whats_adsl_anyway?
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- Sep 28, 2010
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What if ... there was an ISp which did not hide behind the "best effort service" as an excuse to provide absolutely shocking CUSTOMER service.
What if ... there was an ISp which understood that a "best effort service" was not an excuse to blame Telkom whenever they needed to avoid meeting reasonable customer expectations.
Today I realised that IS is a company that simply doesn't know or doesn't care about customer service.
I've had intermittent problems with an IS ADSL service from almost the day that it was installed. IS response has been consistently to blame Telkom. Because it is an intermittent problem the process is
1) a call will be logged raised with Telkom,
2) Telkom investigates, finds nothing, and they "close the fault".
Net result - IS ignore you until next time.
So it goes on for MONTHS and MONTHS.
Last week it got worse and we lost internet completely for an extended duration. Same process again. Today, three days without mail, internet or phones, I took up the matter with my "account manager" at IS and asked her to take an holistic view of the problem.
There is obviously something wrong technically, and the business process by which they were dealing with it is inadequate.
While there was still some doubt about whether my company had been made aware of the "best effort" clause they pretended to listen to my frustrations. However, once they dug out the "incriminating mail" boy, that was it.
"You were notified so we don't have to take an holistic approach to the problem". That is a direct quote!!
Here is another direct quote
"Gary, help me to understand why you feel that we should do more than we are, when you signed the contract that states that this is a best effort, no guarantee service".
Customer service be damned!
a) 45 minutes on hold. My account managers response - "you are stupid to hang on for 45 minutes. Let me get him on a conference call and call you back." (Another direct quote). She never did get the individual off the other line but finally got his boss on the line. He didn't see why he needed to do anything other than simply log a fault with Telkom every other week, close the fault and tell me "tough... you signed the contract".
b) "We'll call you within 15 minutes with an update" - what they really mean is "Sucker, get off the line so I can get back to my interesting IT stuff".
c) "It has been escalated with Telkom" - what they really mean is "Sucker, Telkom won't be there for another 3 days because we will only escalate it to that level in 3 days time - it's a best effort service after all".
It seems that they simply don't understand the difference between the "technical service" and "customer service". They also seem to believe that the "best effort" excuse absolves them from the "reasonable expectation" requirement under common law.
ROLL ON THE CUSTOMER PROTECTION ACT.
In the meantime I'll let everyone know what IS thinks of customer service - it's worth about as much as their "best effort, no guarantee" excuse. It is useless!
Gary Smith
p.s. If someone from IS wishes to contact me then Ask Norinda Bruin at the IS Cape Town office for my details!
What if ... there was an ISp which understood that a "best effort service" was not an excuse to blame Telkom whenever they needed to avoid meeting reasonable customer expectations.
Today I realised that IS is a company that simply doesn't know or doesn't care about customer service.
I've had intermittent problems with an IS ADSL service from almost the day that it was installed. IS response has been consistently to blame Telkom. Because it is an intermittent problem the process is
1) a call will be logged raised with Telkom,
2) Telkom investigates, finds nothing, and they "close the fault".
Net result - IS ignore you until next time.
So it goes on for MONTHS and MONTHS.
Last week it got worse and we lost internet completely for an extended duration. Same process again. Today, three days without mail, internet or phones, I took up the matter with my "account manager" at IS and asked her to take an holistic view of the problem.
There is obviously something wrong technically, and the business process by which they were dealing with it is inadequate.
While there was still some doubt about whether my company had been made aware of the "best effort" clause they pretended to listen to my frustrations. However, once they dug out the "incriminating mail" boy, that was it.
"You were notified so we don't have to take an holistic approach to the problem". That is a direct quote!!
Here is another direct quote
"Gary, help me to understand why you feel that we should do more than we are, when you signed the contract that states that this is a best effort, no guarantee service".
Customer service be damned!
a) 45 minutes on hold. My account managers response - "you are stupid to hang on for 45 minutes. Let me get him on a conference call and call you back." (Another direct quote). She never did get the individual off the other line but finally got his boss on the line. He didn't see why he needed to do anything other than simply log a fault with Telkom every other week, close the fault and tell me "tough... you signed the contract".
b) "We'll call you within 15 minutes with an update" - what they really mean is "Sucker, get off the line so I can get back to my interesting IT stuff".
c) "It has been escalated with Telkom" - what they really mean is "Sucker, Telkom won't be there for another 3 days because we will only escalate it to that level in 3 days time - it's a best effort service after all".
It seems that they simply don't understand the difference between the "technical service" and "customer service". They also seem to believe that the "best effort" excuse absolves them from the "reasonable expectation" requirement under common law.
ROLL ON THE CUSTOMER PROTECTION ACT.
In the meantime I'll let everyone know what IS thinks of customer service - it's worth about as much as their "best effort, no guarantee" excuse. It is useless!
Gary Smith
p.s. If someone from IS wishes to contact me then Ask Norinda Bruin at the IS Cape Town office for my details!
Good luck Gary.