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Gordon's Republic

02 and Sky suck in call centre hell

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The other week I went to call centre hell. In a weird fluke, a telecoms and broadband nexus, I was given reason to contact BT, Sky and 02 all in one week. Seriously it was too much for one person to take.

Here's what happened. First my landline phone stopped working (I didn't actually notice, someone had to tell me on my mobile) and my broadband was cutting out. So I call BT. It's not their problem it was Sky's.

I call Sky and turns out my broadband router was suddenly killing the phone and killing itself while it all killed me. This takes several calls to fix and I have no broadband for a week after it gives up the ghost completely.

As a fix I figure I can use my Blackberry, but despite following the on screen instructions I can not get it to work as modem. I am really good at doing stuff like this. I'd not a major geek, but a minor one. Clearly my skills are limited. So I call 02 and that was really so incredibly painful that I don't think I could ever risk calling them again for tech support. It is a pointless exercise.

As 02 was the worse offender by a country mile and then some. I got nowhere and ended up on hold for an hour.

The only plus side was that the call was free from my mobile, but the pain of the music (some version of 'When Johnny Comes marching home') and the constant voice telling me this over and over again was almost unbearable:

"I'm sorry all our agents are still busy. Please hold the line and your call will be answered as soon as possible. Your call is important to us, but we are currently experiencing a high number of customer enquiries. You may find it easier to call back later. Our hours are 8am to 8pm. If you wish to continue to whole please continue to do so."

I get it you really don't have to keep reminding me once every single fraking minute. I can only think that these constant reminders that they are busy (liked I hadn't already noticed) are only there to drive you off the line as really they don't want to help you.

Well it was unbearable as finally after an hour on hold (with phone on speaker phone) I gave up and have not gone back.

Next worst offender was Sky. Time spent here totalled one hour and twenty two minutes most of which was on hold. My problem was solved (I needed a new router), but it was painful getting it and I had not broadband for a week.

Finally BT which came out on top as with them I only ended up on hold for a matter of minutes before being offered a ring back, which I took and 15 minutes later I was called back and my problem solved well sort of.

The BT service is so simple and painless that it does leave you feeling much better about the company.

Sky on the other hand not only wasted almost one and a half hours of my time it also charged me £5 for the privilege with its 0870 customer help number. That's pricey help and once my contract is up with them I'm just going to move back to Virgin Media. Calls to Virgin Media at least are free and now it has its Virgin + box Sky doesn't seem any better as an option.

As bad as the money is Sky's terrible elevator muszack. Like some kind of electro jazz that's piped straight from hell, I'm guess on that but it was driving me slowly insane.

Do people in customer service not think about what they are inflicting on their customers? I can only think not. All managers at these call centres and in customer care should be forced to go through the experience. That way I am pretty sure we would see some changes and sharp'ish.

Published Nov 25 2008, 03:45 PM by Gordon Macmillan

Filed under: Call Centres, Sky, 02, BT

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Comments

by CF

November 26, 2008 11:35 AM

Spot on.

The other day, I needed to talk to Vodafone as, having had my phone pinched, I needed to make sure the thieves hadn't spent my money on calling mobiles in Uzbeckistan (before I knew and reported it gone).

I tried at 8pm at night - a 20 minute musak-hell wait before giving up. Fair enough - could be a busy time. But then at 9.30 in the morning, I had to wait another 20 minutes - and then gave up. At 11.30am, I finally decided to stick it out - and after 35 minutes finally spoke to someone.

"We are experiencing unusually high call volume. 'Your call is important to us. You are held in a queue and an operator will answer your call as soon as possible."

Vodafone (and O2, and Sky et al) - if your call volume is at this level all the time, then that's not HIGH, it's NORMAL and you really just need to learn to cope with it.

by Dan Hill

November 26, 2008 2:52 PM

Saynoto0870.com

A great way to get the 01/02 the number is carried on.. saves you on your £5 calls too!

by Gordon Macmillan

November 26, 2008 3:15 PM

I should have thought of that. Next time.

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