Sentech's Call Centre FAQ

LoneGunman

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2003
Messages
4,552
Reaction score
3
Location
In The Shadow of Bush-lite: Obama
Top Stupid Things The Orcs at Sentech CallCentre Support Try And Make You Believe, Whenever You Have To Call Them
(And the following are in no particular order, and ALL of these have been used at me, over time, repeatedly.

I think they have a list of 'Common Problem Responses' and they try and make the naive customer fit into one or another of these slots.
None of them, on average, are true - and its dangerous for your mental health as a Sentech customer, to believe any of them.)

1. You are the only one experiencing any problem on that Tower.

2. Its your modem, which might need to be replaced.

3. There is no network problem at all.

4. There's no problem and its just the contention ratio being applied.
(Often you'll hear them working out the speeds you should be getting, on a calculator - in order to prove this to you)

5. Downloading something from a local site (ie: Tucows at I.S) at 2kb, is quite normal, and again - is just part of the contention ratio being applied.
(This is used to suggest that YOU are being unreasonable in your complaint)

6. Their speed test, which shows that its taken many minutes to give a return, is normal.

7. You might need to reset your modem.

8. There is perhaps a problem, and we'll make sure Second Level Support get onto it right away.

9. The forum at www.myadsl.co.za is filled with people who like their service, and have no problem with MyWireless
(The unspoken meaning of this is that therefore YOU are one of the few customers who actually DOES have a problem.

10. Because a job ticket has been opened, this means that something will be attended to rapidly.

11. Despite days or weeks of a job ticket being open and no change in the slow service, they say something along the lines of "No I see exactly where you're coming from, and I sympathize with you totally" - when you express outrage or anger. But they remain silent and provide no other option but to suggest they 'update' the ticket you have open. (Thus demonstrating that you are as helpless as they are).

12. A new arrival: "We're aware of the problem, and it should be fixed by tonight/tomorrow/Friday.."
(This one I'd forgotten about, as they use only on occasion, and when 'the problem will be fixed on a friday' it seems to be used to get to the weekend, and let users suffer through the entire weekend, without access to any Sentech Management..)

Thereafter, from monday - they switch to rotating usage of the various bullsh*t excuses listed above.. and the weeks go by, and no rebates or apologies are offered..


If you are persistent, you can perhaps talk them into letting you speak to the 'Call Centre Supervisor' - but this again, is ultimately futile. The person will run through the above options at you, to try and manipulate you off the line - and perhaps - if you block those attempts, they end up sympathizing as well, apologizing, and promising faithfully to 'get onto Second Level Support' to find out 'what the problem is.'
Sometimes the Supervisor will call you back. Often they won't.

On very rare occasions, you may well get a call from a Second Level Technician. The ones I have spoken with, appear to barely speak english, or comprehend it - and are afraid of acknowledging ANYTHING which suggests that there is a problem (even when there are pings or traceroutes or other hard data demonstrating an apparent problem) and are so fearful of committing themselves to any statement of fact, that phrases like "Well I'll need to check that with someone else" and "Well um I really couldnt say if that's true or not" get used a lot.

There appear to be consistent patterns of denials, lack of accountability, confusion-creation at customers valid complaints, and shirking of responsibility at every level of interaction with customers. It's very reminscent in fact, of the SADF, (or Telkom, circa 1980)

Be ready to have one or many of the above used at you, almost every time you contact the Call Centre.

The above points may be valid from the CallCentre point of view, but to have them used over and over, as excuses for lack of bandwidth or network failures, is not acceptable.

It's also not acceptable, when doing business, to promote a course of action by your employee's, which consistently and inherently suggests that your customers are stupid, ignorant, or unable to differentiate between good service, and what Sentech has been supplying.

EDIT: added Item 12
 
My personal favourite is after I tell them where I live..."I didn't know that area had coverage!"
 
Topic should not be Frequently Asked Questions, but

<b>F</b>requently <b>U</b>sed <b>Q</b>uotes by Sentech Support. [:)]

South Africa needs World Class Broadband at World Competitive Prices.
 
hehe, those are such typical remarks, you can help but laugh at it ...
 
My application has resulted in me contacting the support desk EVERYDAY. I have spoken to about 5 different orcs in five days. I have received a different ETA from every one of them.

"oh bother" said pooh, as the last standing Telkom employee is blown to pieces with his minigun
 
Best one I had was when all this just started.... :

Techy : so your Modem is connected?
me : yes, it also has been restarted, reinstalled and no, the modem isnt faulty.

Techy : mmmmm...that is one of our best base stations, nothing is wrong with it...you know about the contention ratio now active?
Me : yes , and you cant fool me with that, cause saying im rightfully paying R850p/m for 4kbs downloads are rediculous, so just move on pls..

Techy : One sec..(He goes away from phone and I hear him speaking)....hello? yes I spoke to a colleague, I think your Computer, your settings arent right....
Me :(silence...so many methods of painfull death in my mind right now) No, I have 4 Pc's connected I have tried it on all 4 pc's, you cant possibly expect me to beleive the problem is on all my Pc's....

Techy : yes your right...I dont know, anything else I can help you with?
Me : uhm.......(Put phone down)
 
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Jhbgirl</i>
<br />My personal favourite is after I tell them where I live..."I didn't know that area had coverage!"
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

I was told to walk around the house with the modem on a metal tray on Monday...
 
What annoys me is because of the above and also the fact the people like me refuse to phone (since I have voda prepaid and Im not paying more money to get the same service I paid for) they interpret it is everybody's happy. Then if you have say 50% maximum speed they brush it off as a CR issue. I have often phoned when the thing is dead (this was a while ago of course since remember, I dont phone them) and they said "funny, no one else has complained" yet I now for damn sure its the tower. But hey, I have learned to live with it.. its just gonna suck for at least half of every day. And I know that phoning the comedy centre is not going to do much to change that.

At least its the big friday tomorrow..!
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X