iBurst subscribers lash out at company
Over the last few weeks numerous iBurst consumers have complained about billing problems, bandwidth measuring and tracking problems, poor support and quality of service concerns. Problems related to billing and incorrect debit orders dominate online complaints.
“In January my normal iBurst account of R89 had to go off. I boosted it on the 25th of December with R149 on their site which gives me a grand total of R238. As a shock they debited R725.00,” said one subscriber. “As I am typing this, I am close to boiling point. From day one I have been experiencing poor, incompetent feedback from the iBurst helpdesk,” complained another.
Last week iBurst topped the list for ‘complaints about companies who don’t respond’ on the popular consumer complaints website HelloPeter.com, an indication of the widespread problems experienced by iBurst subscribers.
Problems nothing new
The problems which continue to dog iBurst are however nothing new. The company has been struggling for years with billing related challenges, and new iBurst CEO Jannie van Zyl inherited a set of systems which were effectively broken.
The company recently moved over to a new billing system (iBoss) in an attempt to resolve the continued problems, but it does not seem to have had the desired result. A restructuring process, which involved staff cuts and a change to the iBurst helpdesk, also did not fix the troubles dogging the wireless provider.
iBurst previously apologized for the glitches in their call centre, explaining that the call centre had been moved and there had been issues with the lines and telecommunications. “This is being worked upon and resolved. The customer services manager has assured us that the situation is improving and should be normalized before the end of the week,” iBurst said.
Better service levels on the horizon?
In early November last year the iBurst CEO said that the restructuring process, implemented last year had been disruptive to an extent and did impact iBurst’s service levels, ‘but now that it’s complete we can look forward to stabilise service levels again’. This however did not materialize.
Many subscribers are now starting to lose faith in the company’s ability to resolve the problems in a timely manner. “With the iBurst restructuring process I personally didn’t expect things to be smooth, nor did I think iBurst would really care. I still believe that with Vodacom looking to sell their stake in iBurst after which things will go downhill.”
iBurst responds
Van Zyl said that the last 6 months have been a period of major change at iBurst. “Nearly every aspect of the company were looked at and actions taken to better position iBurst in the new telecoms space and especially to ensure growth in a time of financial slowdown,” said Van Zyl.
“At a commercial level, iBurst morphed into a company addressing multiple areas, a move to bolster the footprint of the company and to ensure continued growth in the current depressed market. From a retail-only business a few months ago, iBurst, while still growing the retail business, now successfully sells to the SME, corporate and gated community arenas, giving iBurst the ability to leverage its greatest asset; a fully owned network consisting of 6 different networking technologies, from the traditional iBurst Wireless right through to satellite services and including a range of microwave based solutions.”
Van Zyl added that a number of new products were launched and many more are on the horizon for the New Year. “iBurst not only re-positioned iBurst Wireless, making it the most cost effective wireless offering today in South Africa, and in many cases, better value than even DSL, but also launched a number of “firsts”, from Wireless-DSL to ADSL2+. These products were extremely well received by the market and created quite a stir in the local industry. In the next few weeks iBurst will launch its own consumer DSL service.”
“To support these commercial activities, an effective back-office as well as efficient support systems are needed and, again, a number of initiatives were planned and launched over the last 6 months to achieve this. These included the launch of iBOSS, a next generation OSS/BSS system some 4 months ago and the restructuring of the company around the same time. “
“Both these initiatives were designed to achieve more efficient support structures. While the restructuring is now complete, final bedding down really only occurred during December. For example, the call centre was moved to a new location during the December / January period and this resulted in some issues with answering calls speedily. But the move is now near complete and we are confident the call centre hiccups are now behind us.”
Van Zyl pointed out that the new systems are still a challenge to get fully into production and that the spate of complaints seen over the last few weeks were a direct result of this. “Consumers are especially concerned about not seeing their data usage accurately and a number of billing problems also became apparent. This in turn led to an increase in calls to the call centre,” explained the iBurst CEO.
“iBurst is fully aware of these problems and are working around the clock to stabilise the systems and provide the desired levels of service. Implementing complex new OSS/BSS systems can be quite a challenge and, while there are problems at the moment, we are confident we are making progress in getting them bedded down and will soon achieve the desired stability.”
iBurst apologized for the problems experienced by their subscribers due to these changes. “However, we do believe these changes will ensure a new and better iBurst, well positioned to be a leader in the telecoms space in South Africa,” Van Zyl concluded.
iBurst subscribers unhappy – comments and views
Loading ...