plugger123
Senior Member
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- Apr 26, 2005
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I've been trying now for 2 hours to get a hold of some one at 155 - to upgrade my data bundle.. vodacom is probably on holiday? Is it just me?
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call centre hell
- Thread starter plugger123
- Start date
I managed to get through to a 155 agent yesterday - although I did hold for a long time, and the #callback function seems to have disappeared...
I just got through.. less than a minute... You have the right number?? Lol Just kidding.
bekdik
Honorary Master
plugger123
Senior Member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2005
- Messages
- 520
- Reaction score
- 11
I'm not heading for 3 hours.. wtf!!!!! the callback feature is not working...
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
Will check why the call-back is not working.
MyDraadloos
Expert Member
The shortest route to hell ........
Somehow for me it works better to dial 082155, instead of just 155.
Once connected just hit 3 and then 0.
@ V3G - Is there an option for no music when you are put on hold. Listening to Lou Vega doing Mambo No.5 a few times in a row will drive any person dilly. Drives me up the wall ......... it obviously ties in with the advertising campaign, but it is just to much to handle.
Somehow for me it works better to dial 082155, instead of just 155.
Once connected just hit 3 and then 0.
@ V3G - Is there an option for no music when you are put on hold. Listening to Lou Vega doing Mambo No.5 a few times in a row will drive any person dilly. Drives me up the wall ......... it obviously ties in with the advertising campaign, but it is just to much to handle.
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
How long are you holding on? And did you get the ACB function?
Anyone else holding on for a long time, and not getting the ACB?
MyDraadloos
Expert Member
I presume you are referring to the Call Back function, if so ; have never used it.
Unfortunately I am into instant gratification, when I have time I log a call. When they call back I might not be able to answer and the matter will be forgotten.
The problem is that the communication with 155 is always one-sided in the sense that they ask questions, but never offer any "real" information.
I have seen some pretty big network management systems both locally and abroad where they are able to view the network in the minutest detail.
Why can 155 not give any real-time information. "Sorry sir your local tower is overloaded." Something like that I can understand ; I might not like it, but it is something I can understand ....... not "Please delete your APN and recreate the profile".
Which reminds me ......... seeing as the problems look very much the same as what I used to experience on GPRS I would take a guess that it is a capacity problem on Wierda 1 South & Wierda 2 South. These two towers are taking a lot of strain from the new low cost slums that have been built in Centurion.
When will Panorama be commisioned ?
rehd
Well-Known Member
I agree with Mydraadloos... give the 155 guys sumthing more than a screen to work with. Most of us by now are not vodacirgins and seems to know more about vodacoms network than these guys do?
When I ask a question I expect and answer for my question, not a "we have to start a process and cannot continue until the process has been completed.. " basically saying I am a robot and cannot for life of me think for myself or see past the screen which my eyes are glued to....
If I need to knwo if there is a 3G problem in a area, I dont need to go through a work-through that is going to take me 15 -20 min and then to find that there is still a problem. I would like to think that at least I can think a little further and try and diagnose a problem differently. Exept that 155 doesnt seemt o think and just follows orders from a little screen in front of them.\
And when you want to talk to sum body with a little bit of authority, damn there goes that Vodacom thing of dropped connection ....(or was it the operator...)
Vodacom stick sum peoiple in there that will inter act with the callers and not sum robots following points 1 to 99 without deviating from the script.
When I ask a question I expect and answer for my question, not a "we have to start a process and cannot continue until the process has been completed.. " basically saying I am a robot and cannot for life of me think for myself or see past the screen which my eyes are glued to....
If I need to knwo if there is a 3G problem in a area, I dont need to go through a work-through that is going to take me 15 -20 min and then to find that there is still a problem. I would like to think that at least I can think a little further and try and diagnose a problem differently. Exept that 155 doesnt seemt o think and just follows orders from a little screen in front of them.\
And when you want to talk to sum body with a little bit of authority, damn there goes that Vodacom thing of dropped connection ....(or was it the operator...)
Vodacom stick sum peoiple in there that will inter act with the callers and not sum robots following points 1 to 99 without deviating from the script.
ZR6RON
Active Member
Shortcut ??
V3G,
Could you not post the question tree that the call centre uses?
(As if we don't know most of the sequence . . . .)
That way we can anticipate the direction and short-circuit it in advance even if only to get to the log number.
V3G,
Could you not post the question tree that the call centre uses?
(As if we don't know most of the sequence . . . .)
That way we can anticipate the direction and short-circuit it in advance even if only to get to the log number.
AirWolf
Honorary Master
21.7 million subscribers are definitely going to take their toll on the call centres. Sure it is frustrating waiting for someone to pick up, but you have to realise that they are doing the best they can. Also put yourself in their positions - not all subscribers are as clued up as most of the people that frequent this site.
Last edited:
vodacom3g
Vodacom Representative
Cool! PM me your CV!
This a very difficult situation, the more clued-up a support guy, the less he wants to handle low-level problems. The techies on this forum will agree with this.
