Ship of Fools: Vomiting on Virgin

Thread: Vomiting on Virgin Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=022720

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

I have just moved house, and am currently without a land line or internet connection at home. Both of these I used to get from Virgin, and they were due to reconnect me today.

On Friday I returned from work to find a letter saying an engineer would call round this morning; if I wasn't there to let them in I would be charged £103 for a missed call. After four lengthy phone calls I finally got through to someone. She was charming, and I felt guilty as I had lost all patience with the company (but kept reassuring her that she was being helpful). Now it's rescheduled for the end of the month, but she can only say "in the afternoon".

What is wrong with these companies? Don't they realise most of us are out of work, or we couldn't afford these luxuries? Do they think we all have stay-at-home wives who can open the door to tradespeople? Or do they expect me to give instructions to the servants? Why don't they pay engineers to come out at times when I am in? Is that so hard to understand?

Posted by fletcher christian (# 13919) on :

I'm particularly fond of the arrangements of tradesmen to arrive at some point between 8am and 6pm and you just know that it's going to be 5.45pm.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

I tell such people to ring my mobile half an hour ahead. That way, I can go home when they're going to be there. It takes me 15-20 minutes to drive from work.

The idea that they'll try to CHARGE you for a missed appointment is definitely the Hellworthy bit, though.

Posted by Balaam (# 4543) on :

quote:
Originally posted by fletcher christian:
I'm particularly fond of the arrangements of tradesmen to arrive at some point between 8am and 6pm and you just know that it's going to be 5.45pm.

Nope,it can be 7.30am. Especially when you work a late shift and would still be in bed at that time.

IANAL but it looks like they are treating your agreement to them turning up on a certain day as a contract, therefore they can charge you for being in breach of contract if the home is not avaailable for installation.

If that is true then you can charge them if they fail to turn up.

Are there any UK lawyers on the ship who can verify this?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

Ah, right. I thought from the thread title this was about being sick on trains, or else a statement about modern art.

£103 for a missed call is outrageous and it’s particularly annoying being tied to the place for an unspecified length of time. I hope they turn up early so you can get it over with. (This is Hell, so fingers crossed they don't do the trick of shoving a note through your door while you’re there saying "sorry you were out" and go away without having rung the doorbell. I've twice had to chase the postman down the stairs, clutching the delivery note, but at least he doesn't charge for missed visits.)

Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Ah, right. I thought from the thread title this was about being sick on trains, or else a statement about modern art.

I thought it was about giving the Virgin Mary shit.

Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :

I'm just relieved this thread wasn't in Ecclesiantics.

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

Reminded me of that night 34 yrs ago, ah happy days.

AtB, Pyx_e

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

Generally what you get from Virgin media is not bad, but their customer service is without doubt the worst I have ever experienced.

I can't think of any other company I've had to deal with that has NO contact telephone number on its website. And if you do happen on a phone number it is just an endless series of push button options at the end of which is likely to be a pre-recorded message with a suggestion of how to deal with your fault.

Even when they ask for feedback and you say that the customer service is crap they don't bother to respond - and that's when the reason for the poor feedback was because they hadn't responded to the e-mail alert of a fault in the first place.

Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on :

And here I thought this thread was about Mary's morning sickness. Or performance art. OliviaG

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Virgin and the likes are what you get when you denationalise things. (And then the formerly nationalised firms like BT cut costs to compete and they become rubbish too.)

Virgin left me without internet, phone or telly for a week, once.

When i was teaching I could only have 'workmen' to call or parcels to be delivered during school holidays (minus those days when I was away on holiday). That severely limits one and if they don't turn up as arranged, it can be hell.

'Tradesmen' still assume that we all live in trad. nuclear families with the wife at home all day. If a new firm delivered stuff at weekends and after 5pm, I'd be seriously tempted to move to it.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Why don't they pay engineers to come out at times when I am in? Is that so hard to understand?

Don't engineers have families too?

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

We have virgin for our TV, phone and broadband. The service they provide is adequate - not particularly stellar, but does the job. But there customer service, when I have had to use it, is as bad as all of the others. IME, none of them are very good. I don't think we know how to do good customer service any more.

As for timing, yes it is a pain, but they should be able to specify at least morning or afternoon - ideally 3 or 4 slots in a day. And, most importantly, stick to it. The thing that most irritates me, and why we left one provider, is when them make an appointment, you take time off to greet them, and they don't turn up.

And some people would be happy to work evenings. It would be quite possible to provide evening engineer services, without disrupting families.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

Welcome to the principal occupation of retirement - waiting in for tradesmen. I've just finished 5 weeks of being continually on hand in case today is a day suitable for gardening works. Moving seamlessly on, there is the dishwasher repair man, the annual gas appliance inspection, and - the Virgin engineer to upgrade the connection.

Posted by passer (# 13329) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Welcome to the principal occupation of retirement - waiting in for tradesmen. I've just finished 5 weeks of being continually on hand in case today is a day suitable for gardening works. Moving seamlessly on, there is the dishwasher repair man, the annual gas appliance inspection, and - the Virgin engineer to upgrade the connection.

^^
word

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:

And some people would be happy to work evenings. It would be quite possible to provide evening engineer services, without disrupting families.

I suspect those people are already doing precisely that. What you want is for the overwhelming majority of engineers to spend the overwhelming majority of their time working unsociable hours.

This is the sort of thing that gives the Left a bad name. We're supposed to stand for good working conditions for the Labouring Classes, but as soon as those conditions start impinging on our own comfort, we squeal like capitalist pigs.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

Ricardus - you may be right, but I am not suggesting that the majority of engineers do this, just that evening appointments are an option.

And this is only because for some people, I think this would be a better working environment for them. If both parents are working, staggering hours MIGHT work in some cases.

It is not about just doing things for my comfort, it is about providing flexibility for everyone.

And I do realise that this is idealism, and companies like Virgin would just abuse their staff whatever.

Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on :

quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
And here I thought this thread was about Mary's morning sickness. Or performance art. OliviaG

Surely it's about Baby Jesus getting motion sickness?

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Don't engineers have families too?

It's not a compulsory precondition of working as an engineer. The nation doesn't shut down in the evenings, anyway. What about people who work in pubs and restaurants, or operate public transport?

There is nothing wrong IMO with being a bit more flexible about the working hours, so that an engineer or delivery man might do a shift starting at 11 am and finishing at 7, or 7.30 am until 3.30, which would cover most people and still leave said operatives free time in the evenings.

