Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Dear Richard Branson,

Since you decided to expand your huge business empire and make NTL part of your stable, my television service has sucked. Big Time.

As nice as those Pay Per View movie ads are, over the summer if I paid to see a movie, or wanted to watch Catch Up TV, during it's play the screen would go black for a second or two, constantly throughout the whole movie, film or programme. When I did ring up, the lovely person from Mumbai, suggested the fault would be fixed eventually. Perhaps my box was overheating?

A couple of weeks ago we discovered that as long as my computer was off, the Pay Per View etc, would work fine. Great stuff, as long as I know. Last week the box died. With a bit of jiggery pokery I managed to get it to work. This week, it's died for good.

When I rang yesterday morning, the 0845 number which charges you 6p per minute and it takes 3 minutes and 5 buttons button presses to actually speak to someone. And by the way, I don't really like some bint in her regional accent chirpily saying 'let's get you to some help', when it leads to more recordings and advice that I've already taken.

I am served by Rollo. Oh please. I am not a stupid person. I come from the West Indies, I know what a non-British accent sounds like. I occasionally read the papers, on-line business news etc. I am perfectly aware that the call centre is based in India. Don't patronise me or the poor bastard at the end of my stroppy call, by giving them a fake British name. If it makes financial sense to have the call centre there, fine. Own it, don't apologise for it and for heaven's sake, don't assume that a British name will make me believe he's sitting in Manchester.

It takes a few minutes of questions to decide I am who I say I am, where I am and the service I've got. It's not Rollo's fault he can't understand me through my snot (I have a cold), my accent and my ire. He want's to send a technician out. Great. He'll be there 4-7 tomorrow. Really? I work. Boy is going to be home, but I'm informed that should the technician turn up and Boy is less than 18 years old, the technician will charge me £10 for wasting his time and won't fix the damn box.

Well Richard, I lost my temper. Your call-centre staff probably earn more than I do. And the thing about being in a minimum wage job is that you can't really take time off for getting your telly fixed. And of course I wasn't offered a slot over the weekend, was I? Your technicians don't have to work over the weekends. Lucky them. This is the first weekend I'm going to have off in over 3 weeks and I want to be able to watch my tv.

You'd be proud of Rollo, he was very patient as I cursed you Richard, because it sure as hell isn't his fault; he's just doing what you've told his Area Manager to do. If you ever got as far South as that to give the order. The fact of the matter is, I don't like your service anymore. Unfortunately, it's the cheapest service available, which pretty much means I'm stuck with it. But bear this with mind, when I become less poverty-stricken, I will be voting with my feet.

I know it's a bit silly of me, but I just want a company that provides a service around it's customers needs, doesn't patronise them, is upfront and professional and Richard, that's just not Virgin Media at the moment.

Yours (very pissed-offedly)

Roses

9 comments:

  1. Well.. Not being silly, but at least your Internet is still working, then, if that comes through the same sort of route.

    My boss has been having the same level of fun with Vodafone recently. Sent his phone off to be repaired. They sent it back and said "It's not registered with Sony. We reckon you've nicked it."

    He pointed out that it's the same phone they gave him a year ago, and that he has all the evidence from them that they gave it to him.

    He sends it back. They send him a txt to say it's been repaired, and it'll be with him tomorrow.

    Tomorrow comes and goes, as does the next day.

    He phones. "Oh, don't know why you were told that. It's been sent out today."

    Guess what? ;) Couple of days later "Oh. Well we'll send it out today. No, we don't know why you were told that it's already been sent out."

    Even better than that...

    He spoke to them yesterday... "Oh... We can't fix this. It's not registered with Sony."


    Aaaanyway. Is the box owned by you, or rented from them?
    Sky boxes are owned by you, and cost a small fortune to replace when they pop.

    Was there anything special that you were looking forward to watching, or were you just going to enjoy being able to relax and channel surf?

    ReplyDelete
  2. IM ~ Nothing like Customer Service is it? Your poor boss, what a nightmare.

    If I didn't have internet I'd be looking for a gun...

    I rent my box. The interesting thing is that I got a new box when I signed up with NTL, when it went wrong after a couple of years I got given a reconditioned box which has now gone wrong within a year. We'll see what he has to say.

    Fortunately, Hottie is going to flat-sit for me, otherwise I'd be well and truly screwed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So I'm looking out for a sheepish technician on Friday am I?

    Will be on hand with hugs in the evening and then we'll be able to moan that there's nothing on TV ;)

    x

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree with you totally on this one Roses.
    We have had problem after problem with it since it changed to Virgin media, my partner ended up ringing 5 times friday evening, just trying to put a film on that should be just enter a pin number (that doesnt work as im not BT but was NTL) it was ridiculas, so we gave up and my fella went to bed instead, the air was blue and he reuses to now watch tv..lol
    I prefered it when it was NTL the service was much better,

    ReplyDelete
  5. We had a nightmare getting our internet/television thing re-connect when we moved. We were with Homechoice who when they were a new little independent comapny were super-helpful and reliable. But then they were taken over by Tiscali and the service went dramatically downhill. It took 12 phones calls and 3 engineer visits to have our service set up correctly.

    Luckily for them, they were overshadowed in the crap department by BT as I did blog about.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous6:48 pm

    I share your pain...we were with telewest, who we had a nightmare 6 months with due to crap cable TV.

    After 5 technician visits and no joy, a letter to their chief exec pointing out the discrepancy in our customer service v some of his recent speeches he'd done about their excellent customer service and we had our own account manager, our own technican who came when we wanted him to and he stayed until he fixed the problem and we got 6 months free tv afterwards!

    Now we are having problems with virgin media internet (under telewest no problems, virgin media take over and it's a nightmare) so we are building our case...

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous8:13 pm

    Roses, has Branson upset you? Right let's do an "A" team type raid on the tycoon?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Have you tried writing to Branson personally? I hear it can be remarkably effective...

    ReplyDelete
  9. hottie ~ I suspect when/if the technician turns up, he won't care if I'm pissed off or not.

    B*E*B ~ at least it's not just me thinking it's all gone downhill then.

    sanddancer ~ oh yeah, I remember that kerfuffle. It took ages to sort, didn't it? Today, I want a new box, and to be able to watch telly over the weekend.

    NM ~ they never ask customers if they want the company to be taken over; there's always this assumption that the merger will bring customer benefits. Of which I've yet to see. Good luck with your letter.

    twining ~ yes, he's been a very naughty tycoon, and let's not even discuss the calendar or his boast of the Mile High Club.

    cogidubnus ~ you mean he won't read my blog letter personally? ;-)

    We'll see how today goes and take it from there.

    ReplyDelete

Hey, how's it going?

Bank Holiday Sunday

Dear Dave I woke up today with Philip Glass' Metamorphosis in my head. It's apt really as it was part of the music chosen for your...