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Originally Posted by orangebird
Er, no. The recording warned you there'd be a wait of up to half an hour, that's way you're still on hold after 15 mins....
Why didn't you just hang up and try later - at least you got the warning about the wait. If you choose to wait, then that's your perogative, and quite frankly negates any right you had to whinge about waiting...  |
In an ideal situation maybe but not everyone has the opportunity to call back later.
Also that message is usually a standard message on the IVR system in the hope that the customer will abandon in the first 20 seconds so that the call is not counted as abandoned as most systems have this 20 second rule in place to constructively enhance their stats.
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Originally Posted by Chris T
Aw come on, at least take off the rose tinted glasses first. 
It's absurd to suggest a customer has no right to complain about crap service, just because the service provider is candid enough to admit the service is crap. A call centre should be adequately staffed to deal with call volumes. In fact, they answered while I was posting this - total wait time, 25 minutes. Are you suggesting that because they answered the call in five minutes less time than they predicted, I should be grateful that they exceeded my expectations? That's just daft. |
Agreed but as ever nothing much has changed since my time there as I still remain in close contact with varying levels of NTL peeps from my days at NTL in the Caradog House days and some of them are now working in Swansea.
The fact still remains the same they have all the tools to evaluate the call flows but choose not to use them in the best way they can.
I currently operate a call routing system which cost £20k and performs perfectly when configured correctly which pails in comparison for example to the £8 million pound system they currently use in the NTL Call Centre in Swansea.
The one thing that stick in my mind and always will is a senior NTL Director who visited Newport when this software was being installed was an ex COCO (as in COCO the clown) saying ooh that looks pretty what does it do.
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Originally Posted by dr wadd
Actually, under these circumstances a complaint is fully justified. Do you not think it is a total joke that a company has to have a recorded message stating that wait times could be up to 30 minutes? Why don`t NTL just cut to the chase and have a recorded message stating "We are inefficient, understaffed and in no way value your time so you're going to be holding for a long time"?
Why is that every time I phone up I get a message telling me that wait times are going to be longer than anybody can reasonably expect? Do you expect me to hang up every time and keep waiting for that mythical moment when they don`t have a warning message? If customers took that approach then no-one would ever speak to anyone at customer services.
You state that because someone decides to wait they have no reason to complain. Can you explain a sensible course of action to take should someone not choose to wait, as per your advice?
Why would bills have to rise to manage a decent call centre? Every other company that I have to deal with by phone has the capability of answering calls within a reasonable time frame. None of those has suffered a drastic increase in price to pay for the call centre? Why is NTL so different?
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See my post above as the recorded announcement is an attempt to get the customer to abandon in the first 20 seconds too boost the stats and make the reports look good.
Also hazarding a guess I would say that the warning message is there regardless of how many calls are waiting or whether it is busy or not.
And yes I am with you on this one the customer does have the right to complain.
And again thumbs up Bills would not have to rise largely to manage a decent call centre/centres just the ability to use the software system they have would need to better understand.
NTL in my opinion is so different because they rely on advice from the people selling this kit like for example shall we say Swansea when they bought Genesis a type of soft phone call routing all in one wonder package.
The problem started when they rolled this out in Newport was that it looked remarkable when being sold by the consultants and looked good when then consultants were on hand to ease it in but as soon as they left they never really had a clue how to utilise it properly.
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Originally Posted by Mark B
I think one thing we seem to be missing here, is that long call waits are not acceptable, no matter who the company is.
It would be wrong to try and justify long waits at ntl on the basis that other companies are just as bad.
I *do* know that a lot is being done at ntl to resolve this. I realise it may not look like that, but the company is midway through a major restructure and also, at the same time, trying to implement a better, faster, single billing system.
Things ARE getting better regarding call waiting times, and I am confident that when all this work is done, things will dramatically improve. In some areas of the country they already have.
There are, however, ALWAYS going to be occasions when a huge number of calls come in for an unexpected reason, and this is unavoidable really, there are not hundreds of staff on standby to take the calls. The 'virtual call centre' system that is being created will, however, go a long way towards alleviating that....it works like the single queue system in post offices.
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Well done Mark for having the balls to say your first two opening paragraphs and as many have said this is the one of the reasons for you being an asset here and to the company.
As for the bit about restructuring etc jeez sorry that wonââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t wash, how long has this been going on well for me and many other too long?
Things appear to be getting better well lets hope so.
As for the occasions of huge call volumes, again this is down NTL needing to learn how to utilise some of the phone systems they have and analysing peaks and troughs and using their IVR and call vectoring systems properly.
The virtual call centre is a great idea providing NTL outsource this to someone who knows how to mange it as in all fairness it seems to me they have like they always have got the tools but they fall over on not having the people to know how to use these tools to their full potential.
Anyhows enough from me and will close with the following.
Again as many have said with NTL the rot starts at the top and migrates it way down.
From personal experience I have seen at times 60 to 80 calls waiting in the Tech Support Q for Cable Modem support and at this time there have been 40 to 60 agents on calls and then 4 †“ 6 people on the supervisors desk beeping the agents who have been on calls for longer than 10 minutes as a pointer to move onto the next call.
Further to this there have been 6 †“ 8 seniors manning senior lines for escalations only (myself included) who were not allowed to jump on board and help out and that coupled with the fact there were probably 4 †“ 6 team leaders walking around the office.
Their policy then was to allow this happen rather than allow them to man the phone in an all hands deck type of situation.
At one point they actually disabled the wall boards in the office that showed the calls waiting and abandonment rates to allow the CCOD Desk to post morale boosting messages and jokes when they could have been reducing the call waiting.
It also got worse than that towards the end of the Caradog Crew days to the extent agents knowing they were on redundancy notice ended up answering a call and placing the customer on hold saying they would check their power levels etc with the server status team and then going for a smoke on the balcony and coming back after 10 mins saying to the customer all ok now reboot modem and problem sorted.
Of course the problem was not sorted but team leaders turned a blind eye to that and the agent was safe knowing he was never likely to get the same customer back and the notes on the account never reflected exactly what happened.
They also used to play games and answer the call and proved the point that the customer after waiting xx amount of minutes never listened to the opening line of the agents welcome speech i.e. you could say welcome to the indidan tandoori can I take your post code or account number please.
As long as the customer heard the can I take your post code or account number part the first initial greeting was overlooked.
Anyhow I could write a book on the **** that happened within tech support and no doubt it would be a best seller †“ lol..
I am a firm believer that for NTl to have a clue what customer service means they will need a clear out from top to bottom and remove all the deadwood.
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Re: NTL is call centre with longest wait in Mirror test
That actually sounds like the sort of thing he would say too! 
I'm off one day and everything changes 
