iBurst makes amends

[ic]

http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=1467

 

[rooijan]

Excuses

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses.

A business still in its infancy? Bad service is bad service, no matter how old you are.

 

[DigitalSoldier]

I think they deserve the excuse they are not a monopoly they are almost 1 year old in the sense of providing internet to the public so they have a lot to learn and they are atleast trying to amend for it unline telkom thats been around since the stone age and dont care about customers they wont even take the time to send an email and telkom still believes there adsl are the evolution of the internet

 

[bwana]

Amends - amends |əˌmɛn(d)z| plural noun [treated as sing. ] reparation or compensation.

They made an apology.

 

[sand_man]

Iburst are certainly taking a lot of stick from users and quite rightly so but honestly if you speak to the right people at the company they can and do offer remarkable service. Firefli had an antenna and modem installed within 48 hours of contacting Shaun Green. He now is enjoying 70KBps dl speeds at half the price of ADSL.

 

[RVFmal]

Iburst are certainly taking a lot of stick from users and quite rightly so but honestly if you speak to the right people at the company they can and do offer remarkable service. Firefli had an antenna and modem installed within 48 hours of contacting Shaun Green. He now is enjoying 70KBps dl speeds at half the price of ADSL.

I do agree, but at the end of the day, as has already been said, bad service is bad service and iBurst/WBS can ill afford to chase what few clients they have away.

The product is good (though far from comparable to what is being offered by ADSL service providers in other country's). The service is shocking (if at most times deplorable) and only having one or two employees willing to take up the slack of the slackers is not good enough.

Even though they are only a year old, what has been meted out by them this year will haunt them long into the future. If anything they should have excelled at the service levels whilst they were trying to iron out the teething problems whilst rolling out their product. Unfortunately they did not.

 

[sand_man]

Agreed

 

[sand_man]

For me the issue is how does wbs compare to the competition and they doing quite well considering the competition is totally inept. In the land of the blind the man with one eye is king!!

Simply put what are the consumers alternatives??! Simply put there aren't any! I prefer dealing with wbs to telkom any day of the week.

I made 6 applications for adsl over the last 4 months and each time was told the fibre optic wire wasn't suitable for adsl but keep trying I was told. Imagine that? I must chase telkom and check their infrastructure is up to date so that I can subscribe to a service that I would be over charged for in any case. You got to be kidding, for me iburst is streets ahead of telkom...

 

[rooijan]

Good tech badly implemented

In my neck of the woods iBurst's agent has put up posters proclaiming Internet access for a bargain price. Looks good but then the fine print kicks in. To get started you have to buy a ruinously expensive proprietary modem. Then you only get half a gig of traffic at speeds that may or may not actually resemble broadband. Want more traffic? Upgrade to the next package of course and we'll set you up with a massive 3 gig. Can't afford the modem? Sign up for 24 month contract an you can get if for "free". Suddenly Telkom starts looking good.

 

[RVFmal]

Not much debate going on in this thread, here's something to discuss - a 'what if' the SNO entered the broadband arena with Customer Service issues similar to those experienced with WBS' iBurst Customer Service over the past year:

What if the SNO entered the broadband arena with a fledgling [from the SNO's perspective] broadband product e.g. xDSL or WiMax [as a competitor to Telkodemonopoly's ADSL], and the SNO decided to give the same sort of customer service that WBS have given over the last year...also bear in mind that the SNO has already stated that it is not going to enter into a price war with Telkodemonopoly, so:

• Would you be happy with a fledgling [from SNO's perspective] broadband service from the SNO at a Telkodemonopoly price, and with a WBS-like level of customer service?
• Would you be prepared to switch from broadband service whatever to the SNO's broadband service if it resembled [A]?

Now, what do you think about WBS' iBurst Customer Service levels/issues over the past year?

As stipulated, their service levels are atrocious, but as is the case with all companies competing against monopoly that most people despise, they will switch to the non-monopoly even if the service levels are bad.

In actual fact, if one reads through the posts pertaining to the SNO, there are many people who stipulated that they would switch immediately even if the levels of service were not up to standard.

This is why companies like WBS have been able to get away with it - limited choice! At the end of the day we will continue to have similar problems with all companies concerned due to the dire lack of competition.

WBS know that they have a fantastic product (when it works) and as such feel that that is enough to keep them in the market. What we need are another 4 or 5 companies offering exactly the same technology. What will then differentiate the companies are levels of service experienced.

It all boils down to the complete lack of competition and until the market is completely liberalised in ALL aspects, we will be lumbered with the same problems indefinitely.

