NTL Indian support centres - a plea to NTL

[Derek]

Oh it gets better and better.

Seeing as I didn't trust them I called back in to be told by the customer services side of things that they had no maintenance orders or faults booked for me.

Back onto the broadband line. Back to india (and its about here I lose patience with life itself)

Through the usual rigmarole and get my account up.

I ask about the engineer visit. "What engineer visit" is the reply.
I give him the confirmation number I was given and get told this is for an engineer request only and not an actual visit.
By now I'm getting a little bit angry and tell him that it was a confirmed visit and, lo and behold, it magically changes into a confirmed visit.

The strange thing is he can't tell when the confirmed visit is for. Now if I was the cynical type I'd think he was just trying to get me off the phone but that could never be the case could it?

So another 5 minutes on hold and it now is confirmed for Monday morning. I don't think I should hold my breath.

[Russ]

Some more fun, was at my parents' house today when their connection went off. Tried rebooting and all that mullarky but the modem would not lock on and gave me a 192 IP.

Phoned tech support, got through to a 'Dave' (yeah right) who told me it must be my router.

I told him my parents wouldn't know what a router was if it danced naked in their kitchen.

Again 'Dave' told me it was my router.

I explained once more that my parents do not have a router.

'Dave' asked me if I was sure as this MUST be a fault with my router.



I told him for a third time, there was no router.

He then asked me to make sure that the CATV cable was securely attached to the modem. I checked and it was.

I remember the actual words to his reply "Well Mr Russ I can only tell you that this is a problem with your router; I will need you to disconnect it before I can continue".



I told him for the last time it was NOT "the router" seeing as there was not and never had been one connected.

He put me on hold "to run some tests" (or as it sounded to me, to "go and ask someone else what to do as I am all out of ideas").

When he returned he told me he could now "see a fault" and an engineer would be required. He put me on hold while he connected me to a "2nd level" agent who would arrange the call-out".

After 20 minutes of on-hold music I hung up and rang them back.

I got through to a 'Max' ( ) who gave me his extension number (BIG mistake, old Maxy boy) who said he would put me through to someone to arrange the call-out. I asked him to not put me on hold after what just happened. He told me he would have to do this in order to transfer me. I asked how long I'd be on-hold for.

His actual words?

"About 3 or 4 minutes".

20 minutes later I hung up having heard nothing but on-hold music.

I rang back a third time and spoke to 'Sarah' (..yep, you guessed it...) who I relaid my plight to and asked to be put back through to 'Max' on extension xxxx - she did a bit of checking - only to find out that he'd finished his shift 20 minutes ago and had left the building.

Yep, old Maxy-baby put me on hold then went home.

I went nuts at this and demanded to speak to a supervisor and surprisingly enough was passed on to one straight away.

An engineer was promptly booked and I recieved an apology about 'Max' and an assurance that it'll be looked in to.

So is this the Indian's newest tactic, to assume adopted 'British' names? I find that a bit dishonest seeing as they require me to confirm my identity.

[Chrysalis]

Barfly I understand but you dont seem to understand the customer experience. It is simple when speaking to swansea tech's they dont seem so inclined to blame the customer's equipment and seem more informative about problems on their own network, when speaking to someone in india they persist on blaming the pc and each agent goes through the exact same motions every time. I could probably ring up swansea with the same issue 3 times and get a different type of resolutions each time and india would probably give me a scripted response. This doesnt bode well for ntl, if their own staff insist the customers are wrong and that the problems are not happening.

[jklm13]

So back to the original reason for the thread. A plea to NTL to not continue with the Indian tech support, thirteen pages of predominantly disgruntled customers. Is this enough for NTL to pull their fingers out of their arses or are they as usual unconcerned about customer feeling.
I originally had broadband with NTL as my phone and TV are also with them, so it seemed logical to continue. I am now looking at alternative ISP's as this is the last straw for a non-techie like me.

[Chimaera]

Well our experience with CS this week was exactly the same as Russ, even down to being told the router was the problem - when on the second call to them Paul had removed it! The problem is still ongoing, (even though they said it would be resolved in 48 hours - it all started last Monday) and I've had no feedback from the Responsetek thing even though the auto reply told me I'd be contacted in 4 days.
Looks like today will be spent deciding who our new ISP will be! I've already changed the phone provider - ntl will lose customers hand over fist at this rate.

[Paul K]

Originally Posted by jklm13

So back to the original reason for the thread. A plea to NTL to not continue with the Indian tech support, thirteen pages of predominantly disgruntled customers. Is this enough for NTL to pull their fingers out of their arses or are they as usual unconcerned about customer feeling.
I originally had broadband with NTL as my phone and TV are also with them, so it seemed logical to continue. I am now looking at alternative ISP's as this is the last straw for a non-techie like me.

