Open letter to iBurst

MagicDude4Eva

MagicDude4Eva

Banned
Joined
Apr 2, 2008
Messages
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Location
Jo'burg
While I believe the company has great vision and is using good technology, it's implementation and execution really sucks. With my ADSL-installation approaching quickly, very soon I will be one of the happy non-iBurst customers.

I posted the following to the management team of iBurst in the hope that the company will at least address some common issues. (Even more so due to their nomination for "Best Operator in a Developing Country")

Hi XXXX,

while I am proud that a South African company features for such an nomination, I (and many of your customers) do not necessarily agree with such a nomination. Iburst started out as a great company several years ago, but customer service as well as your service offering has deteriorated over the years.

I have been a loyal customer to iBurst for years and my monthly spend exceeds 1,5K and especially over the last 2 months your service offering has reached such unacceptable levels, that many of your customers are moving of to competitors (Neotel, Telkom etc). I am certain that your churn-rate reflects this.

I think your company should honestly reflect on your achievements and consider why you should be nominated as best operator in a developing country. True – your competition does not outshine you, but I hope that my email will make your executive team re-evaluate your core-principles and strategies.

iBurst wanting to become a great company, you should revisit the following:
  • Not have more than 500 complaints over 12 months on HelloPeter: http://www.hellopeter.com/comp_comment.asp?cid=766
  • Your accounts/retention departments seem to consistently mess up. Either customers get double-billed or billed incorrectly.
  • Any customer service function – such as migrating up/down, cancelling a contract etc is cumbersome: http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=97
  • Your helpdesk is technically not equipped to serve customers. Your standard answer seems to always be: “Check your MTU settings”
  • When you experience technical problems (and there have been plenty over the last 30 days), you never provide an ETA
  • Your call-centre never returns a call, and it is always up to your customer to follow up
  • You advertise broadband services, but on average most of your customer base does not seem to get true broadband.
  • Your company is not interested in communicating with your customer base. You used to have people on MyAdsl and other forums. You used to have your own support-blog --- those had been received well in the broadband community – but those offerings disappeared as critical people left.

I have personally given up on iBurst (see my website here: http://www.naschenweng.info/2008/09/30/iburst-still-no-broadband and here http://www.naschenweng.info/2008/09/23/iburst-fix-your-broadband). I have now applied for a highspeed ADSL line, since as an IT-professional I can not provide service to my clients on a 120kbps (yes KiloBITS) and will cancel iBurst once I have Telkom service installed.

I do believe that you are running a great company, and you have great goals and visions, and with the right focus around open customer communication (you are an ISP, why can’t you send out a monthly email-newsletter to your customer base) and improving your technical- and customer-service you would honestly be able to qualify for above nomination.

I hope you take the above constructive criticism and apply it to future strategies – your company runs great technology, has some passionate employees, but seems to lack a great deal of focus and direction.
 
As a lot of us have learnt, they simply don't care. Their attitude is as flippant as any other service provider in SA. Their position is, if you don't like it, shame, go somewhere else and f-off.
 
Falling on deaf ears.

Maybe send to the editors of all the newspapers you can get a hold of. Try to get it published in the opion column or something.
 
I have got the following response from TeleTotal ([email protected], [email protected]) - the organisers for the nomination:

>Hi Gerd

Thank you for your email. The judges base their decision purely on
the information provided and their expert knowledge. I will ensure
they are made aware of your comments.

Kind regards

Rob Chambers
Publisher, Total Telecom

By the sounds of the above iBurst will probably score that nomination. I think if you want to make your voice heard, you should post your concerns to the organisers. (Then again, South African's are known to complain but not really put any effort into trying to change things - much complacency)
 
Nice one, they didn't even respond to my e-mail either..... Maybe I should send my e-mail to rob and joanna
 
I hope you take the above constructive criticism and apply it to future strategies – your company runs great technology, has some passionate employees, but seems to lack a great deal of focus and direction.
Click to expand...
I think this statement is OVERRATED!

from the numerous employees that I've met... they are FAR from passionate! Even they diss their own company and rate them as INCOMPENTANT and useless!
 
4 months to activate my iBurst after I got the hardware !!!! - hell, Telkom moved my ADSL from my old flat to my new one in less than 7 days.

BTW: it took iBurst 5 weeks to get me my hardware too - and our company has a reseller account... we where not impressed.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
I have got the following response from TeleTotal ([email protected], [email protected]) - the organisers for the nomination:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the email address above... I have just emailed them detailing the utter crap service and incredulous disbelief at their nomination. Perhaps after a number of email messages, they may even pass on the info to the organisers...

P.s on a side note, my sister in law has had NOT A SINGLE ISSUE since switching to ADSL.

Not a single one.

iBust was an almost weekly, if not daily, frustrating run-around with the helldesk and frequent authenticate errors and disconnects.

iBurst was ALWAYS BUST, ADSL so far always flying. Sites just load and things just work. Cheaper too! ADSL seems to be THE way to go for ex iBust customers if it is available in their area. There is just NO comparison she says.

Just my 2 cents worth.:rolleyes:
 
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Well at least on ADSL you don't have outrageous TCP/IP protocol restrictions that would make Jon Postel turn in his grave...
 
Well I'm very glad to see some people actually doing something, hopefully it will make a difference. I am not a iburst subscriber (praise the Lord!) so I cant really complain, but it really makes me mad when I see companies like this get nominations when it is so blatantly obvious that they are by far the least deserving of it.
 
No response yet... tick tock.

Waits wondering just how much iBust paid for the nomination...
 
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