Hi Graal,
Thanks for your post, honesty is always appreciated. Let's see if I can answer some of your questions, in the most frank, straight forward way possible.
Jeff, no offense, but everyone seems to be under the impression that your network simply cannot handle what is being thrown at it. People here really appreciate what you're trying to do, but there comes a point where you have to be frank about things, and I will.
I think you're bull****ting your customers. Every time someone reports an issue here, you jump to ask them whether they've mailed your tech support, then tell them to PM you. Then they do, but we never hear anything regarding the issue from you again until they come back to say it's not been fixed yet. It really comes across as if you're attempting to get your customers at the tech support so that you can keep the issues out of the public eye.
Fair shout here, and following up by us posting a resolution of what's happened and what we did is in the pipe-line. If you've been following this thread, you'll see that I finally have some more help, in the form of Justin. He's been doing a fantastic job online and we're in the process of getting him on board with MyBB. Should be within this week (probably later this week) where he'll start posting and helping out.
Simply put, I've personally been under loads of pressure sorting out all the issues. Posting online is only a small part of what I do. I also feedback comments, suggestions and other strategic options into the business which can take up a lot of time.
I ask whether tech support has been contacted purely to get a gauge of what's been done so far. Requesting a PM with details, that'll stay for now until we have updated our CRM processes internally which will allow for quicker escalations. In the mean time though, both Justin and I have started building a list of posters online linking all the relevant details to our internal systems.
Not BS'ing customers - that's the last thing that we're here to do. Issues are here yes, and it was mentioned in the very beginning of WA launching uncapped that the up-take of the accounts was under-mined on our side. What I can promise you, is that constantly, every day we're making massive efforts on this side to improve this - using last week as an example where we upgrading our network capacity. This is an on-going effort with the more customers that join our network.
Worst of all, you often seem to blame third-parties for the issues, when it's pretty clear the issues are with you. Let's face it, people have been complaining about these issues for months, and they only encounter them on your accounts, not others. Even the OpenWeb guys who are on DSL-Heaven report the same issues your direct customers report. So when issues are this widespread, and only encountered on your network, who is to blame for the issues? Even better, when are you going to start doing something to address these issues. Aside from making empty promises, I mean?
Entirely depends on the issue. Sometimes there are 3rd parties who have issues. Running an IPC network in SA doesn't consist of one of two companies or upstream providers but rather a large amount of upstream providers and companies, allowing a bit more to go wrong. When we are wrong though, we're the first to admit it - that includes publically. We're huge on transparency, and simply by posting here proves exactly that.
It's not even just your uncapped accounts that have these issues, it's reported by people on all manner of accounts. And every time it's reported, you jump to ask whether it's been escalated to support yet. Newsflash! People have been complaining about your tech support being useless for more than a few months now. The only time tech support seems to do anything worthwhile for their customers is when someone has a hissy fit because support isn't doing anything and decide to take matters to the public sphere. And even after all this, WA still does not admit to having serious issues, even issues that stretch further than the dead-obvious capacity issues. Not only technical issues either, but serious service issues within the company.
Have you noticed how many customers you've been leaking lately? How bad your public image has become? That you are quite possibly one of the worst ISPs currently out there?
In some cases our Support has failed us yes. In others, not the case. There are plenty of praise online, including these forums, of our Support staff - I personally think they're doing a fantastic job. Again, a constant effort is being made at hiring more and more staff to ensure the best possible support.
So tell me, when are you going to start admitting that you have major issues with your company, its network and its services?
When are you going to start doing something about those issues? And actual fixes, not just empty promises that seem to never actually do anything?
When are you going to start being open and honest with your customers again?
Are you ever again going to take service seriously? Does this ship need to sink entirely before it can start floating again?
I don't think we have massive issues. Yes, our Uncapped accounts can be tweaked but look at the bigger picture too. Yes, we receive complaints around these accounts however on the other hand we also get positive feedback about the accounts. Consider the posts here, granted are mostly negative in this thread specifically, but think about the other customers who aren't posting here.
Now I'm not saying that only the MyBB guys are the ones who are having issues - but simply looking at the numbers, the amount of people complaining vs. the customers who are satisfied with the accounts doesn't paint a grim picture. If it did, or ever does - we do something about it.
