Renewing my Sentech Contract? You must be joking....

[gertcoetzee]

An open letter to Sentech:

Wednesday, September 06, 2006
The Managing Director
Dr S Mokone-Matebane
Sentech
Private Bag X06
Honeydew
2040
FAX 011 6917127

Dear Dr Mokone-Matebane,

Re: Terrible Service Sentech

On 4 September an official from Sentech called me, reminding me that the contract we (Drs Coetzee & van der Merwe Inc) have is due for renewal. We have 3 modems, costing us in excess of R1800 per month. I asked for details of the new offer to be emailed to me.

On 5 September Sentech was “offline” for most of the day, and I was put on hold for one hour when I phoned the call centre, without getting to speak to a real person. Today I have had the same experience when calling the call centre.

Can you in all honesty supply me with one reason why we, or for that matter, any company should remain with Sentech.

From my dealings with Sentech I suspect this letter will be ignored. I will, however post it on all service related forums on the Internet.

Yours in disgust,




Dr GJ Coetzee
Drs Coetzee & van der Merwe Inc.

[Donovan]

Hear hear.

My experience is largely the same. We signed up for a 128kbps package more than 2 years ago when this service first started. That was definitely a stupid thing to do.

We have since been lied to, treated with indifference, slapped in the face, etc numerous times.

Not once have I EVER gotten 128kbps on my 128kbps connection. When enough people called to complain, they renamed the packages so that they didn't include any speed rating. How ethical.

For me the last straw was when they tried to move us to a "much faster" 256kbps connection (maybe now we'll get 128kbps speeds?) for a little more, with a 200MB cap. At just R 1/megabyte over that cap.

They can take their service and shove it.

[gertcoetzee]

Just got a call from Mr Tswane which I cut short asking for a written reply. He briefly said, basically I will get the same service. So I interrupt and ask him whether I will get unlimited access, which after some haggling he aknowledged would not be the case. So he had to agree that I am not getting the same service. Then he goes on and explain a small number is using too much, so I say well, if I am not one of them, and I am happy to pay what I am paying, I should be permitted to do so. Will post their (no doubt pathetic) response here (however, I am not holding my breath!)

[gertcoetzee]

As predicted, no word from Sentech. Can someone enlighten me - from other posts here I gather that Sentech is cancelling all contracts, and expect us to sign up for an inferior version? I have had no notification from Sentech. I got a message on my cell from a FRANCOIS asking me to phone him on the same number that I have been put on hold fro respectively 60 and 20 minutes over the past two days.

[gertcoetzee]

So I got a reply. Not answering anything, but still A REPLY.
"Dr GJ Coetzee

RE: Terrible Service Sentech

Sentech acknowledges receipt of your complaint. Your letter of complaint has been forwarded to Dr S.M Matabane and our General Manager in Customer Care for further investigation.

Kind regards

Pranill Ramchander
Portfolio Manager: Corporate Communications
Sentech LTD

to which I replied

Which does not answer the question I posed. I hear (via http://www.mybroadband.co.za/, not from SENTECH) that my service is being terminated. I want to know why (one reason, remember - could not be so difficult to put this in writing) why I should stay with SENTECH and change to another package, which it seems will offer me less?

Your reply (as non specific as it may be) will be posted on the http://www.mybroadband.co.za/ forum.

Dr GJ Coetzee

[GavinMannion]

Swap to iBurst... faster and more reliable... Also if you have 3 people in the same office then just share a connection. Obviously if you are driving around and such that is not an option though...

[gertcoetzee]

Lo and behold, after faxing the letter again (and undertaking to do that daily), and emailing everyone on Sentechs web site with an email address I got this response:

-----Original Message-----
From: Franscois Niemand [mailto:fniemand@sentech.co.za]
Sent: 07 September 2006 05:15 PM
To: gertcoetzee@sentechsa.com
Subject: RE: Sentech's service - you must be joking!


Good Day Dr. Coetzee



As per your thread on MyADSL, I did indeed try to contact you today on two occasions. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a hold of you. I do apologize for having left the call centre number on your voicemail but I do not have a direct line unfortunately. I can imagine that this would have caused even greater frustration for you. The reason for my call would have been to discuss the proposed migration of your account to a Flexi account as well as the benefits, if any to you, of migrating to this option. I would have liked to discuss this with you as I would have liked to do a comparison between your current account and the proposed options from us. There would be several factors to take into consideration before deciding to go either forward with the migration or alternatively canceling your account.