 

[RVFmal]

...maybe WBS could even afford to lower prices and increase the cap and drop their horrid shaping...

As much as this would be an ideal situation, given the track record of virtually all telecommunications and IT companies in this country, I feel that this would be a pipe dream.

WBS, like all their counterparts are in this for the money only and if it means that the consumer is shafted at the end of the day then so be it. The only thing that would change the situation that we are currently in is a forward thinking CEO surrounded by pasionate partners and employees whose aim it is to roll out the best possible product at the most affordable price to the benefit of the consumer. Give him what he wants and you will reap the rewards tenfold.

However we have the exact opposite, in that they want to provide as little as possible for as much as is deemed "affordable" (and in most cases this is not the case), backed up by people who are there to earn a salary (which is enough for them to get by from month to month.

If I had my way, I would ideally start a company that could offer an ADSL product that would be beyond compare, not "in line with" other companies, make it affordable, and give the staff the opportunity to grow the comany, not just for my benfit and that of the investors, but for theirs as well through stock options and the like. The harder they work to ensure growth and sustainability, the larger the reward.

*sigh* for a few million to get started and poke one in the eye of all those companies who are milking us dry.

 

[Neo]

Companies are there to make money. This is common business sense. No company will intentionally shaft their customers. You don't kill the goose that lay the golden eggs. If you do, you won't survive long.

I'm often amazed at the ignorant statements from members here on how we're all getting screwed. I dare anyone here to start up a company (takes slightly more than a few million, by the way) and then become a charity, i.e. make no profit or even a loss just so "customers don't get milked dry".

If you put in the money, take the risk, is understaffed, try and get a unstable product out and improve it, and still get up every morning to go forward, surely you deserve to make some profit.

The free market will always determine pricing, as long as it's truly free. Telkom is an obvious exception as there is no free fixed-line market in this country.

WBS is obviously struggling and is not spending enough in areas where it's hurting the company. Hopefully they'll get through it but it's a chicken and egg situation; you need customers to make money to spend on customer service. However, you need customer service to help sell the company.

For the record, I don't work for WBS or even use their products but have been following the problems as described on this forum.

It's cleary an outfit that's still learning the ropes. Deploying radio networks and structuring CRM is not so easy as we all would like to believe. Yet they have great technology.

Actually, makes you wonder if they're not ripe for a buyout? (MTN, Vodacom, Cell-C perhaps?)

 

[RVFmal]

Companies are there to make money. This is common business sense.

Absolutely. At no time did we say that we expect the company to become a charity and provide us with a free product. However if one looks at the current rates that we are paying in this country for ALL forms of broadband and compare it to similar products available on the international market, there is a rather large and distinct difference and this does lead one to start wondering why. The usual excuses unfortunately are starting to wear a little thin.

Forgive us for being a little sceptical about the cost, but we have been subjected to being over-charged for virtually everything from cars to telecommunications for far too long and we will voice our opinions in this regard.

I'm often amazed at the ignorant statements from members here on how we're all getting screwed. I dare anyone here to start up a company (takes slightly more than a few million, by the way) and then become a charity, i.e. make no profit or even a loss just so "customers don't get milked dry".

Many of the statements made are not ignorant, but importatnt questions relating to comparisons already done between the products available here and abroad. Yes there has been the odd unsubstantiated gripe, but this is due to the fact that not enough information is provided to us as consumers to ease our minds in this regards.

The main gripe about WBS is the SERIOUS lack of customer service and blatant disregard for complaints and queries placed by the PAYING client. There is no excuse for this regardless of how understaffed you are, or how despondent when you wake up every morning to assist in running a multi million rand business. That last fact alone should be more than enough to motivate you as you stand to lose a huge amount should your existing clients cancel and move to another company.

Yes they have great technology, that much has already been said, but if you have staff (and management) who show scant regard for a clients request or complaint, then you have a serious problem and should re-evaluate the reasons for starting the business in the first place.

Teething problems are teething problems. They have now had a year in which to get the basis of the business up and running, yet they have yet to fix the most important problem and until they do, we will continue to point it out to them until they eventually get it right or close their doors.

Whilst starting a company such as this is no walk in the park, they should have done the relevant due diligence and foreseen most of the problems that were experienced, but this is in no way an excuse for bad or non-existant service.

 

[LOrd_DeM@rKalin]

Iburst can apoligise all they want. They are as bad as helkom if not worst. There staff must be retarded and there technology SUX BIG balls
I hope the new year brings better everything from ibursts side, if not i hope they crash and burn