I appreciate that with deliveries you can't always time these things exactly but they should be able to give some kind of estimate, and now that there are mobile phones they should be able to ring a customer to let them know they're on their way.

Posted by Jonathan Strange (# 11001) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Generally what you get from Virgin media is not bad, but their customer service is without doubt the worst

Seconded. By the time I wanted to cancel, it took me two attempts because of the telephone reps who swung wildly from aggressive & argumentative to silent & sulking. They literally refused to process the cancellation by sitting in silence. They behaved like we were teenage sweethearts I was dumping them. Pathetic and infuriating.

Posted by Zacchaeus (# 14454) on :

We reported our landline not working through the virgin website.
They didn't arrive for their appintment a d when we complain,d we found out they had phond the landline to confirm the appointment!! Left a message which we couldn't access and when we hadn't confirmed they had cancelled the appointment.

Posted by Lyda*Rose (# 4544) on :

I still can't get over the 103 pound penalty for missed calls. [Disappointed]

I take it that they have you by the short hairs. Otherwise, I'd go with the competition and inform Virgin that you'll consider rejoining when the pay you 103 pounds for an appointment that clears your calendar for a day.

Posted by Beethoven (# 114) on :

We had no landline for six months in a previous house, because - having checked what deals were available and deciding we could just about stomach paying for 12 months even though we wouldn't be there that long - the company concerned didn't quite understand how appointments worked.

I phoned, made an appointment for one of the days I was regularly at home. They texted me about 2 days before the agreed date to tell me they'd changed the day, and it was now a day that I was working. I phoned to say I couldn't do that day, the next available appointment on a day I could manage was some two weeks later. Same thing happened. Twice. In the end I said I was cancelling the order. They said they wouldn't be able to cancel the engineer since he was from a different company that they had a contract with. I pointed out that that wasn't my problem, and with three weeks' notice they really ought to be able to find a way to tell him not to come.

Three weeks later, I got a phone call while at work. The engineer, standing outside my house, wanting access to come in and install the line... [Roll Eyes]

Oh, and some three months later I got a refund of what they'd charged us for phone installation and broadband service.

Fortunately our most recent move was almost the opposite, with an engineer who turned up on schedule - and managed to solve the problem of me being locked in the house with a key that only worked from the outside to open the front door! [Hot and Hormonal]

[ 09. May 2012, 11:59: Message edited by: Beethoven ]

Posted by Molopata The Rebel (# 9933) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
I can't think of any other company I've had to deal with that has NO contact telephone number on its website.

I can, quite a few in fact.
Read the fucking FAQ is what is expected.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

I refuse to do business with any company that doesn't have a postal address, let alone a phone number.

Back to Virgin, I kept a careful log of things that went wrong and stored up these complaints. I posted the list (no good waiting for ever to get through to them on the phone) and I got an engineer round for free as well as a substantial refund.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:

Virgin left me without internet, phone or telly for a week, once.

You were lucky. It was three months for us.

And that wasn't the worst piece of "customer service" I got from from them. There was one time they missed three appointments in a row. Yes, that is three days off work for me. And I knew perfectly well that the problem they had to fix was in their little green box on the street corner, but they had to start by checking my equipment out.

One point about Virgin "Media" thought. They are not really one organisation. They are more a rebranding of all the different cable companies that were taken over by Telewest and NTL in the 90s, and the NTL part of that (and maybe the other) was itself a composite of different regional and local cable TV franchises. The original companies continued to exist for years, with different technical standards, different management styles and different customer databases, and I suspect that they might still persist. When I actually got hold of a local engineer, based tround the corner in Lewisham, they were always able to fix the problem. It was getting through the bureacracy in Swindon or Basingstoke or wherever they hang out that was the problem.

Though Virgin are nowhere near the worst customer service I have ever experienced. That goes, without a doubt, to Thames Water. May they go bankrupt tomorrow and be taken back into public ownership without compensationand may every sharehilder lose every penny they have ever invested in that corrupt pile of shite.

Posted by Stoo (# 254) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
On Friday I returned from work to find a letter saying an engineer would call round this morning; if I wasn't there to let them in I would be charged £103 for a missed call.

I don't know who your letter is from, but Virgin Media no longer charge for missed appointments. When they did, it was only for service-visits (not installations), and only to a maximum of £10.

Posted by rhflan (# 17092) on :

I never understand companies that want to charge YOU if you miss an appointment, but don't pay you a dime when THEY miss one.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Welcome to the principal occupation of retirement - waiting in for tradesmen. I've just finished 5 weeks of being continually on hand in case today is a day suitable for gardening works. Moving seamlessly on, there is the dishwasher repair man, the annual gas appliance inspection, and - the Virgin engineer to upgrade the connection.

This is what I am also discovering as i get used to being retired.

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

What seems like a lifetime ago, I used to work in customer services for NTL before it was absorbed into the new Virgin Media. Knowing how things worked, I can see this from the other side. A number of my friends still work at the same office and call centre and tell me that very little was changed with the take-over.

I can't speak for installations. They were housed in a different building and had little to do with the rest of the company. The installers were contractors and generally annoyed everyone. However, as far as faults technicians went, things were done reasonably well.

Precise times couldn't be given because they went from job to job and there were too many variables. They couldn't tell for certain how long each job would take. Sometimes customers didn't answer the door or they'd solved the problem and not bothered cancelling the technician, so they'd be earlier than.expected. Sometimes a fault turned put to be more complicated than originally thought. With installations, often existing cables had been damaged or paved over, meaning jobs took longer than planned. It's difficult to give people exact times when there is so much possible variation. So four-hour time slots were allotted.

If you're booked in for a Monday morning then the time the guy reaches your house will depend on the other customers and jobss he has to see that morning, which isn't finalised until he gets in his van with his itinerary and drives off and could even change after that depending on customers.

Posted by pimple (# 10635) on :

You think Virgin's bad? You should try raising a query with EasyJet! If they don't understand the problem they'll give you the standard reply to one they do. After a while you have to laugh - this should be a game in the Circus.

e.g. Why do you keep asking me to state a destination airport when I have already done that?

Answer: It is best to arrive at least two hours before departure to allow time to get through...

Posted by Amorya (# 2652) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Generally what you get from Virgin media is not bad, but their customer service is without doubt the worst I have ever experienced.