With regards to your complaints on the reachability of the call centre, I can once again only apologize. We currently have very high call volumes and this is delaying us in getting to all calls within a short waiting time. This is by no means an excuse and I can assure you that we do our best to answer all calls as efficiently as possible. I have however also escalated this matter to the Customer Care department for a response and to ensure that your issues are attended to. I can unfortunately not guarantee a response time from them but will do my utmost to ensure this is followed up.



If possible, I would like to request a time that I could contact you, if you would agree, to discuss any issues you might have pertaining to the Classic product discontinuation. I am not sure I would be able to address all your concerns in this matter, but I would nonetheless like to offer any information that you might need to assist. Please let me know if you would like to arrange a time for me to contact you.



Kind Regards,

Franscois Niemand,

Sentech Support T2/TL.


and my reply.....

Mr Niemand (appropriate surname for someone at the call centre, don't you think),

" I would have liked to discuss this with you as I would have liked to do a comparison between your current account and the proposed options from us."

Please do this in writing, taking into consideration the three accounts we have.

"There would be several factors to take into consideration before deciding to go either forward with the migration or alternatively canceling your account. "

Point them out and convince me either way.

"With regards to your complaints on the reachability of the call centre, I can once again only apologize"

Refer to my numerous letters about this two years ago. At least Sentech's call centre is consistent. Consistently hopeless.

"but I would nonetheless like to offer any information that you might need".

Why do I need to find out about the service discontinuation from http://mybroadband.co.za, or even worse from a Sentech representative who calls me Friday after hours, Monday (bad line, worse accent) etc. Why not publish this, sent emails, put it on the Sentech web site. Or did you know that Sentech will only get bad press by doing this, and now you are trying to alienate customers as quietly (on a one on one basis) by phone, hoping this will not get to the press. Remember Noseweek two years ago?

Looking forward to your email explaining why the new package will be better for me.

Dr GJ Coetzee

PS Will I be able to carry on on a month by month basis?

[Donovan]

I like how he mentions he has no direct line. I'm sure that this is true for him - but the Sentech call centre will not even give out the head office phone number.

Minimum accountability. I can almost imagine some sentech executive telling the call centre to refrain from letting the rabble somehow get in touch with the head office.

[daveza]

A letter originally addressed to the managing director ( I refuse to use caps ) is replied to by someone who doesn't even have his own phone, and who has to ' escalate' it to customer services. An absolute insult.

[gertcoetzee]

I have now received a faxed generic letter from one Casper Cassidy. I requested an email version, to be posted here, but have been told by Mr Niemand that there is no electronic version available to email to me. Funny that, isn't it.

The faxed letter does not answer ANY of the questions I posed before.

By the way, the fax number in the office of MD S Mokone-Matabane is 011 6917127.

I am still waiting for my questions to be "escalated" to someone who can be bothered to answer me.

I answered to Mr Niemand by email (and I faxed my original letter again to the MD, as I will continue doing daily until someone is bothered to answer me):

Mr Niemand,

I have now received a faxed copy of the letter (generic with no answers to my questions) you told me about today.

I HAVE NOT RECEIVED ANY ANSWERS TO THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS WHICH YOU WERE GOING TO "ESCALATE"

" I would have liked to discuss this with you as I would have liked to do a comparison between your current account and the proposed options from us."

Please do this in writing, taking into consideration the three accounts we have.

"There would be several factors to take into consideration before deciding to go either forward with the migration or alternatively canceling your account. "

Point them out and convince me either way.

Looking forward to your email explaining why the new package will be better for me.

Will I be able to carry on on a month by month basis?

I understand that I will be able to carry on with my classic contract? How can I find out what bandwidth I use?


Dr GJ Coetzee

PS Have a look at http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=52619

[Cat011]

Casper Cassidy is the product manager for MyWireless afaik, but to be honest I thought he was a figment of someones imagination, since I have NEVER been able to speak to the man in over 2 years of trying.

[noswal]

Sentech mis-Management team
http://www.sentech.co.za/index.php?m...=About&meid=69

[Alchemist]

Casper the friendly ghost?

[Gatecrasher]

Casper the friendly ghost?

and what with a Mr Niemand... there's a definite lack of tangible support.

[Ekhaatvensters]

lol. Why are you guys stil here btw? Its obvious where Sentech are going. Didnt they say they had new products for you Classic guys? I guess Flexi was new to you eh.. werent expecting that one. And there "speed increase" was only to you 128kb guys, 512 would be cut in half!

Or are they still going to make adjustments to the Flexi package?