Paul Edden Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 From the top - I started as an apprentice with GPO telephones in 1975(!) and spent 25 pretty good years with BT. In the earlier days, the staff cared about providing a service - but this tailed off significantly towards the end - it was all about the money. I left in 2000. I now find my home phone has been out of order since Jan 8th and the "likely fix date" is 21st Feb due to "situations beyond our control". When asking to speak to a manager - I am told I cannot do this. Here comes the rant; They phoned me today (from India) to tell me that 21st Feb is when they hope to fix the fault. I asked to have my calls diverted to my mobile - as stated on the wonderful website which tells me I can have this done. - What is your account number I am asked. - Why do you need that I asked - To prove you are the account holder they said - But - you phoned me to discuss my home phone - you have the records - this proves I am the account holder - Without the number - I can't do anything - After 5 minutes of tennis - I simply gave up. Customer service at its best - not. Rant over - feel better now. Is it me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Dastardly Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 When my neighbour moved out BT changed my adress to the now empty house next door's! Every one of my bills for the next year came out with the wrong address despite me complaining every time. The how's and why's totally escape me..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuitarmanUK Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 No, not you. A lot of big organisations have got themselves so wrapped up in red tape and procedures they have forgotten what customer service is. So many say that their service is 'second to none' (I really hate that expression!) but in reality it is all about the bottom line, profit! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Williams (Panda) - Joint Manchester AO Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 "is there anything else i can help you with?" no! just **** off and die, doesn't go down well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Colonial Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Not you. Neighbour two doors down worked for BT for 30 years and was treated like dirt towards the end, having done nothing more than worked his socks off 60 hours a week and giving great service. BT sent me a flyer about how they'd finally got around to putting super quality fibre optic lines in my area (a mere 14 years after TeleWest / NTL World / Virgin did so in 1997), and would I like to come back to them for a cheaper phone / TV / broadband package? Called for a price - and was quoted £200 installation plus a £150 deposit, despite living at this address for the past 25 years. I'm still with Virgin, surprisngly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikef Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 No definitely not you! When we bought this house it was connected to BT so I asked to be reconnected. There were telephone sockets in 4 rooms. Unfortunately, when the BT man arrived I wasn’t here and the chap told SWMBO that he couldn’t find the original connection in the eaves of the house and would have to put in a new line. This involved putting a cable around 2 sides of the house (nailed into the mortar), through the conservatory and into the hall. Despite SWMBO’s protestations we now had just one socket in the hall. Naturally, I complained and was told another BT man would come out at a cost of £130. I argued that if I was right and the old connection could be connected I would not pay. They grudgingly agreed but said that their man was obviously right and I would end up paying. The next BT chap arrived (I was grateful it wasn’t the same chap) and I explained what had happened and he then took 15 minutes to make the connection into the original cabling in the eaves so I now have use of all the sockets. He suggested I leave the additional cabling outside the house since to remove it would leave holes. I was tempted to try and get BT to remove the cable and make good the holes but decided to quit whilst I was ahead. Needless to say, they didn’t charge me the £130. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveH Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 No, not just you. We live out in the sticks and they had provided us with the worlds slowest broadband for years, when it failed completely they would send the broadband engineer out who would say it was a line problem, a line engineer would come out and say it's a broadband problem, you get the idea. We now use a 3 mifi device that gives about five times the speed for £10 per month less cost, when I phoned to cancel the broadband they informed me that it would incur a disconnection fee due to the work required at the exchange and said they could half the monthly charge if I wanted to stay with them, shame they didn't suggest to this during the previous years of crap service. My solution was to tell them to stick the phone line where the sun doesn't shine as well and sue me for the disconnection fee if they wanted to see how unfair contract terms stand up in court to but SWMBO decided that only pikeys don't have a land-line so it had to be paid. ******s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SootySport Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Oh yes! Have a go all of you, I hate them as well and I work for them. It's all about the Stats, nothing else matters these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SootySport Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 From the top - I started as an apprentice with GPO telephones in 1975(!) and spent 25 pretty good years with BT. In the earlier days, the staff cared about providing a service - but this tailed off significantly towards the end - it was all about the money. I left in 2000. I now find my home phone has been out of order since Jan 8th and the "likely fix date" is 21st Feb due to "situations beyond our control". When asking to speak to a manager - I am told I cannot do this. Here comes the rant; They phoned me today (from India) to tell me that 21st Feb is when they hope to fix the fault. I asked to have my calls diverted to my mobile - as stated on the wonderful website which tells me I can have this done. - What is your account number I am asked. - Why do you need that I asked - To prove you are the account holder they said - But - you phoned me to discuss my home phone - you have the records - this proves I am the account holder - Without the number - I can't do anything - After 5 minutes of tennis - I simply gave up. Customer service at its best - not. Rant over - feel better now. Is it me? 21st. is about right, so many faults these days due to a lack of investment in the network in the last 5 years and long standing cable faults just don't get fixed properly anymore, we have saved millions by doing just this, ha ha. Don't be surprised if an engineer turns up before the appointed date any day of the week, so many are working overtime and you may be "Fitted In" as it were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveD Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 join the club wuv i am trying to open a new buisness account with the natwest went into the branch and sat with a very nice man who promissed the earth and a buiness account set up within 48 