Telkom - unable to boost cap on a weekend !

[daveza]

Had to try assist a client whose Telkomsa account was capped.

Website booster page responds with ' sorry we have a technical error ', try later or call 10210.

So I call 10210 - nothing we can do, call tomorrow when accounts are open.

Dear Telkom - please die.

 

[FNfal]

Just phone WA with credit card and get some pay as you go it does not expire I always have 2 ISPs one as a back up

 

[MickeyD]

Mega FAIL!

 

[Macabre25]

Lol what a fail :<

 

[daveza]

I considered suggesting they contact their techs to fix the technical fault on the web site then realised who I was talking to.

 

[MickeyD]

I considered suggesting they contact their techs to fix the technical fault on the web site then realised who I was talking to.

Ask user "ranger" why they have this strange business model.

 

[ranger]

Had to try assist a client whose Telkomsa account was capped.

Website booster page responds with ' sorry we have a technical error ', try later or call 10210.

No details (time, name or salary reference of call centre agent), nothing (outside what I normally do) I can do.

Having asked some questions, it seems that BankServ had an outage, affecting at least 3dSecure validation. Apparently a '15-minute power outage due to hard rain'. It seems after their systems came back up, requests were not getting through to them. They don't seem to have provided a time.

From application logs, it looks like we didn't have access to BankServ from 2012-01-22 12h04 to around 17h17.

So I call 10210 - nothing we can do, call tomorrow when accounts are open.

Please don't accept this. As far as I can tell, the issue *was* resolved by standby staff (who receive a standby allowance, specifically to do after-hours support) due to a call centre agent logging an incident at 13h58. Logs indicate it was unavailable since 12h04. It is unacceptable for the agent *not* to log a ticket on your behalf, or provide you with the reference for an existing ticket in the event they have already logged one. Provide me with name or salary ref of the agent, and I will escalate this.

RCA actions from the previous incident like this are outstanding (a vendor-supported enterprise system was supposed to add monitoring for this situation, but 4 months down the line nothing has happened, so I think I will implement on our non-vendor-supported non-enterprise system). Automatic detection of this situation could have saved 2h, but if a call centre agent had logged a ticket, it could have saved the majority of that time.

(Unfortunately, it seems active monitoring cannot easily detect problems of this nature, as real credit card transactions have to be sent. So, passive (log-based, packet-based) monitoring seems to be the only option for now, and there are some challenges with the log-based method).

 

[ranger]

I considered suggesting they contact their techs to fix the technical fault on the web site then realised who I was talking to.

Why did you think this would not lead to a resolution?

I am willing (and in the position) to try and put in place mechanisms for more direct resolution. But, the problem is that it seems any escalation path will be abused by people wanting to bitch about any random problem they have with Telkom, that is unrelated to the resources who look at the escalation path in question. For example, I think support at telkomsa dot net and abuse at telkomsa dot net get around 100 tickets a day related to ADSL line faults, telephone line billing problems, difficulties cancelling lines etc., and the purpose and staff behind these aren't in a position to do anything about these issues.

So, I could hook webmaster at telkomsa dot net to a ticket system which notifies Tier 3 staff, but:
-Would people use it in this situation?
-Would people abuse it as a means to escalate problems for which they haven't really followed the correct process?

We could also hook up a twitter account, and possibly have the Tier 3 standby staff use it?

In the end, the service you settle for (by not providing details of non-performing staff) is the service you will get, regardless of what systems we put in place ...

 

[ranger]

Ask user "ranger" why they have this strange business model.

Which business model are you referring to? The fact that we have:
-Capped accounts with either post-paid ('Cap Management'), or credit-card top-up, 'out-of-bundle' features.
-Uncapped accounts
?

 

[grok]

Which business model are you referring to? The fact that we have:
-Capped accounts with either post-paid ('Cap Management'), or credit-card top-up, 'out-of-bundle' features.
-Uncapped accounts
?

Probably the lack of support during non-business hours.

 

[ranger]

Probably the lack of support during non-business hours.

There is support. Don't accept call centre answers to that extent, and take names and numbers of agents who give you this answer.

