Tied up

WITH CABLE THEFT and weather damage becoming an increasing problem for South Africa’s national telephone operator, you may find yourself making calls to Telkom more frequently this summer. Given the history of customer service at Telkom, it’s always with slight trepidation that I make the call to one of its many call centre numbers.You can easily be sent from pillar to post between ADSL information, account queries and technical help. However, on this occasion the first person could help me. Too bad I had to hold on for more than 10 minutes on a cellphone that’s not toll-free before the call was answered.

It wasn’t a difficult query (the line is dead) and the agent was able to remotely test and confirm the problem there and then, though that process added another five minutes to the conversation. The agent was friendly and knowledgeable, which was different from my – and most people you’d talk to – experience in previous years.

The best part of the experience was the SMS sent afterwards confirming the call and giving a reference number. Too often you’ve just spent half an hour and the moment you put the phone down, you have a nagging suspicion that everything you just said was in vain.

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