Telecomms Experience

[zookeeper]

AAAARGGHHH! What can I say? What I want to say has probably been discussed on this site and numerous others. But what the heck I need to get this off my chest:

I phoned a certain telecomms company's support centre today (three guesses which monopoly they might be!). Like all previous experiences when trying to get assistance I got...

Wait wait wait - before I go off on a tangent. Here's a good idea:

Go to smallworld.sociology.columbia.edu. This is the Smallworld project. They figure that there are only 6 degrees of seperation between you and anybody else on the planet.

Go to the Telkom support line - (yeah phone 'em) This is the Megaworld project. I figure there are way more than 6 degrees of seperation between you and the person you should actually speak to.

I called - with a real problem like swopping my home tel number and my ADSL voice line number cause I want the other one for faxing. Just mentioning ADSL sends you all across the Support Universe. I think I actually met the whole Call Centre today.

So anyone who found that mentioning ADSL (to anyone of the non-ADSL Telkom support ppl) sends them on a phone-athon... Let's hear it here.

ps. Oh and before I go... Has anyone ever spoken to a Call Centre Sup? I mean - escalating a call usually gets the response that they're all in a meeting. Lots of meetings these ppl have?

[VQuest]

Agreed!

It's INCREDIBLY frustrating.

I had a simple request - I wanted login information for my web space. I had to phone FOUR different numbers and spoke to SIX different people. The sixth person was still not the correct person - thats when I exploded and told her the buck stopped with her. 5 hours later I got a call back asking me what I wanted. Then I find out that I can't have my domain pointed to my web space because I'm only on the Prolog and not the Prolog plus, even though I had specifically told the person who signed me up that I needed the Prolog plus for that very reason.

Oh how frustrating can we get!?


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United we stand!
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[kobie]

My phone experience is far better...i've got the personal number of one of the tech guys at telkom and he put me straight through to his boss when i had a problem (actually got his boss to phone me).

His boss then put me through to all the people i needed to contact at telkom (he actually ran a little "exchange for me"[:)]) after only two calls all was sorted. The trick is to avoid the helpdesk people as much as possible and try to get the number of a technical employee at telkom they always seem to be on your side and get things done as fast and friendly as possible.

[ASF]

Sure wouldn't you also get a little peeved that by the time you come to fix and the user is hopping up and down out of frustration.

I actually feel for the techie's, generally they are quite clued up.

The problem is the basic admin within Telkom...

[zookeeper]

I completely understand what the technicians and call centre staff go through everyday...hell I worked in a call centre myself a couple of years back.

Management is to blame. I phoned the right number for the assistance I needed, but was told to phone THIS number, or if THIS number doesn't help phone THAT number,or if THAT number doesn't get you any help phone....HELL man which number am I suppose to phone then?

The crux of the matter is that Telkom's support numbers aren't clearly enough defined and that most of their consultants aren't diversely enough trained...

Nuff said....

[Thimee]

The last time I phoned Telkom, I got the runaround. So my last call went something like this:

Operator: Hello, please can I have your login.
Me: No sorry, you may not. Please can I speak to your supevisor.
Operator: Could I not assist you?
Me: No sorry, please transfer me to your supevisor.

I got to speak to a very nice gentleman, my problem was solved within 5 minutes (well, actually 45 if you count the runarounds I got prior to this)

[grubman]

yeah, and then telskum want to charge us for callouts!! I think telskum should start reimbursing customers for their time spent trying to solve the telksum problems thru the so called help desk - lost productivity.

[Andrewc]

Well... its 2006 and nothings changed!!