AN Enjoyable read!!......
You'd think that in these days of high-tech call centres and
computerised customer databases that there would leave little
to go wrong. Evidently, I was a little too naive!
I have been experiencing an almost comical sequence of events
when trying to register for Telewest's "Blue Yonder"
service over the past couple of months, and I thought that I should
share my experiences if only to warn other consumers of the barriers
they face. |BOTTOM OF PAGE
Last year, I bought a house which I have been steadily renovating
since that time. As an IT consultant and self-confessed computer
geek, I wanted to make provision for Internet access throughout
the house. Having weighed up the alternatives, I decided upon
a cable modem service. The only complication was that I planned
to have hardwood flooring installed so the service would need
to be installed first.
I telephoned Telewest several months ago to enquire, but was met
with the traditionally inflexible response. The alternatives ranged
for the rather tempting "pay now, and every month, and use
later" to the equalling appealing "pay now, cancel,
and pay again later". All I wanted was to pay for the installation,
but not actually be switched on until later.
I decided to try another cable company, NTL, but they didn't cover
my area and didn't plan to for another year or so. It would appear
that Telewest had the monopoly in this area, so I decided to persevere
a little further with them. This was when I was put through their
mental endurance test, which they referred to as their customer
service system. Having waited approximately fifteen minutes for
one of their "highly-trained" representatives to answer,
it would appear that my patience was sufficient to reward me with
a response. Unsurprisingly, the individual I spoke to didn't know
a great deal about the service their company was offering, and
decided to pass the buck. Once again, I was put back on hold for
the next bout. Short of having electrodes attached to sensitive
areas of my body, I was subjected to a tortuous dose of infinitely
looping Toploader, occasionally interrupted with a patronising
message thanking me for my patience and telling me how great the
service was. After another fifteen minutes passed, the next combatant
stepped up to dazzle me with their incompetence. Once again, I
explained my situation from scratch, and once again I was met
with a perplexed response. Somehow my phonecall had been transferred
to their Yorkshire call centre whose database had no access to
my area. I braced myself for more Toploader.|BOTTOM
OF PAGE
And so it went on. I spent over an hour and a half on the phone,
mostly waiting for a response and restraining myself from hanging
up. I spoke to eleven different people (doubtless from each corner
of the country), but mostly gave up making a note of the names
as I feared I would quickly get on a first name basis with the
entire company. However, the breakthrough eventually happened
-or at least, that's what I was led to believe. The sales rep
was delighted at the concept of being able to take someone's money,
and dutifully rang up £83 on my debit card. He told me that
he would have to book in a date for the service to be officially
switched on, and entered a date of 3rd November which I would
be free to change at no cost. He promised that I'd receive a phonecall
within seven days to book the installation, so I finally put the
phone down and went to find a bag of ice to hold against my ear
for a few hours.
| BOTTOM OF PAGE
Several days later, a representative phoned to book an appointment
to drop off the cabling. As a family member took the call, I wasn't
able to question the precise definition, so I gripped my chair
tightly, and phoned the customer service team. Once again, my
training in waiting for the phone to be answered for fifteen minutes
was put to the test. The representative I eventually managed to
speak to confirmed that the installation was as I requested: install
the cabling under the floorboards and terminate under the stairs.
I was relieved. Unfortunately, that was short-lived. A few days
later, an engineer arrived with a coil of cabling asking where
it should be dumped. When questioned about his role in actually
performing the installation, he insisted that installing the cabling
went against their safety regulations and they were not insured
to perform such a task.
I was under the mistaken impression that I'd just paid £83
for this to happen. Sadly, it would appear that the installations
team were not actually capable of performing installations. They
could no doubt recommend gardeners who couldn't dig and hydrophobic
plumbers. The engineer unrepentantly got back in to his van with
the cabling and sped off. It was time to drive some sharp objects
in to my leg and phone customer services again. I was almost surprised
to hear the confirmation that I'd paid to merely install the service
myself.|BOTTOM OF PAGE
Given that I had been forced in to a corner, I had no choice
but to agree to their terms. I was told I had to wait another
seven days to have an appointment booked. Nearly three weeks later,
I decided to chase them up. After hearing some frantic punching
of computer keyboards, I was told that there was no explanation
for the apparantely forgotten appointment, but they were scheduled
to start billing me from 3rd November even though I didn't actually
have a service installed. Based upon the apparent zeal to take
the initial installation fee, I could well believe that they'd
be just as happy to do that. Fortunately, the person I spoke to
seemed far more cooperative to the point where I almost questioned
if I was really speaking to an employee of Telewest. Nevertheless,
I thought it best not to look a gift horse in the mouth, and explained
my situation (again). The person could not understand why it was
not possible to install under floorboards as it had been done
elsewhere, so another appointment was booked for daytime two days
following.
Being the trusting person I am, I decided to stay at home that
day to ensure that I could keep an eye on the engineer when he
came. After midday, my completely unfounded cynicism got the better
of me and I phoned to verify that the engineer was still going
to come. After the usual wait, I was told that there was no record
of the installation being booked. Naturally, the manager wasn't
available, and the other managers were on the phone to other customers.
They told me that they had no further appointments for today,
so my time had been wasted. As a gesture of good will, they offered
to knock £25 off my bill, although I wouldn't actually receive
this money back. It would merely be deducted from my next bill.
Lucky me. To add insult to injury, the installation would still
have to be done by me.
So, here I am. No cable service, having spoken to a grand total
of thirteen different people for over three and a half hours.
Better still, they can charge £83 and get my to do my own
installation. Who's worried about corporate fat cats when their
companies' own business models generate a healthy profit before
they've even managed to lift a finger. I'm in the wrong job.
TOP OF PAGE
Link to other Telewest Complaints: Link1
A very interesting read. We would love to have Mr Elia writing
for TCCL! A Right of Reply email has been sent to Blueyonder.
