Customer Support - not!

You’ll have to bear with me on this, but at the end might understand why:

a) I’m a grumpy old git

b) Have little patience with anything these days

c) Am losing hair at a rate of knots

Last week I had a call from my broadband supplier Pipex. A nice call. As an existing customer, how would you like a faster connection speed for less money and no catches? Yes please. And whilst we’re at it, free evening & weekend calls?

Well our domestic landline useage isn’t high, and I’m already on a near as dammit free Talk Talk package, but why look a gift horse in the mouth?

The confirmation emails from Pipex started rolling in. Order underway etc and then – “Please contact us – problem with your order”. So I did.

They said they could complete the order because I had a Talk Talk “tag” on the line and I had to get Talk Talk to remove it. So I rang Talk Talk.

Talk Talk said we can’t remove the tag as the line is “owned” by BT. So I rang BT. Meanwhile, each time I rang each company and groped tortuously through their call messaging services they told me how much they valued my call and that they’d be with me just as soon as they could, although they were terribly busy right now. Aren’t they always? GET MORE STAFF!

Anyway, BT kept me on hold for 20 minutes and I got fed up and rang off. Tried again this afternoon, got through quickly via the new sales line (ha ha – good trick) whereupon I was told, “Not our problem mate, need to talk to Pipex”. Notice a theme occurring here? Pass the buck? They also gave me a MAC code. For all you techies out there you’ll know this is a code needed when transferring a broadband service (which is strange because I wasn’t).

However, I rang Pipex and the nice man there said “Why did they give you a code? All you need to do is cancel the call package with Talk Talk, set up a line only rental with BT, and when you confirm that we’ll set up your call package”.

But what about my broadband upgrade I whined? Oh that’s all done and completed he said!!!!!!!!! I refrained from shouting at him (it wasn’t his fault) but kindly pointed out that if someone had told me that first thing this morning it would have saved me a great deal of irritation, frustration and dents in the desk where I’d been banging my fists. As it turns out you see, I’m not that really concerned about my call package, as it’s the broadband increase I was really after, but I seem to have been misinformed and understood that it was all tied together.

Maybe I didn’t read my emails properly, or maybe I was just given the wrong info. Either way, it’s clear that none of these companies really “value you” once they’ve got you. Customer Service is a laugh . They’re all too quick to push you somewhere else just so they can make the next sale.

Oh, and whilst making these calls, BT also managed to cut me off 3 times.

Scores:

Pipex 6/10

Talk Talk 6/10

BT 3/10