Telkom is killing itself

Bradley Prior

Bradley Prior

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Telkom is killing itself

Telkom is facing a challenging future, with a growing number of South Africans vowing to never deal with the company again due to its poor customer service.

MyBroadband receives daily complaints from Telkom subscribers who are unable to cancel their services due to the company’s poor systems.
 
Telkom uses amdocs. One of the biggest telco BSS solutions out there. I can only assume that someone has fiddled with it beyond its boiler tube capability and it is now leaking and loadshedding like an Eskom power station.
I wold start with a fresh slate as I assume there is about 15 years of custom code in there that no-one knows what it does and it is undocumented.
 
Their mobile isn't any better, friend "cancelled" in October, still going as we speak. Also their rules for doing a sim swap to a smaller sim card is ridiculous. For any other provider you need your ID and that's it, whereas Telkom you need to have your proof of residence as well? For what I'm here to get a smaller sim card for my device, lost two customers that way.
 
What about Telkom tricking people into using their FLLA service as is happening in my area? We have no Telkom mobile signal in our area and Telkom has been calling people and trying to convince them to switch over to an FLLA service, and then cutoff their landline and their ADSL service afterwards leaving them with no landline, no way to make calls and no fixed-line internet.
 
chrisc said:
When neighbours fibre went down, the lady on technical said it was due to the bad weather
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Most telcos are dishonest about outages. They believe that being transparent about is displays their incompetence. I think they would achieve better traction if these agents were provided a script that told the technical truth and not a pony tail marketing fabrication.
 
Lupus said:
Their mobile isn't any better, friend "cancelled" in October, still going as we speak. Also their rules for doing a sim swap to a smaller sim card is ridiculous. For any other provider you need your ID and that's it, whereas Telkom you need to have your proof of residence as well? For what I'm here to get a smaller sim card for my device, lost two customers that way.
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Maybe your info is outdated. On a contract SIM, Vodacom was asking me all kinds of other questions 3 weeks back. Didn't even want to see my ID.
 
deweyzeph said:
What about Telkom tricking people into using their FLLA service as is happening in my area? We have no Telkom mobile signal in our area and Telkom has been calling people and trying to convince them to switch over to an FLLA service, and then cutoff their landline and their ADSL service afterwards leaving them with no landline, no way to make calls and no fixed-line internet.
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They are trying to trick people to move from copper because the want to abandon copper, as soon as thieves steal your cable you are automatically on FLLA whether you like it or not. They are getting desperate lately since they just send the messages to anyone regardless. I wonder if they will be hoping that the thieves keep up the good work?
 
But remember Telkom is no longer replacing stolen cables like it used to... that's how I lost my LANDLINE
 
The article is twaddle. South Africans are fickle. Just give them a special and all is forgotten and forgiven and they sign up in their numbers. We are a country built on mediocrity.
 
thechamp said:
They are trying to trick people to move from copper because the want to abandon copper, as soon as thieves steal your cable you are automatically on FLLA whether you like it or not. They are getting desperate lately since they just send the messages to anyone regardless. I wonder if they will be hoping that the thieves keep up the good work?
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It doesn't make sense in our area though. We have no Telkom mobile signal, we have never had any problems with cable theft AND Telkom just upgraded our exchange to VDSL about a year and a half ago at a cost of well over a million rand. And now they are trying to trick people into using the FLLA service which doesn't work in our area due to the lack of Telkom mobile coverage.
 
Part of the problem is that staff at Telkom shops, and likely the online staff as well, are employed as "shop assistants" and have no clue as to how the actual systems work. Example: try asking one of them if you can use a FLLA instrument at other locations besides your own home, and see what nonsensical reply you receive.
When the concept of customer service centres was first introduced they were staffed by persons who had actually worked in the Accounts and Contracts departments, who knew and understood the operation of the systems, and could sort out clients' issues there and then. At some centres there was also a technician available full-time to help clients with technical issues.
 
Yep, they have called me a few times in the last 3 months to do business with them. I told them I would never sign up with telkom until their cancellation process is fixed as doing business with Telkom is like voluntarily making yourself their captive hostage.
 
deweyzeph said:
It doesn't make sense in our area though. We have no Telkom mobile signal, we have never had any problems with cable theft AND Telkom just upgraded our exchange to VDSL about a year and a half ago at a cost of well over a million rand. And now they are trying to trick people into using the FLLA service which doesn't work in our area due to the lack of Telkom mobile coverage.
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They have been sending the messages indiscriminately, I got one myself telling me about all the nice benefits of moving to FLLA, hence I say they are getting desperate, since I was moved to MSAN I can stream DSTV now WTH no issues from my 2meg ads line, no need for me to do move over to their fibre since I am happy where I am, also think the congestion issues with the exchanges has been eased with some people moving over to fibre. I think there is now a sweet bakance for everyobebut unfortunately it us not working in Telkom's favour that people are still sitting so tight on the copper network.
 
r00igev@@r said:
Telkom uses amdocs. One of the biggest telco BSS solutions out there. I can only assume that someone has fiddled with it beyond its boiler tube capability and it is now leaking and loadshedding like an Eskom power station.
I wold start with a fresh slate as I assume there is about 15 years of custom code in there that no-one knows what it does and it is undocumented.
Click to expand...

We've dealt with Amdocs when working for Telkom. Stuff like "There is a security flaw on your website, if you right click on the page you can view the source code of the site". I don't understand how Telkom still uses amdocs, its quite scary.

We eventually lost the contract to some other incompetent supplier.
 
alphabyte said:
Part of the problem is that staff at Telkom shops, and likely the online staff as well, are employed as "shop assistants" and have no clue as to how the actual systems work. Example: try asking one of them if you can use a FLLA instrument at other locations besides your own home, and see what nonsensical reply you receive.
When the concept of customer service centres was first introduced they were staffed by persons who had actually worked in the Accounts and Contracts departments, who knew and understood the operation of the systems, and could sort out clients' issues there and then. At some centres there was also a technician available full-time to help clients with technical issues.
Click to expand...

That is what boggles my mind. They are paying thousands of Rands in rent and in salaries to have the staff there, yet they don't leverage it and put in people who can actually solve problems like account cancellation.
 
thechamp said:
They have been sending the messages indiscriminately, I got one myself telling me about all the nice benefits of moving to FLLA, hence I say they are getting desperate, since I was moved to MSAN I can stream DSTV now WTH no issues from my 2meg ads line, no need for me to do move over to their fibre since I am happy where I am, also think the congestion issues with the exchanges has been eased with some people moving over to fibre. I think there is now a sweet bakance for everyobebut unfortunately it us not working in Telkom's favour that people are still sitting so tight on the copper network.
Click to expand...

We don't even have Openserve fibre (or any fibre for that matter), so every poor soul they convince to move to FLLA ends up LOSING them revenue because they cutoff their ADSL and basically force previously happy ADSL customers to find some other non-Telkom way to connect to the internet.
 
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I actually wanted another landline converted to FLLA. Telkom refused to convert landline to FLLA. Cancelled line. Done. Telkom is clearly not fond of revenue.
 
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