kwaggawerner
Senior Member
Right. So I've been planning to port from MTN/Nashua Mobile (contract) to 8ta (Prepaid for the interim) for over a month now, my contract was expiring, and I like the per minute pricing compared to MTN Anytime 200/350.
So, I call the call centre, they tell they cannot do any porting, I need to go to the store - but I can schedule a port up to a month in advance, so I inform Nashua of my cancellation *and* intend to port to 8ta, I thought, great!
I get the final confirmation of cancellation from Nashua, and I'm told that I must port within a week.
I go to the "flagship" store (Woodlands), two weeks before my contract is set to expire (29/02/2012), after standing there with a finger up my butt, and all the sales people chatting away like it's a staff party, I get annoyed, and walk over to a person, only to be told they are all busy and I must wait, "I'm like, ooookay, must be a staff meeting then, not that I've attended many where there is constant laughter"...
After a couple a minute or three later, I get directed to a booth, and explain to the lady that want to port, and that I was told I can have it scheduled.... see says, "eish, no, I cannot do dat, you must come back when the contract has expired"....
So I went back there on Thursday, 1 March, spoke to a Thuli, very friendly, I tell her I want to port, and I give here my ID and RICA docs, I fill in a small piece of paper with all the particulars, i.e cellphone number, contract number at nashua, my ID ,etc etc....
She then fetches me a sim card, and tells me the port will take about 24 hours, but at the latest will take 72 hours, but commonly happens fairly quick, and it will happen at midnight.
So I'm stoked, and eagerly wait to get rid of MTN.
12 Hours pass, nothing, 24 Hours pass, nothing, I even wake up at 00:00 to check, 36 hours pass, 48, 72 (three days) still nothing, now I'm pissed... she assured me it would take three days at most.
I call then the morning, hold on the phone for 5 minutes (which to the caller is like 30 minutes, if they ever attended a customer relations or call centre course)
Thuli answered and I tell her I'm annoyed as to why the transfer never happened. She tells me that she can't get through to the call centre, and that I must call on Monday... wow... Saturday morning, and 8ta branches can't get though to their own call centre... well done 8ta/Telkom, superb service as usual...
I call on Monday (5/03/2012), at 10:00, hang on the phone for 10 minutes, then the manager answers, I ask him to speak to Thuli, he says it her day off. I explain everything from top to bottom to him, and he says hell call me back in ten minutes, 40 minutes later another guy calls, to tell me that it's been escalated - now, that word means jack sh!!t in this country.
I blame myself for being naive , for thinking that in this backward country, a new *service* provider, owned by a corrupt monopoly, can be a shining beacon of hope.
Let's not even go down the road where my two 8ta promo 5's have been performing equally as bad in the last 60 days.
Eight things I loathe about 8ta:
1. Poor staff training and etiquette - assisting a foreigner, while chewing gum, open mouth nonetheless, while seemingly purposefully dropping the customer's modem, because monkey dearest is frustrated because she can't close the back cover of the device.
2. Call Centre -and store telephone etiquette and call answering times - yes, because holding on the phone for 5 minutes, is like 1 minutes to the call centre agent...
3. That damn message when you call the call-centre, to be greeted "heita, welcome to the voice call centre, now, the reason you are calling is because you need help, so let's not waste your time" (http://www.mediafire.com/?d0jq1hd2dmls59n)... This makes me think of a Batman quote:
Lucius Fox: Mr. Wayne didn't want you to think that he was deliberately wasting your time.
Lau: Just accidentally wasting it.
4. Caveat emptor - buyer beware, I live in an sparsely populated area, but I have clear LOS (1km) to a Telkom/8ta HSPA enabled tower, my equipment, uses poynting-antennae and is installed according to their best practices, I do daily tests, and for the past month or two, I can see the throughout dropping week by week, during the day, it's about 5% to 10% of the maximum that I can get at night. I've asked a a couple of my neighbours in the farming community, who is using 8ta, there were maybe one or two. I'm sure if there are 50 people using 8ta HSPA that would be a lot, and I don't want to hear GSM devices also play a factor, since GSM and 3G/HSPA antennas do not working on the same antenna/equipment.
5. Website FAIL - Every so often, the "self service" site, would either be offline "due to technical difficulties"... get it fixed 8ta!! - While you at it, speed up the sites' retrieval of customer data, such as data usage stats.
6. Lack 'O Options - Like CellC, 8ta's customer service portal is of poor quality - they can learn a thing or five from Vodacom's customer service site.
7. Wherefore art thou? - There seems to be a disconnect between the 8ta staff and the call centre/higher up in the food chain, procedures, products and services are not not always clearly communicated across the board.
8. :A START goto :A - Staff Etiquette & General customer service delivery, Peter Cheales (hellopeter.com) cannot stress this enough - but then again, is it fair to expect anything better from a educationally crippled third world country? (http://goo.gl/mkdx1)
And now, I've come to the end of my rant, still not better off, and with a cellphone number I've had for years and years about to be lost to the abyss of poor customer service.