I can't think of any other company I've had to deal with that has NO contact telephone number on its website. And if you do happen on a phone number it is just an endless series of push button options at the end of which is likely to be a pre-recorded message with a suggestion of how to deal with your fault.

Even when they ask for feedback and you say that the customer service is crap they don't bother to respond - and that's when the reason for the poor feedback was because they hadn't responded to the e-mail alert of a fault in the first place.

01256 752000, and ask for the complaints department.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
I can't think of any other company I've had to deal with that has NO contact telephone number on its website.

That reminded me that their train website used to be just the same. Some of us wondered if they took the phone number off because they were getting so many complaints.

I wish I could remember who it was that had a short drop-down list of possible complaints, none of which fitted the issue I wanted to raise, so you couldn't actually send your query if it didn't fit the options.

It's a while ago now but I've a feeling it may have been an ISP provider who had recently taken over my existing ISP and now, if you wanted to query anything via the online system, insisted on some kind of security login for verification that you were a customer of theirs. "Your details were sent to you when you started your account with us". As I hadn't started an account with them I didn't have this information, so was unable to query anything, including even sending a request for the security details I would need to verify my request for security details.

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

I've just visited Virgin's website and found a customer service telephone number within the space of two minutes. Granted, it isn't prominently placed, and the path to the number takes you past online help pages first, but it's definitely there.

As others have suggested, they do this to try to make sure that the people who call up are genuine callers and not time-wasters. This may seem like an unhelpful tactic but believe me, you begin to understand it when you're sitting in a call centre and 10-20% of the calls you take all day are from people who spend eight minutes screaming at you because their set-top box won't do anything, and it's all rubbish, and the company is crap, and they're demanding you send a technician immediately. Then, when they finally calm down and let you get a word in, and you ask them if they have the same problem when they press the buttons on the set-top-box itself (rather than the remote control), they tell you they didn't actually get off their fat behinds to check but just picked up the phone to scream. So they do it and it works fine, and it turns out the only problem is that the RC batteries had run down and they hadn't changed them. That's just one example but there were others: people trying to change the set-top box channel with their DVD player RC, people reporting a telephone line fault even though they were customers of a completely different company, and all sorts.

I worked in faults but every department got its own version of time-wasting callers like this who clogged up the call queue, making it difficult for people with real queries to get through. So some companies now organise their website so that, before you can get to the number to call them, you first get to online help pages that answer some of the common rubbish that doesn't really necessitate a phone call. It seems a pain in the behind if all you want is the phone number but there's a good reason for it.

Anyway, for Virgin's website, in the "existing customers" section of the homepage, click on "help and support". You then choose the type of service you want support for (telephone, cable, broadband, or whatever), and it brings up a list of online help options, as well as a link saying "Need to get in touch? Find out how to contact us." Click on that, choose the department you want from the list, and where it says "What's your query about?" just highlight any one of the options and it will bring up the text "Haven't found what you're looking for? Contact us." There you have the option of e-mailing or phoning, and the number you need is there.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

Any more helpful posts like the last few, I'll change the thread title and send it to All Saints.

[Devil]

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
One point about Virgin "Media" thought. They are not really one organisation. They are more a rebranding of all the different cable companies that were taken over by Telewest and NTL in the 90s, and the NTL part of that (and maybe the other) was itself a composite of different regional and local cable TV franchises. The original companies continued to exist for years, with different technical standards, different management styles and different customer databases...

Absolutely spot-on.

NTL was an amalgamation of companies, including the previous amalgamation of companies that had formed Cable and Wireless, all which essentially continued as before, even after their absorption, and that was fine because most of the original call centres still operated, dealing with the same customers as before.

Then they started consolidating all of these offices and call centres, which meant, suddenly, customer service people in Manchester found themselves juggling a multiplicity of different local procedures, databases, faults reporting systems, appointment time slots, and so forth. Even the services available varied by region of the country, which I suppose was a bit like when Lloyds Bank absorbed TSB, and customers could go to any branch of the new LLoyds-TSB but could find themselves limited in the services available to them depending on whether the origins of the branch and the origins of their account were the same. We also shouldn't discount the significance of a customer service workforce drawn almost entirely from one city and its suburbs suddenly dealing with people from all regions of the country for the first time. Many of the London customers were a shock to the system. It's just a different world.

This was the first I learnt that some parts of the country didn't have evening time slots for technicians. In the northwest, they always had 8-12, 12-4, and 4-8. This was years ago, though, and I would have thought it would be standardised by now but if people are still reporting no evening time slots, perhaps it hasn't. Or it could be that because evenings are the most popular time slots, they have already been fully booked when people here have asked for them.

I left the company just as the merger with Telewest was going through, then that joint company was subsequently taken over by Virgin, so unless things have all been regularised on one system, I suspect there's a fair degree of chaos.

[ 11. May 2012, 06:50: Message edited by: Michael Astley ]

Posted by Jenny Ann (# 3131) on :

Well, I have 2 sides of this. I'm a VM workers wife and I can tell you - the attempts to standardise systems across the country have led to multiple weeks at home on my own while he goes off to try and check new, cohesive, systems work everywhere in the country. And vast amount of weekends lost to him working overnight to put fixes and changes and new interfaces in at times the customers won't be bothered. This is annoying for me but good for customers (and our bank account...)

The other side is that I'm (predictably) a VM customer. And the service could be better I think, but I think that about most big organisations. I once rang VM as I had no telly - I was good and checked the service status online first, said it was fine in my area. Rang the number (free from my landline) and listened to the service outages update carefully - still nothing about my area. I stayed on hold (note - the ability to chose your own on hold music doesn't make it better) for about 25 mins. When my call was finally answered I was told there was an outage in my area. I suggested to the gentleman that maybe that should be on the srvice outages messages and was told they were too busy, which is a shame. I like the idea of being able to check somewhere that says 'yeah - your area is a bit fucked right now - we know about it, thanks, we're trying to fix it' but it doesn't work unless these messages are kept up to date.

Still beats any form of service I got from Orange - 'what's that? you don't have internet? yes you do - my screen says so'. And nPower (no, you can't bill a Mr T. He Occupier just because the previous tenant fucked off without paying, and even if you could that's not us - we told you when we moved in and have a rent agreement to prove it), mind you, I think we've now had so many refunds/compensation amounts from nPower they've paid us back more than we ever paid them in bills.

