VM Community Forum Move

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Have faith , VM promised....

They want any customer feedback closed down. It's not good for business.

I thought that they opened their community forum (and closed NTHellworld after buying it) to stop people complaining about them?? Have I got this wrong?

[jem]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I thought that they opened their community forum (and closed NTHellworld after buying it) to stop people complaining about them?? Have I got this wrong?

No that’s about right. NTHELLWORLD was a parody site, which they purchased and shut down.

The official community site was opened and was originally staffed by really knowledgable and helpful VM employees who could actually get stuff down.

However over the years it has been run down. More and more requests for help were met with ‘let’s take this to a private message’ and nothing forthcoming. Which sort of nullifies the whole point of a community forum.

Also there were an increasing number of posts massively criticising VM’s procedure and basic competence which were embarrassing.

VM don’t want customers sharing experiences, because if you happen to have a really bad experience, they would like to isolate it, it’s just you. What they don’t want is a platform where others can say ‘oh this is exactly what happened to me......’

It’s not coming back, ever. it’s just too embarrassing for them. They would prefer a more one-on-one approach where you are forced to call their sorry apology for a customer service provision. Whose main job is to upsell you to get them more money.

Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but there are a number of posters on here who are/were VIP members of the VM community forum and supposedly had back-channel access. Have any of you been given any insights as to what is happening? I’m going to suspect ‘no’ which just goes to show the level of contempt Kei has for you.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by jem

VM don’t want customers sharing experiences, because if you happen to have a really bad experience, they would like to isolate it, it’s just you. What they don’t want is a platform where others can say ‘oh this is exactly what happened to me......’

It’s not coming back, ever. it’s just too embarrassing for them. They would prefer a more one-on-one approach where you are forced to call their sorry apology for a customer service provision. Whose main job is to upsell you to get them more money.
.

Yep, it always was the intention to close it down. The forum upgrade/merge was a smokescreen. Keep delaying and the punters will forget it ever existed.

Strange for a company that consistently wins awards for the worst CS. This was their only helpful area, but as you say not good for business to have issues publicly aired, and that's all that matters.

At least this forum still exists, till VM buy it to close it down lIke NTHELLWORLD..

Originally Posted by Mr K

At least this forum still exists, till VM buy it to close it down lIke NTHELLWORLD.

No offers ... yet

[djmagnifique]

Originally Posted by Paul

No offers ... yet

I'll give you £5 for it

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by jem

No that’s about right. NTHELLWORLD was a parody site, which they purchased and shut down.

The official community site was opened and was originally staffed by really knowledgable and helpful VM employees who could actually get stuff down.

However over the years it has been run down. More and more requests for help were met with ‘let’s take this to a private message’ and nothing forthcoming. Which sort of nullifies the whole point of a community forum.

Also there were an increasing number of posts massively criticising VM’s procedure and basic competence which were embarrassing.

VM don’t want customers sharing experiences, because if you happen to have a really bad experience, they would like to isolate it, it’s just you. What they don’t want is a platform where others can say ‘oh this is exactly what happened to me......’

It’s not coming back, ever. it’s just too embarrassing for them. They would prefer a more one-on-one approach where you are forced to call their sorry apology for a customer service provision. Whose main job is to upsell you to get them more money.

Now I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but there are a number of posters on here who are/were VIP members of the VM community forum and supposedly had back-channel access. Have any of you been given any insights as to what is happening? I’m going to suspect ‘no’ which just goes to show the level of contempt Kei has for you.

I had a taste of their crap customer service earlier today.

I keep getting 'Your contract ends soon, check out our offer to renew' emails, but clicking on it is met with the affinity logo going round & round forever.

I called them and the first guy said "I can't match the price you're paying" (about £15 for max TV, lowest broadband and phone.) He said the best he could do was £45, so put me through to retentions. After putting me on hold, she said that I had to call someone on their mobile!!

I called it and it wasn't in service. I called back to be put back to retentions, but no, he had to first try to upsell my broadband speed and then say exactly what the last guy had said. I asked about the request to ring a mobile number and he said "forget that, it's Re: a very old complaint on your notes"!

Got put through to retentions again (looks like the idiots abroard are also running this now), only to be told that she couldn't offer me anything until 30 days before my contract expired!

I told her that I didn't appreciate having my time constantly being wasted and that, no matter what they offered, i'd rather go elsewhere and pay more as they were just too much to tolerate. I told her to open yet another complaint.

She read out her apology script, said they didn't want to lose me as a customer and gave me a £20 credit in order to close the complaint, which I accepted.

Looks like, after being admonished by Ofcom about their track record regarding complaints, that their tactic is to throw £20 at customers, so do bear this in mind. I received a £20 credit a fortnight ago for missing a programme due to the ever worsening state of their EPG.

They are an absolute joke of a company.

[jem]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

...Snip...

They are an absolute joke of a company.

Yes, absolutely they maybe are, but it is what it is, they (VM) have decided that this is the quality of customer services they want to provide, their senior management have decided that this is ‘good enough’, so jog on, tough!

So what should any customer in your position do? Investigate alternatives, what can they offer, how much will it cost? And then armed with this info, call VM and cancel, just cancel. Chances are they will call you back with a much better offer, but they might not - so if you go down this path you absolutely need to be prepared to cancel VM and sign up wth another provider.

The very, very worse thing you can do is threaten to cancel (they will call your bluff), and then cancel and later call back asking to cancel the cancellation and stay.

Do that and there will be a massive red flag against your account along the lines of ‘offer this person nothing, in fact charge them more’.

Not good but it is the way it works - trust me!

[jem]

Originally Posted by Paul

No offers ... yet

Well hypothetically you purchase a domain say ‘VMO2community.co.uk’, (which is available), set up a CNAME record to point it here, and have a section where disgruntled VM/O2 customers can vent.

Profit.....; maybe.