What should be a normal wait time for an engineer?

My STB box died with an Err3 code on Wednesday evening. After spending the best part of yesterday waiting for a call back that never arrived I finally got through to someone from faults who said that the earliest that they could send an engineer round was Monday afternoon. The STB just needs swapping out, so someone could just drop off a new box in passing, but apparently there are absolutely no NTL engineers working in the Reading area until Monday afternoon, a fact that I find highly unlikely.

Is this a normal wait time to get an STB replaced, and is there anyone on the board who works for NTL that could perhaps speed things up a little? As I said, all it needs is the new box to be dropped off and the old one taken away so it isn`t going to require any time from the installers.

[Jason1]

thats not to bad i had to wait 5 weeks before although they where kind enough to credit my account

[SMHarman]

It amazes me how these wait times are allowed.
I was over in the US last week and my Mother In Law asked me to set up a new Surround Sound system she had just bought. Her STB had a digital coax output which I connected to the Amp, but found was not working.
Called up TimeWarner Cable to ask whether it should be and they offered a tech visit (at no charge) the next day as this sort of problem is a little difficult to diagnose over the phone as it is outside our normal set ups, but that the coax digital should work.

I declined the visit at that point as we were not going to be in all day, but had another look, basically their premium channels all have digital audio, but the basic ones don't, so you need an analogue connection for those (and that confuses the hell out of the auto feed select on the AV amp).

Two things here shocked me, the offer of tech support for free and next day, and secondly the fact they get digital audio on most of their channels, so she has a PVR, 2 week schedule, digital audio and 3Mb BB on her cable and it's cheaper than my bill

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Two things here shocked me, the offer of tech support for free and next day, and secondly the fact they get digital audio on most of their channels, so she has a PVR, 2 week schedule, digital audio and 3Mb BB on her cable and it's cheaper than my bill

One thing that American companies have got absolutely nailed is the service culture, and it is something that UK companies should pick up on. I could see that NTL could argue on cost grounds against something like this, but surely the customer retention would more than pay for it.

Case in point, the amount of hassle I had trying to sort this out meant that the immediate next phone call was to start making inquiries as to whether I can get a Sky dish put up on my rented flat.

Maybe we should have a poll on engineer wait times?

When my STB died last year I ended up out of touch for almost three days because they couldn't get anyone around before then

[Neil]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

One thing that American companies have got absolutely nailed is the service culture, and it is something that UK companies should pick up on. I could see that NTL could argue on cost grounds against something like this, but surely the customer retention would more than pay for it.

Well said!

Couldn't agree more.

[GazzaB]

dr Wadd, Normally an engineer is available within 24/48 hrs, sometimes even quicker (except weekends.) Times seem to be longer at the moment for some reason... either there are more faults with the temperatures and weather conditions or a shortage of tech's due to holidays etc or maybe a combination of both.... anyone in a faults dispatch role care to comment?

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by Graham

Maybe we should have a poll on engineer wait times?

When my STB died last year I ended up out of touch for almost three days because they couldn't get anyone around before then

When I had NTL DTV I had a lot of problems with it but whenever I needed an engineer there was always one with me within hours. Very good service from Nottingham, pity they could never give me a lasting stable picture despite several box swaps.

Just seen Gazza's post and his mention of the weather. Most of my problems with DTV were when the weather was really hot with the picture freezing and stuttering.

[orangebird]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

One thing that American companies have got absolutely nailed is the service culture, and it is something that UK companies should pick up on. I could see that NTL could argue on cost grounds against something like this, but surely the customer retention would more than pay for it.

Case in point, the amount of hassle I had trying to sort this out meant that the immediate next phone call was to start making inquiries as to whether I can get a Sky dish put up on my rented flat.

ah-hem.... ntl is an american company.... :o

Originally Posted by orangebird

ah-hem.... ntl is an american company.... :o

The important decisions aren`t being made by Americans, and they are the ones with the knowledge about service culture.

*Edit* To put some context on that, Burger King and McDonalds are both technically US companies, but the UK franchises are so far removed from the US parent companies that they may as well be entirely separate. America understands that fast food should come quickly, the UK operations don`t seem the grasp that fundamental point.

[MovedGoalPosts]

It's weird I had a similar need for an engineer to come out. Was on the phone to ntl Wednesday eve, and the earliest appointment was for Wednesday next week, (unless I could do Thursday morning -yesterday whcih I couldn't at such short notice.) But they did say try phoning back as something might change.

Anyway called back yesterday evening, trying to request a cable modem be installed as the PACE STB wasn't coping with digi TV and broadband (data loss, very slow page loads, freezing TV piccies and channel changes, you name it). The last engineer, only a week earlier, had adjusted the signal strength, but wasn't confident that would work, and true to form it didn't. Engineer suggested I try a cable modem. Apparently I'm the furthest run from the green box in my street and theres just too much noise on the line.

So oddly after being on the phone last night for an hour, going from faults, to tech support, back to faults, an appointment was made by faults for Today, Friday to fit the cable modem, or so I thought. Engineer turns up very prompt at 12:00 today (12-4 slot arranged), but not for the cable modem install, but looks at STB, and fiddles around. Says that the faults team would never arrange an install - that's a different team who dont speak to faults. OK so hes swapped the STB for a new Samsung, which is nice, but the signal noise remains. Time will tell if this resolves it. It really don't wantn to spend more time on the phone to ntl, or at least I'm gonna invest in a speaker phone for all the time your on hold.

The question is though, how come suddenly an engineer was available for today, when nothing was available earlier on?

[Marge]

Faults wouldn't arrange a Cable Modem to be fitted, that would be sorted by Sales who would book an Install chap to sort that out.

Faults appointments are booked according to whats shown on our screen, I have spoken to a customer at 10am and been able to get someone out before 12 same morning. The points dept can only book in appointments according to how many Techs are available and obviously this can vary on a day to day basis. I know it can be very frustrating if there aren't any earlier appointments but we always offer the first available.

Originally Posted by Debsy42

Faults wouldn't arrange a Cable Modem to be fitted, that would be sorted by Sales who would book an Install chap to sort that out.

Faults appointments are booked according to whats shown on our screen, I have spoken to a customer at 10am and been able to get someone out before 12 same morning. The points dept can only book in appointments according to how many Techs are available and obviously this can vary on a day to day basis. I know it can be very frustrating if there aren't any earlier appointments but we always offer the first available.

I appreciate that, but in this instance I don`t actually need an appointment as such, just someone to drop off the box and take the old one, a 30 second job they could do in passing. I simply cannot believe that there are no NTL engineers at all in the Reading area before Monday as the CS representative attempted to argue.

[Marge]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

I appreciate that, but in this instance I don`t actually need an appointment as such, just someone to drop off the box and take the old one, a 30 second job they could do in passing. I simply cannot believe that there are no NTL engineers at all in the Reading area before Monday as the CS representative attempted to argue.

Sorry chuck, don't cover your area so don't know the state of play

[ian@huth]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

I appreciate that, but in this instance I don`t actually need an appointment as such, just someone to drop off the box and take the old one, a 30 second job they could do in passing. I simply cannot believe that there are no NTL engineers at all in the Reading area before Monday as the CS representative attempted to argue.

That might seem like a 30 second job, but twice when I had NTL DTV my box was replaced and the new box had problems as soon as the engineer fitted it. One was a problem with the viewing card, the other had a good picture but no sound at all. So the 30 second job, which might have taken the engineer many miles out of his way, could result in getting another box that doesn't work and yet another appointment having to be made.