Oh, and Northern Rail are real gems. I once received a reply from them which was so unconnected to the complaint I'd maid that it was surreal. But then I realised they'd just fired off the wrong standard response. I didn't bother to get back in touch, the email would just end up through the system again.

Virgin Trains were good - I was once on a slightly delayed train and the conductor walked through the whole train and gave out refund forms before anyone asked. I suspect it may have been his last day or something.

Good customer service isn't hard - it's respect for your clients time, energy and money. But as Michael says, clients sometimes don't have respect for big companies time, energy and money (like not cancelling engineer visits) and that messes things up further for everyone else.

jen

[ 11. May 2012, 07:21: Message edited by: Jenny Ann ]

Posted by Oscar the Grouch (# 1916) on :

I've been a customer of Virgin for some years. Their customer service is not good, but nowhere near as bad as some of the alternatives. BT have really been the pits at times.

In a previous house, I contacted Virgin as I wanted to have cable TV and broadband. "We don't have your address as being able to be connected" came the reply. "Huh? But I'm standing at the window now and can see the cover in the pavement where the cable connection is ready to be made."

Then they sent someone out (or so they told me). A few days later, I got a phone call "Sorry, but you definitely CANNOt be connected"

Eventually, I got them to agree to send out an engineer at a time when i was available to meet him. We stood outside the house, looked at the junction point in the pavement, looked at one another and just laughed. His comments about the mental capabilities of some of his colleagues was very amusing.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
His comments about the mental capabilities of some of his colleagues was very amusing.

To be fair, pretty much every engineer I've ever had round was competent and efficient. And on many occasions the engineer and I have been of one mind about the company's grab-'em-off-the-street-and-park-'em-by-a-telephone call centre staff.

Posted by beatmenace (# 16955) on :

Not had much of a problem with Virgin Media/Mobile - but the tech support has gone downhill since they were Telewest (Virgin bought them out) , who were particularly excellent.

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jenny Ann:
The other side is that I'm (predictably) a VM customer. And the service could be better I think, but I think that about most big organisations. I once rang VM as I had no telly - I was good and checked the service status online first, said it was fine in my area. Rang the number (free from my landline) and listened to the service outages update carefully - still nothing about my area. I stayed on hold (note - the ability to chose your own on hold music doesn't make it better) for about 25 mins. When my call was finally answered I was told there was an outage in my area. I suggested to the gentleman that maybe that should be on the srvice outages messages and was told they were too busy, which is a shame. I like the idea of being able to check somewhere that says 'yeah - your area is a bit fucked right now - we know about it, thanks, we're trying to fix it' but it doesn't work unless these messages are kept up to date.

Oh! Your recounting this just reminded me of the nonsense that we got from Virgin and the reason we're not with them anymore. We moved house and checked with the Moves & Transfers department that the area we were moving to would be cabled. We were told yes, the account was transferred across, and an installation date was set. All good.

So we moved house, with all that this entails, and waited in on the day, only for nobody to turn up. When we phoned up to ask about it, we were told that the installation had been cancelled because our address was unserviceable. It just seems nobody had got round to telling us.

I wasn't too bothered about being told we could get the services when we actually couldn't because I understand how that can happen. At least when I worked there, the system that we in customer services had to rely on to check whether an address was serviceable only checked whether the postcode area had cable. It didn't take account of the fact that the distance between the access point at the property and the green box in the street or the nearest point of contact with laid cable could mean that the services at a particular address within that postcode could potentially be so poor that the regulators simply wouldn't allow a company to supply them to a customer and charge for them. It's very common for someone not to be able to get services that his next-door neighbour can, and I understand how it's well nigh impossible for the company to know for certain without doing a reccie, which would be impractical for every installation (asking customers to wait in for two separate days would not go down well).

The problem was that, having determined that we couldn't get the services, they just cancelled the installation appointment, closed the account, and didn't tell us anything.

[ 11. May 2012, 08:47: Message edited by: Michael Astley ]

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:

quote:
Originally posted by Oscar the Grouch:
His comments about the mental capabilities of some of his colleagues was very amusing.
To be fair, pretty much every engineer I've ever had round was competent and efficient. And on many occasions the engineer and I have been of one mind about the company's grab-'em-off-the-street-and-park-'em-by-a-telephone call centre staff.

I've got to say that's kind of true. When I started there, call centre culture was just making the transition from being the sort of job done by ladies of a certain age with plenty of life experience, who had seen their children off from the family home, and were bored at home alone all day because their husbands were still working, to being the sort of job done by people fresh out of school/college. I was one of the latter group.

Many of us who were expected to deal with these customer enquiries had no direct experience of things like financial commitments, billing cycles, booking time off work to wait in for workmen, what the boxes in the street did or the inner-workings of the systems, and the classroom-style training was inadequate. We had one half day out on the job with the technicians to see how what we did affected what they did and vice versa - but they were there to do their job and didn't consider themselves teachers, so it was "luck of the draw" whether we got one who would show us how these things worked. Mine was a good laugh but taught me nothing. Other people in my training group said their presence was tolerated at best, while others got shown everything in detail, including the inside of the green boxes, what went where, and how it affected customers' phone services.

Posted by GreyFace (# 4682) on :

I was an early-ish adopter for Comcast cable internet, which became NTL and then Virgin Media. Their front line support at the time didn't have a clue - I can even remember once having to humour a script jockey who wouldn't refer me upwards until he'd tried to send Hayes AT codes to the cable modem.

Then I struck oil. I managed to acquire the secret number. People knew it was there, but it was the kind of thing that was spoken about in sentences that ended "...but then I'd have to kill you." It was the phone number of two guys in Wales, Swansea I think, who were actually the cable modem support team. Until you got that number you might as well have phoned the speaking clock when something went wrong.

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:
I've just visited Virgin's website and found a customer service telephone number within the space of two minutes. Granted, it isn't prominently placed, and the path to the number takes you past online help pages first, but it's definitely there.

OK, Smartarse, where is it?

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:
Generally what you get from Virgin media is not bad, but their customer service is without doubt the worst I have ever experienced.

I can't think of any other company I've had to deal with that has NO contact telephone number on its website. And if you do happen on a phone number it is just an endless series of push button options at the end of which is likely to be a pre-recorded message with a suggestion of how to deal with your fault.

Even when they ask for feedback and you say that the customer service is crap they don't bother to respond - and that's when the reason for the poor feedback was because they hadn't responded to the e-mail alert of a fault in the first place.
01256 752000, and ask for the complaints department.

