collaborating to get a new forum up and running, involving merging their two forums seemed a bit optimistic at best. They seem like perfect bed fellows in their new merger with incompetence and b.s. being their mission statement.
I expect we'll end up with some token interactions possible via Facebook and Whatsapp only, thankfully from my pov it won't matter as I'm now cable provider free for the first time in decades.

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Can people not get help on this forum any more?

Originally Posted by jem

No all, of the threads are ‘read-only’, no new posts allowed and no new threads requesting help or advice can be made.

I think he meant THIS forum.

[Carth]

Can I recommend Dude111 as Chief Technical Advisor?