What can Telkom do?

[Moederloos]

What will it take for the majority of forumites to forgive Telkom and move on?

I have thought about this in light of recent media announcements, and it seems that regardless of what Telkom does or says, the usual response is:
1) Too good to be true - they must be up to something
2) What a load of carp!
3) WTF?

Now, all the above responses are perfectly understandable in light of their on going scorn for their users, but the question remains: "What will it take for YOU to believe them, and to trust them to do right by you?"

 

[Scooby_Doo]

They should do something like lower costs or increase bandwidth or something anything.... But they just make it worse like pay per gig and crap.

 

[lucifir]

they have to really be willing to make things right, so far all we have had is lip-service. So they actually have to take some action for the better of the country and bring down their prices.

 

[bekdik]

Get rid of people like Steven White or change his script.

 

[nOhIwAy]

If Telkom came within 25% of worldwide "broadband" in terms of delivery and price I could move on and................
attack them on telephony for the masses at comparable worldwide costs

 

[jabulani]

What will it take for the majority of forumites to forgive Telkom and move on?

For them to cease to exist as an organization. They have been full of nonsense and bad service since the days of 2400 baud dedicated lines on SAPOnet. Once a culture of arrogant incompetence becomes that deeply entrenched the only solution is destruction of the organization.

 

[stoke]

1 - Remove that crap outdated 1968 theme tune from their hold service - that's just torture.
2 - Answer calls within 5 minutes - or move onto a we'll call you back system after 4 minutes.
3 - Beef up the installations team to be able to install ADSL in 3 days.
4 - Stop charging the earth for installation services Once-Off AND EVERY MONTH (Line rental + ADSL Line Rental) - and then claim that it's a justified cost when people using ADSL 192 get charged less for the same infrastructure as ADSL 512 users.
5 - Measure Local and International Bandwidth separately, and keep Local Bandwidth FREE to promote use/growth of local content.
6 - Provide a SUPPORT service that knows what they're doing - or who can at least ensure that you do get an answer in about 4 hours time from somebody.
7 - Always phone before installing a service and confirm that the person is going to be there, and always give notice when you're not going to be able to make it, and always let the client know what's going on.
8 - Remove the governmint from the shareholders list. One way or another, it's supposed to be a publically owned company, not a governmint owned company.
9 - Do whatever steps are neccesary to "encourage competition" - as teklom have said before - they do encourage competition, just that they don't actively legislate it. Competition will free telkom from the current restrictions imposed.
10 - Look after your staff - properly - it should be a company people actually want to work for.
11 - Make Proudly South African something to be proud of.
12 - Answer our questions and communicate with your customers. Stop ignoring our emails, complaints and queries. Empower your customer-interface to actually take action where required, and measure and incentivise them accordingly.
13 - Provide garauntee's wherever possible concerning the service you provide, and automatically refund your clients where they have not had their service levels met. Why must we call you and insist on a refund first ?
14 - Stop making one aspect of the internet more important than onther aspect.
I'm stopping now - got other stuff to do ...

 

[kaspaas]

Have a friendly technician turn up within 30 minutes after a faulty line was reported.

And get the techies to actually repair the problem and not refer it to another department.

 

[Moederloos]

@Moederloos, why do you ask this?

Idle curiousity.
I for one do *not* believe anything that comes out of their press releases that sounds even remotely positive.

Before my question, I could think of nothing that would change my negative perception of Telkom as a company, since anything they do for the good of the consumer when forced to do so, is only to serve their own interests. Made me wonder if others felt the same way.

 

[lukev]

What will it take for the majority of forumites to forgive Telkom and move on?

I have thought about this in light of recent media announcements, and it seems that regardless of what Telkom does or says, the usual response is:
1) Too good to be true - they must be up to something
2) What a load of carp!
3) WTF?

Now, all the above responses are perfectly understandable in light of their on going scorn for their users, but the question remains: "What will it take for YOU to believe them, and to trust them to do right by you?"

It definitely wont take anything they say, or any mindwashing press releases. We react this way because Telkom spews the same tripe over and over. They seem to think that if they say "Our products are actually good value" that the market will suddenly believe them.

What will it take? Simple: Cheaper communications costs, less market strangulation, respect for the regulator and a customer-focus rather than a shareholder-focus. Oh, and also cheaper communications costs (did I mention that already?)

 

[Glipsie]

1 - Remove that crap outdated 1968 theme tune from their hold service - that's just torture.
2 - Answer calls within 5 minutes - or move onto a we'll call you back system after 4 minutes.
3 - Beef up the installations team to be able to install ADSL in 3 days.
4 - Stop charging the earth for installation services Once-Off AND EVERY MONTH (Line rental + ADSL Line Rental) - and then claim that it's a justified cost when people using ADSL 192 get charged less for the same infrastructure as ADSL 512 users.
5 - Measure Local and International Bandwidth separately, and keep Local Bandwidth FREE to promote use/growth of local content.
6 - Provide a SUPPORT service that knows what they're doing - or who can at least ensure that you do get an answer in about 4 hours time from somebody.
7 - Always phone before installing a service and confirm that the person is going to be there, and always give notice when you're not going to be able to make it, and always let the client know what's going on.
8 - Remove the governmint from the shareholders list. One way or another, it's supposed to be a publically owned company, not a governmint owned company.
9 - Do whatever steps are neccesary to "encourage competition" - as teklom have said before - they do encourage competition, just that they don't actively legislate it. Competition will free telkom from the current restrictions imposed.
10 - Look after your staff - properly - it should be a company people actually want to work for.
11 - Make Proudly South African something to be proud of.
12 - Answer our questions and communicate with your customers. Stop ignoring our emails, complaints and queries. Empower your customer-interface to actually take action where required, and measure and incentivise them accordingly.
13 - Provide garauntee's wherever possible concerning the service you provide, and automatically refund your clients where they have not had their service levels met. Why must we call you and insist on a refund first ?
14 - Stop making one aspect of the internet more important than onther aspect.
I'm stopping now - got other stuff to do ...

15. Interconnect with the VoIP Providers
16. Don't charge ridicilous rates for interconnection
17. Don't charge ridicilous rates for IPConnect

 

[Sneeky]

Honestly for me R70+ per gigabyte applied on a linear scale just doesnt amount to happy user.

Being a monopoly they should be forced to justify these prices openly.
We know we are being ripped, let them come clean and tell us its not so, but if they fail then well, we are back to square one again.
Bandwidth is probably cheaper on the moon but because we have a little bit of land with a few anthills and spaza's inbetween the cities we are forced to pay well over the going rate which is mos K@k.

Same goes for the line rental, the shaping and the local content counting towards the cap.

The future is high speed data and they just want to cash in as their traditional voice and leased line markets are dying. Once again the SA public will be forced to pay these inflated rates to falsely keep the Telkom profit margin 'up there'.

The question should be , 'What can the SNO do', bugger Telkom.