And typically for Fucking Virgin fucking Media, that shuts at 5.30 pm. An hour before I, as a civil servant, leave the office. Is this the wonderful private sector that everyone says we would be so much better if we emulated?

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:
I've just visited Virgin's website and found a customer service telephone number within the space of two minutes. Granted, it isn't prominently placed, and the path to the number takes you past online help pages first, but it's definitely there.
OK, Smartarse, where is it?

What was unclear in my previous post?

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:
Originally posted by Amorya:
01256 752000, and ask for the complaints department.
And typically for Fucking Virgin fucking Media, that shuts at 5.30 pm.

It isn't typical. I owe them no loyalty and I don't have their services anymore because of their inadequacies but lines closing at 5.30 p.m. isn't typical of them at all. It is only a handful of departments that keep normal office hours because their purpose isn't considered urgent enough to warrant coverage for 16 hours out of the day. Complaints is one of those departments. Most of the other customer service departments are open from 8 in the morning until midnight. Their UK call centres close at 10 p.m. but the lines remain open until midnight because of call centres elsewhere.

[ 14. May 2012, 18:17: Message edited by: Michael Astley ]

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Says something that they close the complaints department much sooner than most of the other departments one might think.

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Says something that they close the complaints department much sooner than most of the other departments one might think.

I like the way you say they close departments like complaints and credit control sooner, as though opening til midnight is some sort of standard for office workers and leaving at 5.30 is somehow to be considered trying to get out of dealing with people. Those departments are primarily admin offices - not customer service call centres. They deal with some of their business on the phone, but also by e-mail, letter, and so forth, and some of it is working at a computer, involving no correspondence at all.

It would seem more accurate to think of collecting debts and processing complaints as things that can be done in normal office hours, (especially when customers aren't limited to phone calls as a way of submitting complaints), and it's the other stuff, such as changing customer's packages because they want to watch a film/sports event that night which is on a channel that they don't have, trying to fix services that aren't working, and other urgent stuff like this that necessitates longer opening hours for the call-centres. This is where you get people on the phone all day, dealing with one phone call after another.

That just seems reasonable to me. I'd be happy with that as a customer of a company, and wouldn't read any sinister meaning into it.

[ 14. May 2012, 19:08: Message edited by: Michael Astley ]

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

From what I've seen of job ads, office workers working various shifts is not particularly odd. You say that complaints is mostly not a department that deals with people? If so, I suspect that is why their complaints department is so frustratingly poor as testified by many elsewhere. It certainly should be overwhelmingly dealing with people, it seems to me! And perhaps you'd be happy to be the customer of such a company--if such a company were responding to your complaints properly. However, if this thread is evidence, Virgin isn't!

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
You say that complaints is mostly not a department that deals with people?

Not quite what I said.

Unless things have changed since I worked there, it is an office that deals with customers' complaints in letter, e-mail, and telephone form, so in that sense, it is dealing with people. It tries to clarify their complaints, work out what went wrong and how it affected the customer, liaise with other relevant departments if the complaint is about an ongoing problem to try tom solve it, or if it is a past problem that is the cause of the complaint they feed back to the departments where the problems occurred what went wrong, and when all that has been resolved and clear picture has been got of everything, go back to the customer and try to make peace and see what can be done on that front. But it isn't a call-centre where people are sitting around all day answering phone calls and dealing with immediate queries, and for the job they do, it seems quite unnecessary for them to be there until the dead of night. It just isn't what they're for.

I think much of the discord stems from a disparity between how regulatory bodies understand how complaints are to be dealt with and what they require of companies, on the one hand, and on the other, how some customers think of complaints.

As far as regulatory bodies are concerned, any expression of dissatisfaction is a complaint and ought to be dealt with properly and to a customer's satisfaction. This can range from upset about a price increase of 2p to a string of missed technician appointments, only for one to eventually turn up, ask to use the lavatory and miss the bowl, then do a botch job of installing the services which don't work, damaging the customer's brickwork in the process. As far as many companies are concerned, many such things can be dealt with in the first instance by the customer phoning up the relevant department. So, if your broadband stops working and there are no technician appointments until next day and this disrupts your work and you express upset at this, and then if the advisor you're talking to in the faults department apologises and offers you some money back and you're happy, the regulators would be satisfied that your complaint has been dealt with. Case closed with no involvement of any complaints department. Having worked in a few call centres for different companies, I think the majority of complaints are dealt with in that sort of way, or if they can't be because the customer requires something beyond what the advisor is authorised to do, the advisor's manager gets involved, and this can often resolve the complaint.

Many companies will have a complaints department (sometimes dressed up as a "managing director's office") to deal to with complaints about big mess-ups on the company's part or for which there will be no company satisfaction within the usual policies of the company within which the advisors and their managers have to operate. Often the customers won't even report it to the complaints department themselves but it will be referred to complaints by the advisor or manager to whom they spoke in the call centre.

The problem, I think, is that the existence of something called a "complaints department" in many companies makes some customers think that this is simply another customer service call-centre, like the "faults department" or the "house moves department", but one which deals with all and any complaints, and that rather than express their dissatisfaction with the department they're talking to, they should be transferred to/given the number for the complaints department for everything that would be classed as a complaint. That just isn't how it works most of the time, and their being on the phone answering calls all day would actually slow down the process of actually dealing with complaints.

As for complaints not being dealt with to satisfaction, without meaning to be dismissive of anybody, it is a simple fact that people who are already upset or frustrated about something are prone to exaggerate and are perhaps less likely to approach things with a reasonable head. Working in the faults department at what became Virgin Media, I dealt day by day with people who were phoning because something had gone wrong. Before the conversation had even started, they were not happy people. Even though we had a screen in the call centre telling us how many staff were manning phones and how many calls were in the queue, it wasn't uncommon for angry people to complain about having to wait for ten minutes to get through to someone, even if we staff knew that it was a quiet time when we had a few seconds' break between calls. Here on this very thread, we have had people exasperated with their poor experience of Virgin Media's customer service claiming that early line closures for some departments are typical even though they are the exception, that an extortionate fee has been threatened even though a current member of staff has chimed in to say that the company doesn't do that, and a claim that the website has no customer service phone number even though followingthe right links with a clear head reveals the customer service phone number.

While it is true that many companies have rubbish customer service, and while things will always go wrong in big companies to one degree or another, it is also true that frustrated people are not always the most reasonable people, but this doesn't mean that their complaints have not been dealt with properly. As a customer of many companies who has worked in customer service departments of a number of companies, I can see both sides to this, and I know enough to take some things with a pinch of salt.

