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GreGorGy
BULLSFAN
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2005
- Messages
- 15,289
Some background: For 10 years, I did a significant amount of consulting to MTN. My work won an Apex Award in America, so there is a small chance I do know what I am talking about when it comes to PR and Cellular SPs.
In the middle of last year, a year after I stopped doing any work at all for MTN, I decided I had no further value in keeping my number with them. Their billing fiasco, for a start, was disastrous and they have never quite properly fixed or addressed this. A PR disaster of epic proportions. I gave up on MTN and decided it was time for a move.
But, being a little circumspect in these matters, I thought I had better try before I buy, if you get my drift. And to be honest, I did not see myself as having any greater importance at Vodacom so I figured it was time to give Cell C a chance.
I desperately want to see Cell C succeed - probably more so than its stake holders. It would mean that the Johnny-come-lately can also compete in an otherwise closed duopoly. I had recently signed a large parastatal to a research project and a lot of my work was going to be by phone, to cellular users across South Africa.
I figured this the perfect opportunity for Cell C. I got a phone and SIM and all that (the phone was specifically chosen as one that I could feed into my recording equipment) on prepaid. I then used a few thousand rand making calls and doing my research.
It work very well and I had no dropped calls. Cell C was definitely revealing itself to be worthy of my standards. I had only one issue: a specific and small area in Fourways was dead. Ten metres in any direction (including up) saw the signal change from lower than -105db to upwards of -80.
No big deal except this area happens to be my father's house. I began trying to get Cell C to look into the problem. At first, some success - they replied to emails and launched their Tell Trevor campaign, from which I even managed to scrape a reply. That was then.
Fast forward to 2011. While Woooooosh! has been working beautifully for months, I have tried my best in vane to get the network technicians at Cell C to even reply to my requests since 7 February. I am no longer even worth an auto-reply. Either they have set their stun-guns to ignore or they are incompetent or something is seriously wrong with their email systems. Really, whichever it is, as a client I cannot be expected to diagnose and correct these. The best I can do is bring it to their attention.
I have done this via as many channels as I could find, including this forum. I have still had very little by way of reply. I have tried calling their "Customer care" number but I get no options to speak to anyone - all I can do is check my balance or load my mms settings. That's hardly any care and if that is their care number, it has failed miserably. It is the only customer care number and it fails to address poor reception or internet breakdown. The message you get played is "Welcome to the Cell C customer call centre. Main Menu. If you're having problems topping up your airtime, press 1. If your phone is blocked and you need your PUK or if your phone is lost or stolen, press 2. For services like MMS GPRS or caller ID, press 3. Or for info on Cell C products and services, press 4. You haven't pressed anything" Repeats.
Now, GPRS may address internet (you'd have to know to press 3) nothing addresses the reception issue. And nothing suggests I can talk to an operator.
CHALLENGE #1: Change your IVR to allow the options people actually call for. Include an option for speaking to an operator. Perhaps have a secondary number for sector-specific (like 3g) services.
After the second repeat, I was then told I could press 9 for an operator. I spoke to a generalist who put me through to "Technical" where I was on hold for an hour. After that, the phone disconnected.
During that time, I started a thread here and PMed all Cell C people I could find, asking them to at least respond to me - one way or another. Nothing was forthcoming from 12h00 till 15h30, at which point the Cell C rep said that someone would call me.
Nobody has called me.
If, while I on hold for that "Technical" there was a recorded message telling me that severe outages were being experienced, I would have felt informed and let it be and waited a day or two.
CHALLENGE #2: Inform users of general network failures, by pasting a notice on your website, changing the pre-recorded on hold message and updating myBroadband users when they actually bring it to your attention.
The biggest frustration has been the failure of anyone to get back to me, ever. If it took a day or two, fine. But never? That is not good enough.
CHALLENGE #3: Remove "TELL TREVOR" from your website until such time as the responding people on the other side are clued up and skilled and diligent enough to honour the premise. Reply to PMs here. Follow-up properly on emails. Avoid STOCK REPLIES!
So, will I port? At this stage, HELL NO! But, I can be swayed. By the manner in which you are able to publicly address these challenges (it will not hurt your PR - trust me - to see this updated by yourselves) and at least answer my original problem:
CHALLENGE #4: Either fix the reception in the area I gave you the coordinates of OR tell me why you can't.
