The law of unintended consequences! (wiki)

I’ve written two posts (one, two) previously complaining about NTL Ireland’s poor customer service. Others responded but it seems like NTL Ireland may have the last laugh. And it’s based on a true story!!

Huh?
If you phone their customer care line, you don’t actually talk to anyone. If you phone during the week, an automated message says they are available Mon-Fri, and Saturday. If you ring Saturday, an automated message says they are available Mon-Fri only. NTL Ireland’s website seems to suggest they’re available 7 days a week.

Hmm!
NTL Ireland offer a crap service. To talk to someone, you have to ring their HQ (forget about the call centre) repeatedly until someone, as a diversion from work, notes your complaint. They never phone back.

Grrr!
NTL Ireland lie to their customers. They promise to visit on Saturday to fix your problem and don’t turn up. Then they promise to visit on Wednesday but turn up Tuesday when nobody’s home.

Fa*xyos!?>! (head explodes)
NTL Ireland does not believe in customer care. If you visit their website and search their helpdesk section for ‘complain‘ or ‘problem‘, nothing is returned. And their most popular help article…’how can I pay my bill‘? Pigs might fly springs to mind.

NTL Ireland just don’t care.

Eircom are another shower of shits but at least they have a formal complaint procedure. Anytime I have to deal with Eircom, it works like this:

I ring their regular customer service line. Once a week has passed, and my query/complaint has not been answered, I invoke their ‘formal’ complaint procedure. Under this process, you get a unique complaint tracking number…and that number is…your account number (sigh). But, at least, once you escalate the problem, they have people with brains, who use them to solve the problem.

Let me give you an example of good customer service…
My (new at the time) boss once asked me to fax him some confidential information to his fax machine. He didn’t know the number (he was new) but his P.A., Jenny, would. So I phoned Jenny and asked her for the fax number. ‘No‘, she said, she wouldn’t tell me the number. (This is NTL’s level). She continued, ‘the fax machine is a bit dodgy and chances are it won’t come through‘. (This is Eircom’s level). ‘Fax it to reception and phone me at the same time. I’ll go and get it, put it in an envelope and put it on his desk‘.

Now that is good customer service.
She said no to an (internal) customer, explained why she said no, and came up with a solution that fixed the problem. It’s really not hard to do.

P.S. Searching Eircom’s website for complaint does return 4 results. At least they’ve thought about it.

P.P.S. I’ve linked to NTL repeatedly in the hope that search engines will push it near the top of their results when people search for NTL. I want people to know how badly they treat their customers in Ireland. Don’t know if it’ll work as it’s a bit obvious!