[ 14. May 2012, 22:16: Message edited by: Michael Astley ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:

NTL was an amalgamation of companies, including the previous amalgamation of companies that had formed Cable and Wireless, all which essentially continued as before, even after their absorption...

This is a web page I wrote over ten years ago describing my attempts to buy cable TV and phone service from Cable and Wireless

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:
This is a web page I wrote over ten years ago describing my attempts to buy cable TV and phone service from Cable and Wireless

How so bloody interesting. Unfortunately I had to click on that link. Did you ever consider a NSFW warning for that garish colour scheme?

Everyone else: Don't bother unless you have insomnia. Guaranteed cure.

[ 15. May 2012, 00:54: Message edited by: PeteC ]

Posted by RooK (# 1852) on :

GAH! Bloody-minded curiosity and blatant stupidity caused me to fail to heed your warning.

It's like a manual for how to fail at design. Thank fuck I didn't actually read anything there.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

I have no intention of every going anywhere near the source of that page again! The colour scheme and the fonts are those that were used by Cable and Wireless at the time. Its not meant to look pretty. (And in their defence, as well as mine, this is from 1999 still, just about, the days of static corporate websites, and before anyone but the real geeks had heard of blog software.

I reluctantly link it here merely to show that the leopard has not changed his spots, even though he has rebranded himself as Virgin.

Posted by Pre-cambrian (# 2055) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:
I've just visited Virgin's website and found a customer service telephone number within the space of two minutes. Granted, it isn't prominently placed, and the path to the number takes you past online help pages first, but it's definitely there.
OK, Smartarse, where is it?
What was unclear in my previous post?

I asked you where on the Virginmedia website such a telephone number is, e.g. what's the heading on that webpage. That's a pretty clear question, and it is equally clear that your earlier post had not offered such information. I have trawled that website at length on a number of occasions, which is why I am asking a straightforward question.

Are you sure you have no connection to Virginmedia, given the lengths you are going to to defend them?

Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :

I too assumed this was about BVM abuse [Razz]

I know where Richard Branson lives (because its near me - control your excitement people!) if you want to come vomit on him personally

Posted by Michael Astley (# 5638) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:

quote:
Originally posted by Pre-cambrian:

quote:
Originally posted by Michael Astley:
I've just visited Virgin's website and found a customer service telephone number within the space of two minutes. Granted, it isn't prominently placed, and the path to the number takes you past online help pages first, but it's definitely there.
OK, Smartarse, where is it?
What was unclear in my previous post?
I asked you where on the Virginmedia website such a telephone number is, e.g. what's the heading on that webpage. That's a pretty clear question, and it is equally clear that your earlier post had not offered such information.

Did you actually read that first post of mine that you quoted? I don't know how much clearer I could have been in explaining where the number is. I didn't post the number because it differs according to the options you choose and the services you have but I tried to help. Anyway, here it is again.

quote:
Are you sure you have no connection to Virginmedia, given the lengths you are going to to defend them?

I am quite sure. I'm not defending them as such. I just know what it's like being a customer service person on the phone trying to deal with genuine enquiries and I know how people who have rightly been annoyed and aggravated by poor service and botched jobs can actually put an unreasonable gloss on otherwise reasonable things.

Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RooK:
It's like a manual for how to fail at design.

Not really. Except for the quoted letter, there is really only one font family, consistently used. The backgound and foreground colors are all consistent. Nothing flashes or is animated. Deep red is not placed against a deep blue background.

It's all very moderate and well-done for its time.

Posted by BroJames (# 9636) on :

I have followed the instructions to get to a contact phone number - it takes a lot of clicks, and in at least two pages the link is right at the bottom of the page to make you read the other stuff first, and you8'll probably need to scroll down.

It does look as though the number may vary according to what kind of issue you have, and it is clearly designed to make you try and use the website to resolve your issue. If you just pop on to the website to find a complaints phone number it is not very helpful as it looks as though it doesn't have what you need.

If they want to make you go through this process (like the "choose from the following options" stuff you sometimes get on a telephone service line) then it might be helpful if they thought about the person who is just looking for a phone number, and told them that going through the process will eventually lead to a phone number (and that the number may vary according to how you respond to the questions), and that some of the links are right at the bottom of pages that will require scrolling on many screens.

The website is well-designed to lead you through the trail of what the company wants you to do, but poorly designed in relation to this particular (IMO very foreseeable) need that customers might come with.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
...it is clearly designed to make you try and use the website to resolve your issue. If you just pop on to the website to find a complaints phone number it is not very helpful as it looks as though it doesn't have what you need.

Well yes, but that's the fucking point! They want you to use the website instead of phoning.

quote:
If they want to make you go through this process (like the "choose from the following options" stuff you sometimes get on a telephone service line) then it might be helpful if they thought about the person who is just looking for a phone number, and told them that going through the process will eventually lead to a phone number

Bit if they did that then people wouldn't try to send (or even resolve) their complaint using the website.

quote:
The website is well-designed to lead you through the trail of what the company wants you to do, but poorly designed in relation to this particular (IMO very foreseeable) need that customers might come with.

That's probably because it's not a need they particularly want to meet. They want you to use the website and/or email them rather than wasting time on a phone call.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
The website is well-designed to lead you through the trail of what the company wants you to do, but poorly designed in relation to this particular (IMO very foreseeable) need that customers might come with.

Especially if you want to contact them because your internet access is down.

Posted by Bean Sidhe (# 11823) on :

When our landline died, Virgin checked it out and said the street cable was damaged. When could they fix it? Not for a month.

A month!! They were adamant, no way could it be done sooner. Once, a phone was an essential service, faults sorted out pronto. Now we all have mobiles, I suppose they think there's no urgency.

They were good as their word - a month later, the landline came back to life. By then, we had a competitor's line we'd ordered the day we had the row with Virgin. Wiring still in place from yonks ago, they only had to switch it on.

We still have the Virgin line, use it for incoming calls only. Absurdly, it's cheaper to have their broadband + phone than broadband alone. And Virgin broadband is good, way faster than any alternative.

It seems to me that almost any service you use these days has at least something really crap about it. Why is that? Is it not in their interest to fix the weak link? So much for competition.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Bean Sidhe:
It seems to me that almost any service you use these days has at least something really crap about it. Why is that? Is it not in their interest to fix the weak link? So much for competition.