In the middle of last year, a year after I stopped doing any work at all for MTN, I decided I had no further value in keeping my number with them. Their billing fiasco, for a start, was disastrous and they have never quite properly fixed or addressed this. A PR disaster of epic proportions. I gave up on MTN and decided it was time for a move.
But, being a little circumspect in these matters, I thought I had better try before I buy, if you get my drift. And to be honest, I did not see myself as having any greater importance at Vodacom so I figured it was time to give Cell C a chance.
I desperately want to see Cell C succeed - probably more so than its stake holders. It would mean that the Johnny-come-lately can also compete in an otherwise closed duopoly. I had recently signed a large parastatal to a research project and a lot of my work was going to be by phone, to cellular users across South Africa.
I figured this the perfect opportunity for Cell C. I got a phone and SIM and all that (the phone was specifically chosen as one that I could feed into my recording equipment) on prepaid. I then used a few thousand rand making calls and doing my research.
It work very well and I had no dropped calls. Cell C was definitely revealing itself to be worthy of my standards. I had only one issue: a specific and small area in Fourways was dead. Ten metres in any direction (including up) saw the signal change from lower than -105db to upwards of -80.
No big deal except this area happens to be my father's house. I began trying to get Cell C to look into the problem. At first, some success - they replied to emails and launched their Tell Trevor campaign, from which I even managed to scrape a reply. That was then.
Fast forward to 2011. While Woooooosh! has been working beautifully for months, I have tried my best in vane to get the network technicians at Cell C to even reply to my requests since 7 February. I am no longer even worth an auto-reply. Either they have set their stun-guns to ignore or they are incompetent or something is seriously wrong with their email systems. Really, whichever it is, as a client I cannot be expected to diagnose and correct these. The best I can do is bring it to their attention.
I have done this via as many channels as I could find, including this forum. I have still had very little by way of reply. I have tried calling their "Customer care" number but I get no options to speak to anyone - all I can do is check my balance or load my mms settings. That's hardly any care and if that is their care number, it has failed miserably. It is the only customer care number and it fails to address poor reception or internet breakdown. The message you get played is "Welcome to the Cell C customer call centre. Main Menu. If you're having problems topping up your airtime, press 1. If your phone is blocked and you need your PUK or if your phone is lost or stolen, press 2. For services like MMS GPRS or caller ID, press 3. Or for info on Cell C products and services, press 4. You haven't pressed anything" Repeats.
Now, GPRS may address internet (you'd have to know to press 3) nothing addresses the reception issue. And nothing suggests I can talk to an operator.
CHALLENGE #1: Change your IVR to allow the options people actually call for. Include an option for speaking to an operator. Perhaps have a secondary number for sector-specific (like 3g) services.
After the second repeat, I was then told I could press 9 for an operator. I spoke to a generalist who put me through to "Technical" where I was on hold for an hour. After that, the phone disconnected.
During that time, I started a thread here and PMed all Cell C people I could find, asking them to at least respond to me - one way or another. Nothing was forthcoming from 12h00 till 15h30, at which point the Cell C rep said that someone would call me.
Nobody has called me.
If, while I on hold for that "Technical" there was a recorded message telling me that severe outages were being experienced, I would have felt informed and let it be and waited a day or two.
CHALLENGE #2: Inform users of general network failures, by pasting a notice on your website, changing the pre-recorded on hold message and updating myBroadband users when they actually bring it to your attention.
The biggest frustration has been the failure of anyone to get back to me, ever. If it took a day or two, fine. But never? That is not good enough.
CHALLENGE #3: Remove "TELL TREVOR" from your website until such time as the responding people on the other side are clued up and skilled and diligent enough to honour the premise. Reply to PMs here. Follow-up properly on emails. Avoid STOCK REPLIES!
So, will I port? At this stage, HELL NO! But, I can be swayed. By the manner in which you are able to publicly address these challenges (it will not hurt your PR - trust me - to see this updated by yourselves) and at least answer my original problem:
CHALLENGE #4: Either fix the reception in the area I gave you the coordinates of OR tell me why you can't.
