Is Webafrica falling apart?

E

Eye9od

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Hey folks

I've read my fair share of complaints on Facebook, Twitter, and on here, and I've made my fair share of complaints too.

WA is just not delivering when it comes to fibre, and beyond that, it seems that their support services are really struggling: no answer on calls (protip: call the sales department; they'll ALWAYS pick up, and then transfer you to the right department), no return calls, no response via email, Facebook or Twitter, broken chat service.

It appears that they've even disabled user posts on their Facebook pages as it was being inundated by people calling them the "worst service ever."

I kind of wanted to put together a thread that collects all of these issues from different folks in different locations, and see if there's a general consensus that WA's just not up to scratch anymore.

So, please share your thoughts here.

Mine are that I'm on the verge of leaving for another ISP.
 
I still think they have a great infrastructure, and in general the fiber delays are out of their control - but yeah their support can be incredibly slow.

If you're not happy just vote with your wallet and move on..
 
I am about to cancel my order, as I have managed to get a decent connection (10up 10 down) fibre backbone R513/month 120GB over wireless.

Untitled.pngCapture.JPG
 
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Man, I don't understand all the Webafrica haters on here. I've been using them for four years without a single hiccup, and that includes two service cancellations (that I was no longer using) and a service relocation (when I moved). So are they falling apart? No, not from where I'm sitting.

If you're going to judge any company by its underpaid frontline staff, you're going to be sorely disappointed. About 90% of the customer care engagements I have are negative overall, but that's as much a reflection on the lacking professionalism from call centre staff as it is on the company (and no indication at all of the actual back-end infrastructure).
 
Anthro said:
I am about to cancel my order, as I have managed to get a decent connection (10up 10 down) fibre backbone R513/month 120GB over wireless.
Click to expand...

Looking at that last image,if your address number isn't listed there,even though the map shows dark purple coverage,it means Openserve wont allow them to proceed with the requested order. Thats between Telkom Retail and Openserve. Not much WA can do about a system they don't administrate
 
iDoS said:
Looking at that last image,if your address number isn't listed there,even though the map shows dark purple coverage,it means Openserve wont allow them to proceed with the requested order. Thats between Telkom Retail and Openserve. Not much WA can do about a system they don't administrate
Click to expand...

Why thank you for the inside iDoS.
Hence the cancellation, they cannot provide the service at all, untill OpenServe gets their asses in gear.
Did you also read what I said about the expectation created through their communication, they keep saying that the order is on it's way and is sucessful - but they cannot give me an order number, yes an Openserv issue.

They are yet to reply to my email sent to the "dedicated fibre team sent December 3 [#4514937] requesting to speak to an agent
 
Anthro said:
Why thank you for the inside iDoS.
Hence the cancellation, they cannot provide the service at all, untill OpenServe gets their asses in gear.
Did you also read what I said about the expectation created through their communication, they keep saying that the order is on it's way and is sucessful - but they cannot give me an order number, yes an Openserv issue.

They are yet to reply to my email sent to the "dedicated fibre team sent December 3 [#4514937] requesting to speak to an agent
Click to expand...

Cant comment on their lack of communication personally, but from what you guys describe, it is unacceptable. I'll circle back to this
That successful comment was an interesting one.

If it was automated email notification with no human interaction,it might mean that your WA order was captured on WA's system. The fact that they dont/didn't have an order number for you from Openserve means that there is/was difficulties processing it through the avail systems they were provided by Openserve.

This probably means that your address didnt show up when using that utility they use(posted in the screenshot),however because it was still purple it meant that theres hope for you to get it. The consulting started with openserve to get you the service, Who knows where it fell short. This is the gripe I think, they don't communicate this with the customer, advising that there's a problem.

One thing I do know is,with Fibre, there's only a projected completion time frame. Every install is different,even if your neighbours happens within a day,yours might take a month or two.Glad you got sorted out in the end though
 
They wasn't even able to send me an invoice when I tried to order the ZyXEL router.

His direct words was we don't do invoices you must order online....

Idiots
 
I wouldn't recommend them.

International performance (even via multiple segmented connections) is a mess via Webafrica fiber (this using 100/100). Local is blazingly fast.

Service isn't great.

Opened a ticket on 28 Nov. Handed over to "senior ADSL (!!??) support" on 6 December. Still haven't heard a word back.

Tried calling their support desk 4 times over as many days - but gave up after holding for up to 30 minutes at a time.

Cancelled, moving over to Cool Ideas end of January.

In the interim, I'm using my old Telkom LTE Uncapped for anything international (since I get more than 3x the international performance using LTE).

Yep, it's that bad.

Won't miss 'em.
 
Personally my experience wasnt too bad with them.

The router install team was excellent.

The bulk of the support staff were very friendly and helpful sparing one guy i spoke to.

Their knowledge on what goes on at opensereve is a bit poor so their email response isnt very informative.

I got my fibre up and running quickly.

Speed is good. Downloaded forza horizon 3 yesterday in a hour and a half.

For my own personal experience id give them a report card with a score of 70%.

That said im of the mindset that a good attitude from a customer yields a good attitude from the worker. So when i called them i always brought along my friendliest face and my supply of understanding from their perspective and patience and they usually respond in kind.

Obviously i dont know any of you guys so im not implying any of you are rude or bad customers but i think we all tend to become blind with impatience and rage when we want something and we want it NOW.
 
Nice one Voldoverse, it's refreshing to see a customer who realises that their own attitude plays a role in the process. I'm always struck by the irony of people who complain about how rude the clients are who they have to serve in their jobs, and then are rude towards businesses themselves.
 
