What should be a normal wait time for an engineer?

[MovedGoalPosts]

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.

Having just seen what was involved in swapping the box, it takes a bit more than 30 seconds. OK so you are perhaps happy to unplug one and have it all ready for the engineer, and perhaps to unpack and plug in the new box. The engineer still needs to check the diagnostics and confirm the STB is working in parameters that it should be, and have time to tell somebody at ntl that there's a new box at the address, so it can then download the settings. It's not quite as simple as you might have hoped, so an appointment slot is probably the best way for it to be done.

I've now just had my third day when I have had to be on the phone to NTL to try and get this damn issue resolved. I eventually got my callback, a day later, and by all accounts the person making the call back hadn`t been passed any details about why the callback was required.

I missed the actual call, but since this is a clear case of left hand/right hand ignorance I felt it best to call back again to check that everything had been handled correctly. The whole situation is turning into a bloody farce.

There is apparently a problem with the faults line at the moment, so after I go through all the recorded BS I get immediately cut off. CS get stroppy when I get through to them arguing that this is a faults issue, when I`m telling them that this has gone beyond a faults issue they tell me they can`t do anything and I should report it to complaints, when I do eventually get through to faults they tell me I should report complaints to CS. The CS staff cannot maintain a consistent line, in this mornings incident I asked to speak to a supervisor only to be told she is in a meeting, then a minute later I get the supervisor on the phone who tells me she wasn`t in a meeting, she was monitoring calls (she described it as "being in a meeting with her work", I think she will have understood the snort of derision that followed that statement). Do supervisors normally spy on calls from another office? There is a statement when you phone that says calls will be recorded, but AFAIR it doesn`t explicitly state that calls will be spied on when they are being made.

Anyway, my concerns about the left hand/right hand ignorance seem to be well founded. Depending on who I speak to I get told the engineer is either coming on the 9th or 19th of August, no-one seems capable of putting the correct contact number for me on the notes for the engineer, and I still don`t know if the note I asked to be left about the specific type of STB I require has been recorded, it certainly hadn`t been noted by each person I've had to deal with thus far.

I won`t even start on the fact that the people I've spoken to don`t seem to be able to operate a phone otherwise I`ll probably burst a blood vessel. Do the majority of staff at NTL even attempt to transfer customers to the correct department, or do they just roll a die to see which random department you will be transferred to, or if you will simply be cut-off?

[Neil]

I'm sorry to say this, but this just sounds like the ntl I know.

Telephone 'ping pong'/no one wanting to 'own' a customer's problem/telling them BS to get them off the line, etc etc.

Did you get these people's names Dr W?

Originally Posted by Neil

Did you get these people's names Dr W?

Sadly no, and to a degree I've found it often isn`t even worth asking. I can understand why they don`t give out full names, but they should give out at least a first name and an operator number if asked. Some NTL represantives give a first name right at the start of the call, but I've had others who refuse to even provide me with any information that could identify them should I escalate a complaint. With some the attitude seems to be that they hide behind a shield of anonimity so they don`t have to be accountable for their actions.

Vexingly, the one name of a person I've spoken to in the last few days is one of only a couple of people who at least gave the impression they were genuinely trying to help. That itself speaks volumes I think, we remember the peopel who give good service as an individual, the peope who give bad service just become part of the monolithic organisation of incompetence.

[Neil]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

Sadly no, and to a degree I've found it often isn`t even worth asking. I can understand why they don`t give out full names, but they should give out at least a first name and an operator number if asked. Some NTL represantives give a first name right at the start of the call, but I've had others who refuse to even provide me with any information that could identify them should I escalate a complaint. With some the attitude seems to be that they hide behind a shield of anonimity so they don`t have to be accountable for their actions.

That sounds just like ntl for me.