VM Community board replies now a week in arrears

Which merely begs questions about the level of resource the business allocates to customer care. If there aren't enough people to do the job properly, then they're not doing the job properly. It's not rocket science.

The problem with 'community support' is that it is by no means guaranteed that any particular reply to a problem is going to be helpful. Checking only as far as a thread's last posting date - and setting this as a business-as-usual process in the handling of online support - is ham-fisted at best and at worst, shocking in depth of incompetence for a company that makes so much of its revenue out of the interwebs.

Whoever set this policy quite obviously does not understand how internet forums work.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Except the idea of the forum is that it's supposed to be community support first and that the forum team pick up those threads that haven't had a response or reply.

If you get the agents to check every thread irrespective of whether it's been answered or not to see if there has been a resolution then the response times will get longer as the forum team would basically have to read everything anyone posts to check whether things are resolved or not

The forum is not and was never set up to be a first line support channel. That is the phone/Contact Us and the new automated diagnostics available via the phone and website

Originally Posted by Chris

I said nothing about fresh queries, I said 'by OP date'. Dealing with the threads posted first is an obvious, fair way to handle issues. Dealing with the threads that have been dead the longest is not.

The reasons are exactly as Ben set out above because it is Primarily A Self Help Forum not a First Line Support Forum so they work to rules laid down by Virgin Media, if you want a quicker response use the IVR or speak to a First Line agent, but remember any response by the Forum Team is from a 2nd line Agent with access to more tools than any First Line Agent.

... and the reasons why those reasons are both bogus and sad are exactly as I set out above.

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Chris

I said nothing about fresh queries, I said 'by OP date'. Dealing with the threads posted first is an obvious, fair way to handle issues. Dealing with the threads that have been dead the longest is not.

That's probably the only option available in the forum software - specifying decent software is hardly VM's strong point either as evidenced by their My VM backup and Superhub offerings.

Many of the threads have more than one tech intervention - often the first one is to ask for more info by PM and that puts you to the back again. Their wonderful forum software only records the latest IP used by the poster so if you post a problem from home then check from work they can't identify the account unless you used the VM email to register.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Chris

Which merely begs questions about the level of resource the business allocates to customer care. If there aren't enough people to do the job properly, then they're not doing the job properly. It's not rocket science.

The problem with 'community support' is that it is by no means guaranteed that any particular reply to a problem is going to be helpful. Checking only as far as a thread's last posting date - and setting this as a business-as-usual process in the handling of online support - is ham-fisted at best and at worst, shocking in depth of incompetence for a company that makes so much of its revenue out of the interwebs.

Whoever set this policy quite obviously does not understand how internet forums work.

To do it as a type of First Line Forum you would have to make the forum completely private and you would be answered individually but even they would end up in a queue as the oldest would still be answered first and this is gets away from the community type forum they want as many issues can be answered by other members as is the case here.

Originally Posted by kwikbreaks

My betting is that they can only view by oldest date and not original posting date anyway.

That may well be true - it may be true here as well, to be honest I don't know off the top of my head and I've never needed to find out.

However, that's not the point. For a community support forum to work properly it needs a set of well-informed eyes to actually read the boards and identify the issues, not simply scan down the last-post dates and assume the oldest threads are the priorities.

As I said, it is a matter of concern that a company whose business is in this very area is neither devoting sufficient resource, nor sufficiently forum-savvy resource, to it.

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by jb66

I'm likely to be downgrading to 10 Mbps as that's all I can get anyway most of the time these

Unless there is some reasonable response to the post I'm waiting on ...



IMO if more people just downgraded if they can't deliver the contracted product then VM might extract its corporate finger from its corporate butt and only sell what it can actually supply.

Originally Posted by Masque

To do it as a type of First Line Forum you would have to make the forum completely private and you would be answered individually but even they would end up in a queue as the oldest would still be answered first and this is gets away from the community type forum they want as many issues can be answered by other members as is the case here.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not proposing that they go all-out and make it a primary first-line support service. Clearly most people want to talk to a human on the phone (preferably in Liverpool, Swansea or Bellshill as opposed to Bombay, Bangalore or Delhi, but you can't have everything you want).