They compete on price. If you phone them twice and talk to a human being each time you have used up the whole year's profit they hope to get out of you. So it pays them to run a crap service and refuse to talk to you.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

The engineer from Virgin came promptly this morning and in 20 minutes had upgraded out TV to include HD content and extra channels, and doubled our broadband speed. All at their behest and for less per month than we were paying previously.

No, I have no idea what's going on either.

[ 23. May 2012, 15:19: Message edited by: Firenze ]

Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :

This is the first time I've been able to read the thread I started. No, I haven't got a connection at home yet. That is still a fortnight away, which will mean I will have been without landline and internet for almost 7 weeks (assuming everything goes smoothly). I can access the Ship at work, during breaks, but the firewall regularly blocks Hell thread, and even several in Purgatory, so there's all sorts of stuff I can't read. Now I'm spending a long weekend with mum and can use her computer.

In addition to my earlier rant I am annoyed at how difficult it is to ring Virgin. I have internet banking, but can speak to someone and shuffle my money around really easily. With Virgin I have to enter a 12 digit account number and a long password 3 or 4 times (one mistake and you've lost it all) before finally getting through to the recorded music as I wait in line. All of which makes ringing them really expensive, especially as it has to be done on my mobile. The whole thing is deeply painful.

Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :

Virgin's music is appalling...Mr Alba was forced to complain in the most forceful manner last week

We stayed at home for a booked apt, that apparently never was. Total waste of time phoning as the password didn't work. Mercifully they phoned me " Hello Mrs Alba? we're phoning to confirm an apt next week" When asked about last week's apt they had no knowledge, no record and would not be with us.

Of All the weeks in the year to leave us with the internet on before midday and after 10.30pm....this was a BAD choice.

But hey, they appeared this week, sorted the problem in an hour and left us with sparklingly brilliant internet.

But.....SUCH shoddy customer service...didn't even apologise.
[Disappointed]

[ 01. June 2012, 22:07: Message edited by: Ethne Alba ]

Posted by rhflan (# 17092) on :

The wifey and I are planning on relocating to the UK this fall so that I can continue my studies. All these horror stories are making me wonder how long we'll go without internet access at our new home. Please tell me that these horror stories aren't the norm...waiting SEVEN WEEKS for internet and home telephone seems totally crazy to me.

Posted by Drifting Star (# 12799) on :

I haven't had to wait at all, even through several house moves. We haven't changed provider, though, which I suspect might cause problems.

In terms of setting it up in the first place, I am sure that there is a big difference between providers. We are with BT (which simplifies things because they provide the line and the service) and have never had any problems - ever. We've thought about changing for financial reasons, but whenever we've worked out the final costs, with the extras we currently have, nobody else has been cheaper anyway.

Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :

quote:
Originally posted by rhflan:
Please tell me that these horror stories aren't the norm

Of course they're not. If they were, they wouldn't be rant-worthy.

Posted by The Rogue (# 2275) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
The engineer from Virgin came promptly this morning and in 20 minutes had upgraded out TV to include HD content and extra channels, and doubled our broadband speed. All at their behest and for less per month than we were paying previously.

No, I have no idea what's going on either.

We had this recently. Virgin rang me out of the blue (on my non-Virgin mobile: I suppose I must have given them the number) and offered me faster broadband and a better TV box for less money per month. They came when they said they would, set up the new equipment quickly and efficiently, gave us a demo and left with everything working perfectly. And it still is. I did look to see how the price compared with anything else they offer and it looked OK.

I do not work for Virgin but have been a customer for many years and have never had any complaints except for the occasional brief down time which has often been my router rather than their service anyway.

Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on :

Robert Armin posted on a now closed thread:

quote:
It is now almost 7 weeks since I moved, almost 9 since I let Virgin know I was moving. On the one occasion during that time that they rang me I explained that an engineer would have to come round after 4.00, due to my work, and they agreed to this. So I was not impressed when I got a call at 8.10 this morning, as I arrived in school, to say the engineer was waiting outside my flat. Luckily the folk here were supportive, so I was able to go back and let him in.

He had to fit a new phone socket, so a lot of furniture had to be moved. In the process my old dining table split in half, and all the stuff on it fell everywhere. I now have two halves of a table cluttering up a small flat, and piles filling every surface so there is nowhere to sit down or eat. In addition, I have a landline but no broadband or TV. The engineer apologised for that, but he only does telephones. Could someone please send Branson round, so that I can apply a red hot poker to the appropriate part of his anatomy?

(And I would have posted this on the existing Virgin thread, but I'm at school and the firewall blocks it. Depending on what people have said most of Hell and some of Purgatory is off limits to me - until I get my own broadband connection......)

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by The Rogue:

quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
The engineer from Virgin came promptly this morning and in 20 minutes had upgraded out TV to include HD content and extra channels, and doubled our broadband speed. All at their behest and for less per month than we were paying previously.

No, I have no idea what's going on either.
We had this recently. Virgin rang me out of the blue (on my non-Virgin mobile: I suppose I must have given them the number) and offered me faster broadband and a better TV box for less money per month. They came when they said they would, set up the new equipment quickly and efficiently, gave us a demo and left with everything working perfectly. And it still is.

Worrying, isn't it?

The downsides I've noticed so far are occasional breaks in TV service when it seems to think the HD cable has come unplugged; the loss of the 'change channel at start' - it now insists on recording so that you can watch the programme anytime (No, I want to watch it as it is broadcast), and also I am not sure about the red button functionality.

Actually, that's it crashing again - I think I may be on to them to restore the old box: less bells and whistles, but a least it worked all the time.

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

OK, I'll officially join the tack-spitting. The TV has gone down completely, and I'm in the 20th minute of an 'up to 15 minute' wait to report the problem.

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

My email to them today:

quote:

The record of Virgin media with me over the past 8 months has been poor, but the events of the past week has cast serious doubt on my continuing my subscription

1) I was phoned by your sales team on my mobile. I asked her to call me back on my landline. She said she would - but didn't.

2) 24 hours later I was phoned by another member of your sales team ON THE MOBILE. This time the line was so poor that we couldn't communicate. For a media firm, that's just funny

3) Having irritated me with that, I phoned your complaints line. After the first muppet didn't understand English, I got a 'manager'. He took the details of my complaint - but then informed me that HE couldn't respond to my complaint by email - I would have to chomp it all out again. (I'm not going to be contactable by phone for a period).

