Does Telkom really Stink?

[TonyA]

Hi All,
Contentious title, but think about it!

I applied for DSl on 7 Sep, it was installed on 5 Oct. I did have too fax things through more than once, but consider 30 days not too bad. Not acceptable, but not too bad! Ideal would have been same day!

On 13 Sep I found my telephone line was down (dead). I phoned Telkom at 0820 and was told as I had ADSL must report fault to them (ADSL Centre0800375 375). this I did at 1120. At 1300 I was phoned and fault reporting queiried ie had I tried certain things. At 1600 Call centre phoned to say technicians were on thier way. At 1710 techincians arrived and found line had blown between house and extension. They promptly fixed line by replacing wire and incidentally fixing two loose tiles in kitchen! By 1745 I was back on line and had telephone as well. At 1800, lady from call centre phoned to find out if techinians had rectified fault

My point.

Don't blame all at Telkom. Workers are good!
Blame the top managemnt, the planners, the strategists etc. It would seem they cannot care less, the workers at the coal face appear to be proud of good and prompt service.

My request.

Blame the guilty. I agree prices are high, service is poor, but Telkom had a 6.5 Bn rand profit. The workers who try hard did not benefit. Lets not gen ralise on this forum, but be specific and place blame at higher levels.

Lets be more specific! Not all Telkom is bad, just the top!

 

[LazyLion]

You are right of course - there are indeed some hard workers there and some people who actually know what they are doing. When I was waiting four months for my ADSL to be installed I came across a Telkom "Problem Solver" who took my case and got things on the go after the whole process had stalled. If it was not for him, I would still be sitting here with no telephone line of internet.

 

[Highflyer_GP]

Does telkom stink?

do we really have to answer

yes blame top management and shareholders who want maximum profit even at the cost of the country. the workers are generally good people, and we experience crap service because half the workforce has been laid off, leaving the remaining workforce to effectively do double the work at the same salary.

 

[armitage]

Well my little story started this saturday when i applied for adsl.

After helping my bud a day before install his adsl at home(self install) I was quite shocked to hear from the TELKOM saleslady that unfortunately self install is not available yet in the area.
I think it's not just me but this really gets my goats. After informing the lady that in fact i did help install a friends self install a day b4 and now she comes with this no availability story itreally pissed me off.
Luckily I persisted in telling her what she should have known herself which really peed her off. She did though mark the application as a self install in the end.

Funny though that while i was waiting for her to get back from one of the other salesmen. I overheard her asking him if the self install was available. He told her it was and even forwarded her the manual for self install.

Now she couldn't very well admit she was wrong so she persisted at all the fields where she could to mark "User request self install. No available data"


So to sum it up.
Upper management is 99% of the time the culprit. But you do have the situation of employees not knowing their work.
Its the same as you walking into a computer shop and asking for the latest gfx series card and the salesman says......ummmmm we have the gfx -2 series cards and it's like the best.

 

[Moederloos]

You ask "Does Telkom really stink?"

the answer, of course, is "Yes".

Mentioning a few hard workers is fine, but THEY are not Telkom - to the hard workers we all say "Thank you", however, that does not make Telkom as a whole a good company.

 

[sunsoffun]

I was with Telewest in the UK. I cancelled my service with them, phoned up NTL and they were there the very next day, with my service up and running. Which included my TV, phone and broadband which in real terms is about a 500% cheaper to what Im paying now.

Have we just become acceptable to bad service, I wonder?

 

[armitage]

It's more i think the case that so many of these companies take so long and have always taken that long that we are expecting it now.

I have to say after watching the lady fill in the forms on the telkom program that it took too much time to just fill in the blerry form. Honestly she was typing away for like 20 minutes to get all the fields filled in.
Theres no way that the system that they use is efficient.
Unfortunately management don't think that "Hey is this system we are using time and so cost effective? Do I need to look at doing a systems analysis to see how much i can save with a better more efficient system?"
By speeding up their internals they can make a ton load of more money because the sales ppl can then handle a lot more customers in a given amount of time than previously with the old way.

Sad really. I think the CTO in that hellhole should really be fired for negligence of duty.

 

[Moederloos]

By speeding up their internals they can make a ton load of more money because the sales ppl can then handle a lot more customers in a given amount of time than previously with the old way.

While I agree with your sentiments, one must remember that the statement I quoted is only true in a competitive environment. In the case of Telkom, it makes no difference at all how long or inefficient the system is, because where else can you go?

 

[stoke]

They're forcing us to PAY PER GB for local content.
They change the details of the product you've already paid for without even getting your consent, and then they claim that you are happy with the changes.
They refuse to provide any garauntee's regarding any product they sell.
They lie blatently in their advertising, misleading the public. [Been forced to remove 5 adverts this year so far...]
They say that 3GB a month as the MAXIMUM anybody could want, and then allow you to buy more than 3GB a month.
They sell you nGB, and then refuse to carry over your unused capacity - this by the way is theft in any other country !
They have not met their licence-specific requirement mandate to roll out telephony to rural area's.
They are being outclassed by wireless service telephony [cell] providers.

Of course they stink. They stink so badly that a minimum of 4 websites exist with the sole purpose of slating them and their services. Every week their marketing division has to fight off new complaints and accusations from the public at large, and all this in a country where there is traditionally no consumer action.

I can smell them from Atlanta. PHEW.

 

[Slooth]

Been two months since I placed my order, still waiting. I got an installation date, the 24th of October. It's now the 14th of November and I'm still waiting for Telkom to phone me and tell me why they didn't do the install.

I've been told different lies from the support desk, the best being that they were trying to find me ports at the exchange; being I'm the only one in the area to have applied for the service made it hard to swallow.

Telling the operator that their service was not up to scratch and asking for a number for another company that could come and install the service was met by dumb founded silence on the other end.

 

[sunsoffun]

I can smell them from Atlanta. PHEW.

Is that what that smell is. For a moment I tought it was communications head Lulu Letlape talking **** again.

 

[WiseCrack]

What stoke said. They are bleeding this country dry for as long as they can and believe me they have been doing it for a hell of a long time.

You are referring to things any company should be doing by default ie customer service.

The only thing I will agree on is that its not always the people working for them who should be blamed although I would like to see the people working at the helpdesk to improve greatly.