The challenge we (and every other technical call centre on this planet) have is how to keep skilled people on the call desk without boring and/or frustrating the crap out of them.
sky is quite right, the vast majority of the calls are not technically challenging and we all know engineers; they strive on a challenging environment. Instead they get hundreds of silly questions from users who cannot access a menu on their phones but (quite rightly) just want something to work. But we never know if it's a silly or challenging call coming in. (Hmmm, maybe an IVR option "Press 1 for silly question, 2 for cool, technical, burn your brain out question")
In addition to this, the number of agents on the call desk is growing rapidly and I'd love for someone to come up with a source of trained support people. They just don't exist in this country. So we need to train ourselves and this takes time.
So, we're doing our best. Actually 155 is doing quite well, although I do get an impression (on the forum) that lately the frustration levels have climbed a little bit again (probably the new agents).
In any case, above just a heads-up on some of the challenges. We obviously strive for a perfect call-desk, i.e. one that does not exist in the first place! (a perfect network with perfect users, won't need any support!)
LOL....
for people like my dad, he will call the call center and press 2 when he cant find the full stop on his phone while sending a sms.
Barfish88
Expert Member
Ya right, when you finally get through to Vodacom Dedicated Data Call centre, you cant even ask a simple question. You would think that the operators would actually know their product. I phoned them to get some prices on topups and out of bundle prices. These noobs couldnt give me a answer they first quoted me the old prices, then I told them to look at their calander they did and saw it was actually May. Oh well then the new fcken prices should apply. They still could not give me the correct rates, ended up going to thier website and quoting the prices to them. They should employ the correct person to do the job. Not to mention the one operator who couldnt answer me in English, and I dont speak Zulu (ended up putting the phone down on them).
Hobbit
Active Member
I often wonder why there never seems to be a system for escalation within call centers.... all calls taken by level 1 operators who escalate to level 2 (more skilled) operator if they cannot respond and so on up until level 5 who is God and who either fixes the problem or zaps the caller with a bolt of lightening
Barfish88
Expert Member
HSDPA Tweak
Hi all I found this tweak http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/2006/10/tcp_settings_fo.html
Would it work ?
TCP settings for HSDPA and ADSL
HSDPA, the 3.5G speed booster for UMTS networks is up and running in many neworks these days and data cards have been available for some time. Now, HSDPA phones have entered the market with Samsung's SGH-ZV50 and Nokia in close pursuit with the N95. As an article in the latest C'T, a german computer magazine, points out, some tweaks are required for the TCP/IP stack of the notebook to achieve full performance.
The tweak mainly consists in increasing the "TCP Receive Window" to 128480 bytes. The window is used to throttle a data transfer by using receiver acknowledgements which advance the receive window. This prevents receiver buffer overflows in the routers between source and destination which would appear if the sender has a faster connection to the to the network than the receiver. As HSDPA has a delay time of about 150ms, which is about three times higher than an equally fast DSL connection, three times more unacklnowledged data can be in transit. An appropriate window size should be much higher than the bandwidth delay product (BDP) of the connection. Take a look here for further explanations. For a 1800 kbit/s HSDPA link and a round trip delay time of 150 ms plus let's say an additional 80 ms delay in the Internet, the BDP is about 52 kBytes.
Other values Vodafone suggests to change is to increase the "Maximum MTU size" (packet size) to 1500 and to set the "Maximal TCP connect request retransmissions" parameter to 5.
The Test Run
To see if changing the values has a positive effect, I gave it a try myself. I don't have an HSDPA mobile yet (it's all in Nokia's hand...) so instead I tried the settings on my fast ADSL2+ Internet connection. While the round trip times of the ADSL line are quicker than HSDPA, the total bandwidth of 7 MBit/s (7000 kbit/s) I get on the line is much higher than HSDPA. Thus, changing the TCP window size should have an impact as well. To compare, I went to a web site that does not throttle transmissions on its end and downloaded a file. I achieved a download speed of about 3.5 MBit/s. With the new TCP window setting the speed went up to an amazing 7.000 kbit/s, i.e. the line was fully utilized. So if you have an ADSL or ADSL2+ connection with a speed exceeding 3.5 MBit/s the tweak is not only helpful for HSDPA but also for your ADSL connection at home.
How to Change the TCP Window Size
The TCP Window Size for Windows XP can be optimized with programs like Tweakmaster or TCPOptimizer. While Tweakmaster is easier to handle, their registration process for the free version is somewhat dubious. TCPOptimizer is really free but only seems to be able to change the settings for all network cards at once instead of individually.
It's also possible to change the parameters manually in the Windows registry. For network cards, the TCP receive window can be changed on a per adapter basis in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfacec\{Interface ID}. If not already present, create a new DWORD called TcpWindowSize and assign it a value of 64240 (decimal). I also tried to set it to 128480 but for some reason the value is not accepted and the standard window size of 17520 bytes is still used after a restart.
For dial up connections things seem to be handled differently by the operating system. Here, global values which are valid for all network connections have to be changed. These can be found in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\. If not already present, create the following DWORDs and assign them a value of 128480 (decimal): TcpWindowSize and MaxTcpWindowSize.