4) Trying to write this this morning, I had to resort to Internet Explorer, because Firefox 13 would not accept my pushing the button to access this form. Presumably your coding monkeys didn't bother to test this form under Firefox.

5) The form itself shows my password in clear text, not asterixed out

6) And finally brethren, to the beef: sometime last November I made a complaint about the fact that the £50 I was expecting as a result of signing up [...] to your service hadn't appeared on my bill. I was informed by your muppet that he would sort it, and I thought no more about it. However during the course of the conversation with your 'manager', I determined that the call had been closed in November with no further action. AS YOUR STAFF HAD MADE A VERBAL COMMITMENT TO MAKE THE PAYMENT YOU ARE BOUND TO PAY IT. Note the alternative: ALL verbal agreements entered into by your customers can be discarded at will.

I look forward to your swift payment of a sum somewhat more that £50

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on - Sam Goldwyn.

The engineer has been and put everything back the way it used to be before the upgrade. The actual fault was probably a defective cable. But beyond that, in their eagerness to shift the TiVo box, they've actually reduced the service, in that there is no agreement as yet with the broadcasters over live streaming of digital channels on that platform. Did they think that, dazzled by the shiny new graphics, we'd fail to notice that when the commentator says 'Coverage of this exciting bit of Wimbleton/the Open/ Olympics continues on the red button' that it didn't?

Posted by Mr Tambourine Man (# 15361) on :

Funnily enough after spotting this thread earlier today I then had reason to phone VirginMedia later in the day. Here's the thrilling saga:

They were charging for evening and weekend calls, despite me paying for the privilege of having free ones. Apparently it was because some of the calls went on for over an hour (not my own I hasten to add!) There was nothing on their website or my bill explaining this lovely caveat so I was all set to have a rant. However the guy from the call centre agreed without fuss or complaint to refund the money.
Victory!
[Votive]

for all those who have been treated worse.

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mr Tambourine Man:
Funnily enough after spotting this thread earlier today I then had reason to phone VirginMedia later in the day. Here's the thrilling saga:

They were charging for evening and weekend calls, despite me paying for the privilege of having free ones. Apparently it was because some of the calls went on for over an hour (not my own I hasten to add!) There was nothing on their website or my bill explaining this lovely caveat so I was all set to have a rant. However the guy from the call centre agreed without fuss or complaint to refund the money.
Victory!
for all those who have been treated worse.

Believe it when you get the money, NOT before.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
My email to them today:

The record of Virgin media with me over the past 8 months has been poor, but the events of the past week has cast serious doubt on my continuing my subscription

(sorry tale of Ender's Shadows' attempts to get Virgin to priovide something resembling a service as contracted).

Next time you comment on the efficiencies and other merits of the market economy vis-a-vis the socialist paradise of the public sector, remember that sharp practices like you describe are often the means by which they turn a profit. They can't afford good customer service! If government agencies like the one I work for give sub-standard service, ministers are asked questions, they ask us why we aren't fulfilling these customer service standards, and it gets written up officially as well as in the popular press.

Posted by Ender's Shadow (# 2272) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
My email to them today:

The record of Virgin media with me over the past 8 months has been poor, but the events of the past week has cast serious doubt on my continuing my subscription

(sorry tale of Ender's Shadows' attempts to get Virgin to priovide something resembling a service as contracted).
Next time you comment on the efficiencies and other merits of the market economy vis-a-vis the socialist paradise of the public sector, remember that sharp practices like you describe are often the means by which they turn a profit. They can't afford good customer service! If government agencies like the one I work for give sub-standard service, ministers are asked questions, they ask us why we aren't fulfilling these customer service standards, and it gets written up officially as well as in the popular press.

Rubbish; when it's working well, the pressure of public perception will force firms to be careful of their reputation. May I draw your attention to 'The gas man cometh' which is the experience of a monopoly utility; as a matter of record, when, in 1975, my parents moved house, we had to wait SIX WEEKS for a phone line. These days it will be done a lot quicker - because BT know that you have an alternative. No - of course capitalism is not the answer to everything; the prospect of private mail firms cherry picking door to door deliveries, leaving Royal Mail with the expensive rump, is crass economics. But in general where there IS competition, it is likely to result in people having the ability to choose an alternative. Do you seriously believe that the internet would have taken off in a command economy?

Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
the pressure of public perception will force firms to be careful of their reputation.

Hmm. I don't see Union Carbide or BP out of business. I vowed never to buy from Mesh again after they screwed up on my PC before last - but, alas, they are still trading. There is a vendor of PC security software which is reviled the length and breadth of the internet, but still they prosper...

quote:

May I draw your attention to 'The gas man cometh' which is the experience of a monopoly utility

Tcha. It's a funny song about how one repair leads to another. I could duplicate it in the last year (first it was a plumber to replace the sink, then a joiner to replace the worktop, then a tiler to replace the tiles above the worktop, then a plasterer* to repair the wall, then a painter* to paint the new plaster).

*at these points I thought Bugger this and did it myself.

Posted by Lynn MagdalenCollege (# 10651) on :

Here in the USA, I have a Virgin Mobile phone - a "pay as you go" phone because I really dislike cell phones and use mine as little as possible (good for traveling!) - but, as it's almost impossible to find a standard "pay phone", a cell phone is essential. Mine lives in my car, off. My outgoing message warns folks, "Unless I told you to call me on this number, don't expect me to hear your message any time soon!" and provides the appropriate number at which to reach me.

Costs me $5 per month because I give them my credit card and they automatically "top-up" the account every three months, saving me $5 on every quarterly transaction; I've got more pre-paid minutes than I'm ever likely to use.

The problem is, about half the time I get a "Your phone needs you!" urgent email that tells me they're about to turn off my phone. At that point, I log into my account on the computer. It's fine, the payment has been sucked out of my credit card account, it's all good. But three times (out of half a dozen or so), they actually have turned off my phone. This requires spending a chunk of time on the cell phone trying to get the right hand to talk to the left hand. The fact that they've turned it off in the past makes me nervous about whether they'll turn it off now, again.

FWIW, I'd much rather deal with all these issues via email - but sometimes that doesn't get to the heart of the problem (to be fair, sometimes the person on the phone doesn't get to the heart of the problem either).

Adequate and affordable service, but for this one weird hiccup, which has only started in the last 3-4 years. Bizarre.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0