Can Vox get its big acquisition right?
The last two weeks have been very frustrating for Absa internet users; the 15th was date of the changeover to @lantic which resulted in some problems.
No email, no access to email online, no help from the service line…
If you are an Absamail user this will be very familiar to you;
"Phone calls are the most fun the first time I held for 22 minutes, starting as caller number 28. When my turn came, I was told that I will be routed to an engineer, which placed me back as caller number 19. The second time I was caller number 44, and again I was reverted back to being caller number 23," says one unhappy "emailless" client.
Another unhappy client had no email for 36 hours, and since then has been unsuccessfully trying to access email online so he does not have to download, on a very slow internet connection, over 6.5mb of data.
Doug Reed, CEO Vox Telecom says "Unfortunately over the years some passwords were entered via the back office which automatically reduced the password to lower case and made them non case sensitive. We copied from the front end database which included capital letters and as it is standard kept them case sensitive."
"This had an impact on 8900 customers who simultaneously needed to change their passwords, causing a bottleneck at the service centre. Unfortunately we simply had to work our way through manually because by the time we identified what was wrong we had already rectified over a third and the damage would have been worse as they would have had to been manually changed. We are now 90% their so hopefully things will stabilize tomorrow morning (Friday, February 22) sometime."
Technicians have said that the problem of accessing email on line will be fixed by March. This, however, means downloading very unwanted email for hours, until then.
"This is not the case, they [Absamail clients] can access web mail, however they will find that the spam has been drastically reduced we are cutting out 97% of mail destined for the AIA mail Server," says Reed.
The other major problem seems to be that the customer service line is either a cell phone number or a Pretoria number. This means that holding on will cost you a pretty packet.
"You have the option of: leaving a message that is obviously never listened to; getting a network update where you are told the problem will be solved in 2 hours, or holding on for assistance since 'your call is important'," says the "emailless" client.
Reed says, "We are looking into it, most of the Vox Voice customers automatically phone in for free and we have transferred the Absa 0861 number across."
The customer service system has a call back option and if you are not in a hurry you can opt for that option instead of holding on until one of the technicians helps you.
"Absa have been fantastic, not only with the cutover but they have also provided assistance to the call centre," says the CEO
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