To activate network card specific changes the adapter has to be deactivated and activated again. For global values to take effect a reboot is required. If HSDPA is not always available it might be a good idea to remove these values before using a slower connection. This might proove to be somewhat impractical to do on a day to day basis due to the required restart.
To simplyfiy the process I've created to short scripts which add or remove the TcpWindowSize parameter from the list of global TCP parameters. Still, a reboot is required. You can find the two scripts at the end of this blog entry. The script to add the parameters is a .reg file so it can be executed by double clicking on the icon. The script to remove the parameters again is a .inf file which has to be executed by right clicking on the icon and selecting "execute" from the menu.
Bluetooth and HSDPA
A word to HSDPA mobile phone manufacturers: Make sure you put Bluetooth 2.0 into your phones as version 1.2's top speed of 723 kbit/s is far too slow for HSDPA. I don't want to be stuck with a cable again!
Hi all I found this tweak http://mobilesociety.typepad.com/mobile_life/2006/10/tcp_settings_fo.html
Would it work ?
TCP settings for HSDPA and ADSL
HSDPA, the 3.5G speed booster for UMTS networks is up and running in many neworks these days and data cards have been available for some time. Now, HSDPA phones have entered the market with Samsung's SGH-ZV50 and Nokia in close pursuit with the N95. As an article in the latest C'T, a german computer magazine, points out, some tweaks are required for the TCP/IP stack of the notebook to achieve full performance.
The tweak mainly consists in increasing the "TCP Receive Window" to 128480 bytes. The window is used to throttle a data transfer by using receiver acknowledgements which advance the receive window. This prevents receiver buffer overflows in the routers between source and destination which would appear if the sender has a faster connection to the to the network than the receiver. As HSDPA has a delay time of about 150ms, which is about three times higher than an equally fast DSL connection, three times more unacklnowledged data can be in transit. An appropriate window size should be much higher than the bandwidth delay product (BDP) of the connection. Take a look here for further explanations. For a 1800 kbit/s HSDPA link and a round trip delay time of 150 ms plus let's say an additional 80 ms delay in the Internet, the BDP is about 52 kBytes.
Other values Vodafone suggests to change is to increase the "Maximum MTU size" (packet size) to 1500 and to set the "Maximal TCP connect request retransmissions" parameter to 5.
The Test Run
To see if changing the values has a positive effect, I gave it a try myself. I don't have an HSDPA mobile yet (it's all in Nokia's hand...) so instead I tried the settings on my fast ADSL2+ Internet connection. While the round trip times of the ADSL line are quicker than HSDPA, the total bandwidth of 7 MBit/s (7000 kbit/s) I get on the line is much higher than HSDPA. Thus, changing the TCP window size should have an impact as well. To compare, I went to a web site that does not throttle transmissions on its end and downloaded a file. I achieved a download speed of about 3.5 MBit/s. With the new TCP window setting the speed went up to an amazing 7.000 kbit/s, i.e. the line was fully utilized. So if you have an ADSL or ADSL2+ connection with a speed exceeding 3.5 MBit/s the tweak is not only helpful for HSDPA but also for your ADSL connection at home.
How to Change the TCP Window Size
The TCP Window Size for Windows XP can be optimized with programs like Tweakmaster or TCPOptimizer. While Tweakmaster is easier to handle, their registration process for the free version is somewhat dubious. TCPOptimizer is really free but only seems to be able to change the settings for all network cards at once instead of individually.
It's also possible to change the parameters manually in the Windows registry. For network cards, the TCP receive window can be changed on a per adapter basis in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfacec\{Interface ID}. If not already present, create a new DWORD called TcpWindowSize and assign it a value of 64240 (decimal). I also tried to set it to 128480 but for some reason the value is not accepted and the standard window size of 17520 bytes is still used after a restart.
For dial up connections things seem to be handled differently by the operating system. Here, global values which are valid for all network connections have to be changed. These can be found in the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\. If not already present, create the following DWORDs and assign them a value of 128480 (decimal): TcpWindowSize and MaxTcpWindowSize.
To activate network card specific changes the adapter has to be deactivated and activated again. For global values to take effect a reboot is required. If HSDPA is not always available it might be a good idea to remove these values before using a slower connection. This might proove to be somewhat impractical to do on a day to day basis due to the required restart.
To simplyfiy the process I've created to short scripts which add or remove the TcpWindowSize parameter from the list of global TCP parameters. Still, a reboot is required. You can find the two scripts at the end of this blog entry. The script to add the parameters is a .reg file so it can be executed by double clicking on the icon. The script to remove the parameters again is a .inf file which has to be executed by right clicking on the icon and selecting "execute" from the menu.
Bluetooth and HSDPA
A word to HSDPA mobile phone manufacturers: Make sure you put Bluetooth 2.0 into your phones as version 1.2's top speed of 723 kbit/s is far too slow for HSDPA. I don't want to be stuck with a cable again!