Maybe. But probably not.

The proportion of WA issues reported here and elsewhere (as per the original post) is disproportionately high for it to all be the customer's fault.

Afrihost, Mweb, DFA and Fiberhoods are providers I've dealt with in the past with overall satisfaction.

Even my experience with Telkom (after 2 ADSL lines and their Uncapped LTE) has been pretty reasonable in my experience, save for some occasional LTE unreliability and their dodgy 200GB fair use policy (which got increased to 300GB, which is fine by me).

Webafrica has been running massive ad campaigns lately: maybe they've grown faster than their staff can comfortably handle. It certainly could get better. It's just not great now, and if there're viable alternatives, they're hard to recommend.



voldoverse said:
Speed is good. Downloaded forza horizon 3 yesterday in a hour and a half.

For my own personal experience id give them a report card with a score of 70%.
Click to expand...

Steam and XBL are cached locally.

To test international performance, could you try a multi-threaded download of Ubuntu?

Link is here:
http://releases.ubuntu.com/16.04.1/ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso

My Telkom LTE provides a 7-8MB/s download speed.

My Webafrica fiber gives me under 2MB/s. (Local downloads and local speedtests are excellent on both).
 
Joker said:
I still think they have a great infrastructure, and in general the fiber delays are out of their control - but yeah their support can be incredibly slow.

If you're not happy just vote with your wallet and move on..
Click to expand...

That's the plan, but in the span of two to three years I've moved from MWEB to Crystalweb to Vox to Afrihost to Webafrica to Connected Space back to Afrihost then again to Webafrica (ADSL) and now fibre on WA.

Suffice it to say I'm just a little over it by now. Is it too much to ask for a single reliable ISP?
 
Foxhound5366 said:
Man, I don't understand all the Webafrica haters on here. I've been using them for four years without a single hiccup, and that includes two service cancellations (that I was no longer using) and a service relocation (when I moved). So are they falling apart? No, not from where I'm sitting.

If you're going to judge any company by its underpaid frontline staff, you're going to be sorely disappointed. About 90% of the customer care engagements I have are negative overall, but that's as much a reflection on the lacking professionalism from call centre staff as it is on the company (and no indication at all of the actual back-end infrastructure).
Click to expand...

1) Missing initial fibre installation appointment; I had to follow up, despite getting no response to emails, phone calls, Fb and Twitter for an unacceptably long time.
2) Massive issues after new router was introduced to my ecosystem; took a lot of trouble shooting on my part to figure out.
3) Inconsistent speeds on fibre since I signed up.
4) Terribly poor support when I reach out, as mentioned in OP: phones don't get answered; Fb and Tweets ignored; emails ignored; online chat not functioning effectively.

At least now that I've got the personal email address of a really helpful tech, it feels like I'm being looked after and valued as a customer; that sense of personal service goes a long way, and WA used to be good at it, but they've dropped the ball since I signed up.
 
Wahlburg said:
I wouldn't recommend them.

International performance (even via multiple segmented connections) is a mess via Webafrica fiber (this using 100/100). Local is blazingly fast.

Service isn't great.

Opened a ticket on 28 Nov. Handed over to "senior ADSL (!!??) support" on 6 December. Still haven't heard a word back.

Tried calling their support desk 4 times over as many days - but gave up after holding for up to 30 minutes at a time.

Cancelled, moving over to Cool Ideas end of January.

In the interim, I'm using my old Telkom LTE Uncapped for anything international (since I get more than 3x the international performance using LTE).

Yep, it's that bad.

Won't miss 'em.
Click to expand...

^THIS!

Please advise as to your experience with CISP; have heard great things and may be moving on in 2017.
 
voldoverse said:
Personally my experience wasnt too bad with them.

The router install team was excellent.

The bulk of the support staff were very friendly and helpful sparing one guy i spoke to.

Their knowledge on what goes on at opensereve is a bit poor so their email response isnt very informative.

I got my fibre up and running quickly.

Speed is good. Downloaded forza horizon 3 yesterday in a hour and a half.

For my own personal experience id give them a report card with a score of 70%.

That said im of the mindset that a good attitude from a customer yields a good attitude from the worker. So when i called them i always brought along my friendliest face and my supply of understanding from their perspective and patience and they usually respond in kind.

Obviously i dont know any of you guys so im not implying any of you are rude or bad customers but i think we all tend to become blind with impatience and rage when we want something and we want it NOW.
Click to expand...

For sure; one must remain cool, but after you're been ignored for days to weeks, your patience wears thin.

Since I found a tech I now know by name, and whose email addy I have, it's a bit better. But it took me long enough to sort out.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
Nice one Voldoverse, it's refreshing to see a customer who realises that their own attitude plays a role in the process. I'm always struck by the irony of people who complain about how rude the clients are who they have to serve in their jobs, and then are rude towards businesses themselves.
Click to expand...

Well, now you're just generalising. If a service provider doesn't deliver on their promises, surely one can hold them accountable? That's not to say that it gives you the right to be offensive, but it does mean that if you're impatient or irritable due to increasing frustrating thanks to their lack of service, part of their job description is to deal with that and support their customers regardless?

Service delivery isn't known for its hospitality towards the provider insofar as unsatisfied customers are concerned; people have a right to be unhappy when they're not getting the service they're paying for, and in WA's case, I do think there's more demand than there is supply at present, and they're not coping as a result; that's not the customer's fault: it's theirs.
 
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