But where people do choose to post for help on a community forum, Virgin Media needs to make an intelligent assessment of the level of help those customers are actually getting. That means a qualitative assessment of the other posts in the oldest threads, not merely scanning last post dates and assuming that the priority issues are all to be found in the threads that have been dormant the longest.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Chris

not simply scan down the last-post dates and assume the oldest threads are the priorities.

As I said, it is a matter of concern that a company whose business is in this very area is neither devoting sufficient resource, nor sufficiently forum-savvy resource, to it.

How do you know that's the only criteria they use?

That's the only criterion that's been mentioned by either of the VM staffers posting in this discussion over the last 90 minutes. If there were others, it's not unreasonable to expect them to have perhaps been hinted at by now ...

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Chris

For a community support forum to work properly it needs a set of well-informed eyes to actually read the boards and identify the issues, not simply scan down the last-post dates and assume the oldest threads are the priorities.

I imagine the second level techs have some sort of software filter that presents the posts to them in a workable sequence - it's just that you disagree with what that sequence should be.

Given the option between a second level tech response and being told to clear my browser cache by first level I'd rather wait on second level regardless of how poorly managed that forum may be.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Chris

That's the only criterion that's been mentioned by either of the VM staffers posting in this discussion over the last 90 minutes. If there were others, it's not unreasonable to expect them to have perhaps been hinted at by now ...

I haven't discussed the criteria anywhere as far as I'm aware.

All I said was:

Except the idea of the forum is that it's supposed to be community support first and that the forum team pick up those threads that haven't had a response or reply

But it's quite obvious from these threads

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...ing/m-p/786013

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...ls/td-p/774607

That 'oldest only' isn't the only criteria used nor are they a week behind on responding to posts

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

...nor are they a week behind on responding to posts

They are in the "Up to 30Mb and 50Mb broadband" section. It looks like there are less than a page of new threads a day in the phone section. There are shedloads in the broadband sections.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Chris

But where people do choose to post for help on a community forum, Virgin Media needs to make an intelligent assessment of the level of help those customers are actually getting. That means a qualitative assessment of the other posts in the oldest threads, not merely scanning last post dates and assuming that the priority issues are all to be found in the threads that have been dormant the longest.

I do know what you mean but the has to be a certain criteria used and Virgin Media have decided that the forum team members only answer from the oldest first as apart from Outages not every fault will be obvious and the easier ones such as we get on here will be answered by other members which is the what they want from the forum.

Also I wonder what will happen to the Community forum once they close the Albert Dock as that is were Virgin Media's 2nd line is based and they are included in the closure so possibly in 6 months this thread will have been of little consequence.

I have actually sat with one of the Forum Team and he did explain how it works and why and that has more or less been covered in quite a few of the preceding posts.

---------- Post added at 12:31 ---------- Previous post was at 12:28 ----------

Originally Posted by kwikbreaks

They are in the "Up to 30Mb and 50Mb broadband" section. It looks like there are less than a page of new threads a day in the phone section. There are shedloads in the broadband sections.

The threads are given to various agents to work on and the is always a shorter queue in the DTV and Telco sections hence they get answered in a shorter SLA quite often within the hour or at the very least within a few hours depending on time of day.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Masque

They could answer all fresh queries but what happens to the person who posted a few days back, the only way to work it is by date and in reverse order otherwise it would not be fair.

Chris is right on this. It is a stupid system.

Basically I would have someones job to sort out the actual customer queries from the moaning threads.

Then the query threads get passed onto support staff pre filtered.

After that as Chris said they use the OP posting date, they could probably also automate that with a bit of coding as well so to staff it shows the OP date automatically without manual work.

The volume of actual support queries really is quite low for what seems to be 4 or 5 VM staff on there. 95% (at least) of the forum is discussions and moaning rather than support queries.