Long Telkom call centre hold-times

Unisa might take a while since they closed their call center.
 
I held on for over an hour the other day; eventually put through to rep, only to be put back to the voice prompt.
 
“Customers may also tweet Telkom via @TelkomZA or post on the TelkomZA Facebook page. We have a dedicated digital team working to gather the necessary information directly from our customers. The team then connect with the technical support to resolve the query.”

yeah use twitter...

report fault on monday. 12 Jan
no response for a week.

Go to TelkomZa on myBB (19 Jan)
2 days later get a response. it was a lie, flat out.

send tweet on monday.(26 Jan) no response.
tweet 3 times a minute for tuesday, wednesday and thursday (during business hours)

get a response the next monday (02 Feb).

get fault fixed the following thursday(05 Feb). total downtime, 12th Jan to 05 feb
Rep from Twitter calls the Following Monday (09 Feb) wants to know if I was happy with the service.

BitCo here I come.

take your Call center staff, Social media retards who don't know how a keyboard works, your a technician has been assigned bullSh*t and go take a bath with a toaster.

to the person from Telkom Who responded to the questions in this article, you should be ashamed.

In this time of load shedding I still hate Telkom more than Eskom, and that is saying something.
 
Wow surely the the reporter challenged the Telkom PRO when she said there were no capacity problems. To me the article is just regurgitated spin with no solutions in site except that you shouldn't use the call centre.

Also how about, did the PRO feel uncomfortable saying this? Surely you can put more pressure on her to answer truthfully when you know what she is saying is BS!
 
It's a pity that Telkom has completely emasculated their Telkom Direct stores. You used to be able to walk into a Telkom Direct store and get someone to help you with an administrative problem. It's seems nowadays the only thing you can do in a Telkom Direct store is pay your bill, open up a new account, or buy an overpriced router. Anything else and they just refer you to the call centre. You can't even cancel your account at a Telkom Direct store anymore.
 
Reported a fault on the 3/02/2015, today is the 10/02/2015.

A week later, still no phone or ADSL. Yet, their bill is always on time.
 
I was on hold for 1 hour 6 minutes this morning before getting through... very happy I have a speakerphone so I could get on with my life whilst waiting.
 
10210 used to have a "phone me back" option (might only have been for Telkom landline callers), anyone know if this has been discontinued?
 
Had to phone 10210 today, got the usual "we are experience high call rates / long waiting times" and was dreading being on hold for hours. Completely surprised when my total time (on hold + guy helping reset account) was only 7min3sec!
 
The alternative logging logging are a joke. After 3 days, Telkom will send you an automated SMS to let you know that the problem has magically disappeared without them having to lift a finger. Every.single.time. Yesterday I mustered the courage to phone them. On hold for 20 minutes, had to go to a meeting, gave up. Tried again, 20 minutes, meeting, gave up. Tried again, 42 minutes before someone answered the phone.
 
I remember once calling Telkom, it went like one of those nightmare stories which are so ridiculous you doubt if this stuff actually happens, until it happens to you.

It all lasted over 40 minutes, from the time I got to speak to someone and I don't remember how long I waited for that. Our ADSL was completely non functional and every person I spoke to would ask about my wifi, computer this, wifi that. Explaining that the local wifi network was working perfectly and unrelated did nothing to convince them that wifi was not the problem for the ADSL not working, eventually they would put me through to another person and the same conversation would start all over, and over.

Eventually I started writing down the numbers they were putting me through to, what do you know I was the hot potato and was being passed around and around a big loop of numbers, I eventually started to recognise a few voices and when I pointed that out "poof" they'd hang up.

Phoning Telkom can be an incredibly infuriating experience, though as bad as it is I doubt I'd ever bother with an alternative that they can completely ignore like sending an SMS.
 
deweyzeph said:
It's a pity that Telkom has completely emasculated their Telkom Direct stores. You used to be able to walk into a Telkom Direct store and get someone to help you with an administrative problem. It's seems nowadays the only thing you can do in a Telkom Direct store is pay your bill, open up a new account, or buy an overpriced router. Anything else and they just refer you to the call centre. You can't even cancel your account at a Telkom Direct store anymore.
Click to expand...

Agree with you (except on the payment part - that is still a struggle)!

The day they made the decision to convert those stores into a "sales channel" will haunt them.

Telkom had a presence in almost every city, town, dorpie. The shop was called a client service branch. And the staff did just that... made sure the client was satisfied that their problem was being addressed and the client had a single person who he/she could contact. This gave them a significant competitive advantage, which they did not recognise and simply canned it to save on costs.

This led to the rise of the "Telkom Direct Shops", an utter failure in terms of locations. Instead of paying a bit extra for rental, they negotiated for the cheapest and got the worst locations. Walk into any major mall and what telecoms shops do you see? Cell C, Vodacom, MTN. Hidden somewhere in the middle of the mall you might find a Telkom Direct shop.

Initially these shops were also a one-stop shop but that quickly changed... The latest piece of stupidity is to enter the shop and the "agent" points you to a phone plonked on a table in the middle of nowhere and tells you to phone 10210. :wtf:

Come on, Brian Armstrong, I know you are reading this... make a change!!!
 
“We are having quite a difficult time, for the last 15 years and it has, unfortunately, had a negative impact on our customers’ experience,” said Telkom’s Jacqui O’Sullivan.

There... ftfy
 
Browser said:
Phoning Telkom can be an incredibly infuriating experience, though as bad as it is I doubt I'd ever bother with an alternative that they can completely ignore like sending an SMS.
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Same, which is why I'll never bother logging a fault using one of these so-called alternate channels. They just don't inspire confidence that they'll actually get around to anything. I tried applying for a new line online, and apparently someone was meant to call me back. After waiting for a week with 0 feedback, I finally caved and sat on hold 30 minutes, but at least they processed the order. Now the long wait begins for them to actually getting around to doing anything...
 
Beachless said:
Unisa might take a while since they closed their call center.
Click to expand...

THIS!
Unisa are the worst.

Phoned telkom yesterday to cancel my ADSL, waited for who knows how long, got through and they ended the call. Did it again, got through and had to stay on the line for around 20 minutes with the guy telling me every 10 seconds 'I'm still here... I'm still waiting...' cos their computer system was so dog slow. If they can't even run an efficient call center and data system, how the heck can we trust them with our own data?
 
I've been calling their call centre for the past couple of days for my ADSL issues. Each time, the automated voice prompts try to force me to log the fault through their alternative means rather than letting me hold on for an actual agent. Simply pathetic.
 
Not renewing contracts for 480 staff and telling the people this should not impact the service is just stupid which ever way you look at it , and most subscribers waiting more than half an hour to be answered .

"Asked how the purge would affect Telkom’s call centre, O’Sullivan said at the time they were comfortable they had sufficient capacity to handle call volumes.

She reaffirmed this when asked about the recent problems at their call centre, saying they had not closed any of their call centre operations."

Why not just say you cocked up and bloody fix the problem .
 
The most common excuses provided by Telkom in this article are complete and utter bull****.

Any call centre manager would tell you that you plan for seasonal issues that has historically caused an increased call load. Rain, storms and flash flooding are NOT an excuse. If you'd planned properly you'd have sufficient staff to handle the increased call volumes. To add loadshedding to the list of excuses makes the reply even more pathetic. Loadshedding is a reality for us Saffers. Plan for the fallout.

Try again, Telkom, this was pathetic.
 
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