We as citizens are to blame for being complacent and accepting inferior service delivery as satisfactory.
So, I call the call centre, they tell they cannot do any porting, I need to go to the store - but I can schedule a port up to a month in advance, so I inform Nashua of my cancellation *and* intend to port to 8ta, I thought, great!
I get the final confirmation of cancellation from Nashua, and I'm told that I must port within a week.
I go to the "flagship" store (Woodlands), two weeks before my contract is set to expire (29/02/2012), after standing there with a finger up my butt, and all the sales people chatting away like it's a staff party, I get annoyed, and walk over to a person, only to be told they are all busy and I must wait, "I'm like, ooookay, must be a staff meeting then, not that I've attended many where there is constant laughter"...
After a couple a minute or three later, I get directed to a booth, and explain to the lady that want to port, and that I was told I can have it scheduled.... see says, "eish, no, I cannot do dat, you must come back when the contract has expired"....
So I went back there on Thursday, 1 March, spoke to a Thuli, very friendly, I tell her I want to port, and I give here my ID and RICA docs, I fill in a small piece of paper with all the particulars, i.e cellphone number, contract number at nashua, my ID ,etc etc....
She then fetches me a sim card, and tells me the port will take about 24 hours, but at the latest will take 72 hours, but commonly happens fairly quick, and it will happen at midnight.
So I'm stoked, and eagerly wait to get rid of MTN.
12 Hours pass, nothing, 24 Hours pass, nothing, I even wake up at 00:00 to check, 36 hours pass, 48, 72 (three days) still nothing, now I'm pissed... she assured me it would take three days at most.
I call then the morning, hold on the phone for 5 minutes (which to the caller is like 30 minutes, if they ever attended a customer relations or call centre course)
Thuli answered and I tell her I'm annoyed as to why the transfer never happened. She tells me that she can't get through to the call centre, and that I must call on Monday... wow... Saturday morning, and 8ta branches can't get though to their own call centre... well done 8ta/Telkom, superb service as usual...
I call on Monday (5/03/2012), at 10:00, hang on the phone for 10 minutes, then the manager answers, I ask him to speak to Thuli, he says it her day off. I explain everything from top to bottom to him, and he says hell call me back in ten minutes, 40 minutes later another guy calls, to tell me that it's been escalated - now, that word means jack sh!!t in this country.
I blame myself for being naive , for thinking that in this backward country, a new *service* provider, owned by a corrupt monopoly, can be a shining beacon of hope.
Let's not even go down the road where my two 8ta promo 5's have been performing equally as bad in the last 60 days.
Eight things I loathe about 8ta:
1. Poor staff training and etiquette - assisting a foreigner, while chewing gum, open mouth nonetheless, while seemingly purposefully dropping the customer's modem, because monkey dearest is frustrated because she can't close the back cover of the device.
2. Call Centre -and store telephone etiquette and call answering times - yes, because holding on the phone for 5 minutes, is like 1 minutes to the call centre agent...
3. That damn message when you call the call-centre, to be greeted "heita, welcome to the voice call centre, now, the reason you are calling is because you need help, so let's not waste your time" (http://www.mediafire.com/?d0jq1hd2dmls59n)... This makes me think of a Batman quote:
Lucius Fox: Mr. Wayne didn't want you to think that he was deliberately wasting your time.
Lau: Just accidentally wasting it.
4. Caveat emptor - buyer beware, I live in an sparsely populated area, but I have clear LOS (1km) to a Telkom/8ta HSPA enabled tower, my equipment, uses poynting-antennae and is installed according to their best practices, I do daily tests, and for the past month or two, I can see the throughout dropping week by week, during the day, it's about 5% to 10% of the maximum that I can get at night. I've asked a a couple of my neighbours in the farming community, who is using 8ta, there were maybe one or two. I'm sure if there are 50 people using 8ta HSPA that would be a lot, and I don't want to hear GSM devices also play a factor, since GSM and 3G/HSPA antennas do not working on the same antenna/equipment.
5. Website FAIL - Every so often, the "self service" site, would either be offline "due to technical difficulties"... get it fixed 8ta!! - While you at it, speed up the sites' retrieval of customer data, such as data usage stats.
6. Lack 'O Options - Like CellC, 8ta's customer service portal is of poor quality - they can learn a thing or five from Vodacom's customer service site.
7. Wherefore art thou? - There seems to be a disconnect between the 8ta staff and the call centre/higher up in the food chain, procedures, products and services are not not always clearly communicated across the board.
8. :A START goto :A - Staff Etiquette & General customer service delivery, Peter Cheales (hellopeter.com) cannot stress this enough - but then again, is it fair to expect anything better from a educationally crippled third world country? (http://goo.gl/mkdx1)
And now, I've come to the end of my rant, still not better off, and with a cellphone number I've had for years and years about to be lost to the abyss of poor customer service.
We as citizens are to blame for being complacent and accepting inferior service delivery as satisfactory.
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