(Fine, the call centre may not take calls for during certain periods, but AFAIK that is not the issue being reported. And even so, all customer facing systems have 24x7 standby and monitoring as far as is possible)

(I note that this is not a business model, but a support model).

 

[MickeyD]

Which business model are you referring to? The fact that we have:
-Capped accounts with either post-paid ('Cap Management'), or credit-card top-up, 'out-of-bundle' features.
-Uncapped accounts
?

Prepaid vouchers that don't require a credit card transaction... and that don't cost an arm and a leg.

 

[MickeyD]

There is support. Don't accept call centre answers to that extent, and take names and numbers of agents who give you this answer.

(Fine, the call centre may not take calls for during certain periods, but AFAIK that is not the issue being reported. And even so, all customer facing systems have 24x7 standby and monitoring as far as is possible)

(I note that this is not a business model, but a support model).

So when will the call centre staff ever become more efficient? Instead of them being message takers, why not have capable staff that can deal with the faults? Must admit that TI were pretty jacked up in this regard and that my comment is aimed squarely at the technical interface. I've not had a TI fault for some time so I cannot rate them on a recent experience.

What proportion of the call centre staff are temps or contract workers?

How successful has the 10210 (one contact number) been in terms of time to answer calls, dropped calls, etc.?

 

[daveza]

Short version -

If the web interface is not available for top-ups, have a back up human being available 24/7 to provide an alternative.

Waiting for ' normal business hours ' in IT belongs in the 90's.

 

[Chevron]

Short version -

If the web interface is not available for top-ups, have a back up human being available 24/7 to provide an alternative.

Waiting for ' normal business hours ' in IT belongs in the 90's.

or just move to uncapped. Then no cap issues at all.

 

[onerb]

Sorry to Hijack this thread.

I could not topup this morning and are still struggling to get it topped up. My business is standing still because telkom's site is down.

I sent a mail to webmaster but has not received any feedback.

Since 12:00 I have been holding on for someone to assist me. The option for them to call back is also offline. I am sick to my stomach. Never in my life have I found it this difficult to get data.

As a new telkom isp user I am totally shocked. The staff are not prepared to listen, they just want to bounce the call to the next department - And this department does not answer their phones.

 

[Chevron]

Sorry to Hijack this thread.

I could not topup this morning and are still struggling to get it topped up. My business is standing still because telkom's site is down.

I sent a mail to webmaster but has not received any feedback.

Since 12:00 I have been holding on for someone to assist me. The option for them to call back is also offline. I am sick to my stomach. Never in my life have I found it this difficult to get data.

As a new telkom isp user I am totally shocked. The staff are not prepared to listen, they just want to bounce the call to the next department - And this department does not answer their phones.

A business shouldn't be making use of capped internet.

 

[ranger]

My business is standing still because telkom's site is down.

The site is not down and has not been down today. I am not aware of any problems with the site. If you could not reach it, or if you received an error message from the site, please provide your username (e.g. by PM).

I sent a mail to webmaster but has not received any feedback.

Some work remains for hooking webmaster@ up. Please send your request directly to support@ for now, and PM me the ticket number.

Since 12:00 I have been holding on for someone to assist me. The option for them to call back is also offline. I am sick to my stomach. Never in my life have I found it this difficult to get data.

As a new telkom isp user I am totally shocked. The staff are not prepared to listen, they just want to bounce the call to the next department - And this department does not answer their phones.

Please ask and provide details (names, employee numbers, name of which department etc.), or it is difficult to change it ...

 

[ranger]

A business shouldn't be making use of capped internet.

Or if so, should enable 'Cap Management'. However, this does require manual approval to have the feature, but once you have the feature you can set your own cap (up to 20GB to 50GB, depending on the account).

 

[ranger]

Prepaid vouchers that don't require a credit card transaction... and that don't cost an arm and a leg.

We have investigated this in the past, but typically this ends up requiring buy-in from some other department who has some legacy 'Voucher Management System' (e.g. the one used for WorldCall cards) with legacy interfaces etc. Some recent improvements may have made this more feasible, but it will still take some time to implement this if it is feasible.