Unfortunately I can't see 13 pages of complaints stopping NTL from choosing to outsource call center work to India. Yes there are problems with language barriers when calling India but the guys and gals in the Indian centers are often trying their very best to answer calls correctly and many of them take great pride in working for companies like NTL and BT in India as those jobs are very much sought after. (I know for sure that BT has at least 1 doctor working in their call center part time as the money is so good in India) At the end of the day it comes down to money, using call center staff in India is significantly cheaper than using the same number of staff here, would you rather they employed 100 British call center staff or 400 Indian call center staff?
Yes it's annoying that many TS and CS people work from scripts BUT that is how they are supposed to work. More experienced and knowledgeable support staff will often recognise what the issue is and be able to skip sections or direct the caller down the route they need to take with answers BUT calls and staff are monitored regularly to make sure they are not deviating from their role and from the "script" as that is where mistakes can occur very easily.
Currently we have problems with our connection, due I'm sure to a network fault somewhere in our area but my only problem with the person we contacted in CS the first time was the fact that he blatantly saw a router as his get out of jail card instead of running tests to see if there was indeed a network fault as we were pointing him to. Obviously if we had managed to get the tests done first time we would have been in a better position to chase up the problem that we still seem to have but now it's Sunday and to be honest even if we call I can't see anything happening now till Monday.

[Sherlock614]

Suppose it is all a matter of time (and experience) for peeps in India really

[jklm13]

Originally Posted by Paul

At the end of the day it comes down to money, using call center staff in India is significantly cheaper than using the same number of staff here, would you rather they employed 100 British call center staff or 400 Indian call center staff?

If I had a choice I would have the 100 knowledgable British staff any day. Extending waiting time for a problem would not bother me, I would do what I usually do, put the phone on hands-free and get on with doing something else until answered. If anyone needs to get hold of us in the meantime my partner and I have mobiles so an hour or so with the phone tied up is not a big issue. But asking for tech support from someone with the technical knowledge of my five year old is an issue. She can read a script too.

[Paul K]

So you would rather have a 3-4 hour delay instead of a 30 minute delay before being answered? It's all well and good you saying that you would be happy to wait for a British member of staff but that doesn't necessarily mean you will get a knowledgable member of staff. No company will see a long queue for tech or customer support as acceptable I'm afraid and they will do what they can to drop the queue times without spending an outrageous amount of money.

[jklm13]

I can't help thinking that with NTL it is money first. They used to be one of the best and cheapest for Broadband, not only are they saving money by using India they are not reinvesting this HUGE saving. Whilst other companies continue to strive for a piece of the action Ntl is beginning to drift behind, with their Caps and failure to yet introduce 10mb broadband after promising for so long. Is it any wonder that people are getting more and more frustrated with a lacklustre service.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Paul

would you rather they employed 100 British call center staff or 400 Indian call center staff?

Would rather have the 100 british staff where first time resolution is much more likely, so be it I have to wait longer to speak to someone, its a free call anyway.

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Chim

Looks like today will be spent deciding who our new ISP will be!

I can bet I know who it wont be

[Paul K]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Would rather have the 100 british staff where first time resolution is much more likely, so be it I have to wait longer to speak to someone, its a free call anyway.

I can guarantee you will wait longer, for some telecom companies the Indian call center staff make up 90% of their advisers available during the afternoon/ evenings. If companies were to move to British staff only they will have to restructure their shifts or close lines early as they will not have enough staff to cover the calls up to 8pm. We get plenty of complaints about time spent waiting to be answered by NTL, if you were to drop the Indian call centers the wait time would be prety much guaranteed to double. BTW as I said before where is it guaranteed that by getting someone in a British call center you are certain to get a quick resolution?? I've spoken to British and Indian call center staff for NTL and to be honest the only guaranteed resolution I got was via a staff member here who gave us his extension number

[gimpymoo]

Originally Posted by Angua

Agree! Whenever I have spoken to someone in Swansea they have been very helpful. (I always have problems with the Indian call centres because I am not the named person on the account).

I phoned up 3 once and pretended to be my wife (im a bloke).. they asked the security questions and didnt have a clue I was her husband - LOL

Having got an intermittent fault... she said if she sent an engineer and it was no fault found.. they would charge for the visit.. I said, go on then.. charge me.

She transfered me to Customer services.

NTL - Your INDIAN call centre SUCKS !!!

Originally Posted by jklm13

I can't help thinking that with NTL it is money first. They used to be one of the best and cheapest for Broadband, not only are they saving money by using India they are not reinvesting this HUGE saving. Whilst other companies continue to strive for a piece of the action Ntl is beginning to drift behind, with their Caps and failure to yet introduce 10mb broadband after promising for so long. Is it any wonder that people are getting more and more frustrated with a lacklustre service.

There is no doubt in my mind that it is money first and customer last, otherwise why source out jobs from britain?
Atleast abbey have turned around and admitted they made a mistake with the indian call centres, can we see NTL save a penny doing this? I dont see it.