hours ,over 2 weeks later and still **** all ,zilcho f***** nothing the useless ****s they can suck my dangler the ******s , or even dealing with bt 3 weeks to switch on a f***** phone line for **** sake, no wonder this country is f***** ,im trying to open a new buisness you ****s not bomb the f***** palace , how f***** hard can it be they should be making it easy for new buisnesses not sticking a hot poker up you A*** and butt f***** you ,rant over From the top - I started as an apprentice with GPO telephones in 1975(!) and spent 25 pretty good years with BT. In the earlier days, the staff cared about providing a service - but this tailed off significantly towards the end - it was all about the money. I left in 2000. I now find my home phone has been out of order since Jan 8th and the "likely fix date" is 21st Feb due to "situations beyond our control". When asking to speak to a manager - I am told I cannot do this. Here comes the rant; They phoned me today (from India) to tell me that 21st Feb is when they hope to fix the fault. I asked to have my calls diverted to my mobile - as stated on the wonderful website which tells me I can have this done. - What is your account number I am asked. - Why do you need that I asked - To prove you are the account holder they said - But - you phoned me to discuss my home phone - you have the records - this proves I am the account holder - Without the number - I can't do anything - After 5 minutes of tennis - I simply gave up. Customer service at its best - not. Rant over - feel better now. Is it me? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FILFAN Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 i dont work for BT but spend most of my time in telephone exchanges. (sat in one now) over the past 12+ years all they have done is treat their engineers like poo. waste millions on ways to destroy the moral of a workforce and make budget costs that more than likely increase spending. the service they provide is dated and cr4p on a good day. i think alot of their trouble came from splitting into 2 companies, wholesale and openreach. the amount of time and money wasted between the 2 is stupid. I think the two came about because going back some years they were not allowed to offer services cheaper than other companies due to bt been a national company had all its infastructure for free basically. when some clause ended a few years back (not long after other companies bulldog,wanadoo etc started offering broadband) they started rolling out cheaper services. offcom then turned around and said hold on there if you are providing the same services you must also play by the same rules. BT had not made it easy for these companies in the exchanges and forced them to install allot of un-nessasary cabling. now BT would also have to provide the same silly cabling and the company was split one half owning the equipment up to one connection and the other half owned everything beyond that point. what we do is install their bb equipment. we could simply run a cable from point A to point C. instead we have to run a cable from point A to point B in one job then a seperate job to run a cable from point B to point C with 2 completly useless connections in between well this is my understanding of it all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Williams (Panda) - Joint Manchester AO Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 i dont work for BT but spend most of my time in telephone exchanges. (sat in one now) over the past 12+ years all they have done is treat their engineers like poo. waste millions on ways to destroy the moral of a workforce and make budget costs that more than likely increase spending. the service they provide is dated and cr4p on a good day. i think alot of their trouble came from splitting into 2 companies, wholesale and openreach. the amount of time and money wasted between the 2 is stupid. I think the two came about because going back some years they were not allowed to offer services cheaper than other companies due to bt been a national company had all its infastructure for free basically. when some clause ended a few years back (not long after other companies bulldog,wanadoo etc started offering broadband) they started rolling out cheaper services. offcom then turned around and said hold on there if you are providing the same services you must also play by the same rules. BT had not made it easy for these companies in the exchanges and forced them to install allot of un-nessasary cabling. now BT would also have to provide the same silly cabling and the company was split one half owning the equipment up to one connection and the other half owned everything beyond that point. what we do is install their bb equipment. we could simply run a cable from point A to point C. instead we have to run a cable from point A to point B in one job then a seperate job to run a cable from point B to point C with 2 completly useless connections in between well this is my understanding of it all Are you a kellys hero then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Verona Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Where we used to live the cables were over 50 years old and made of tin. It was explained to me that they had no budget to run new cables but it wasn't a problem to have an engineer parked up in the village all day. They didn't have enough lines so were fitting multiplexers to run two lines down one cable. Our internet was breaking down daily and I had complained so much that in the end I sent a telegram to the chairman's office. I got a call from High-level complaints. After a month or so the lady I was in daily conversation with got a new copper cable run from the sub station on the other side of the village green and we never had a problem after that. However they did have some good moments. Before they had a van parked up our phone went down on the day HM came out of hospital after an operation. I called them and explained the situation. I was informed that as it was a medical condition someone would be there shortly. 10 minutes later I saw the van drive up, the engineer knocked on the door and started checking. He traced th fault to the junction on the top of the pole opposite. He rewired it, had a cup of tea and was on his way. About 10 minutes later we got a call to make sure everything was OK. So, it's not always been bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FILFAN Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Are you a kellys hero then? No I think they do domestic installs and maybe external works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
greenandmean Posted January 30, 2013 Share Posted January 30, 2013 Not just BT I'm afraid, you want to try getting any of the utilities to install services into a new building site should be 4 phone calls (gas/leccy/water/phone) often takes 3 days and even then most likely to get a " we will get back to you" which they more than likely wont. Recently had a problem with a main cable (nothing to do with the ground worker hitting it with a digger ) the lads that came to repair it arrived on site at 2-30 on friday afternoon having come from Birmingham nearly finished the job when their boss rang to say just nip up to Newcastle and do another repair before you come back to Brum. No wonder service is so bad with so few staff spread so thin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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