Party No Party

[peterbirks]

Almost a year to the day since my broadband, and then my phone line, went down, the broadband went down again yesterday. Thus ensued a repeat hour and a quarter talking to the Asian sub-continuent, except that this time I have history on my side. Every time they say to me "everything is fine with the connection", I can say "that's what you said last time".

The "Advanced Diagnostics" are being undertaken at the moment, I am assured. I will then receive a phone call telling me that the advanced diagnostics reveal no fault, even though I know that there is a fault, and that there is nothing wrong with my equipment. This will result in a miscommunication, because the speaker will think that he is supplying me with an answer, whereas, to me, it's merely a statement that "we can't solve the problem".

So, my response will be:

1) What do you propose to do next?

This will normally elicit the response "Let me explain to you Mr Birks..." after which the previous gumph and bullshit I have been fed will be repeated in a different form.

But, once again, I'm ready for them this time. Indeed, I was ready for it last night, when I simply said "I heard what you said. I understood it. Do you have anything new to add to what you just said?"

At which point he gave up and said that he would get someone else to look at it and that I would be contacted soon.

It normally takes about five calls before the situation is reached where I get them to offer to send round an engineer (who will then have to go to the exchange, because that is where the fault is) and they threaten me with a £200 bill if the fault turns out to be with my equipment.

The farce of this is that it is astoundingly bad business because, not only does it piss me off, but it doesn't make them any money, because the fault isn't with my equipment. Stupid, or what?

The whole thing could have an effect on my bonus timetable at BetFred and NoIQ, where I am close to retaining my VIP levels on both for the month, but not quite there. And I'm away for a couple of days from Saturday. And no reload bonus from betftred this month! That's another cash cow that's vanished.

It's a bit of a pisser.
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Comments

They're right, you're wrong

[geoffchall.livejournal.com]

The depressing thing is that I suspect that in 95% of cases, it is a problem at the punter's end. They are happier pissing off you as the one person in 20 rather than implement 19 engineer visits, to then bill customers the £200 when it turns out that they've inadvertantly turned off their router.

Re: They're right, you're wrong

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

I think that it would be a worthwhile investment for BT to swallow those engineering expenses when the punter turns out to be a moron. The goodwill generated by good service is often underestimated, despite concrete evidence as to its long-term value (see, for example, Kwik-Fit).

PJ

Re: They're right, you're wrong

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether you were listening to Geoff; and in fairness, I make it a point not to listen to Geoff either. However, given our favourite accountant's no doubt impeccable statistics, I calculate that 95% of £200 is £190.

£190 per logged problem is an awful lot of money to flush down the drain for goodwill. Goodwill, furthermore, that appears not to be really necessary, since you're still dealing with the same lousy service one year later (and I believe I suggested back then that you swapped). Assuming that you stick it out another year with these morons, I therefore calculate the "badwill value," in your case, as 2x20 = 40 years of pissed-off service. You may care to discount this badwill for the undoubted negative effects of your blog-bleating.

All of which is beside the point, which is:

People don't fix things. Technology fixes things.

I first worked for BT twenty five years ago, and believe me, they haven't changed a bit; or at least not in management terms. Their line management, all the way up the chain of supposed technology managers, is supine, unresponsive, unimaginative, and basically not worth a sea-cucumber's fart.

Given a choice, therefore, between paying (their own, although they've been sacking them on a large scale over the last five years for "performance" reasons) engineers to solve a problem at £30 an hour, or paying off-shored call-centre peons, whose main job consists of putting up with rants considerably less well-educated and less well-informed than a Birks rant, £10 an hour -- that's 50p to the peon and £9.50 to the middle-men, an equation that BT management can understand and appreciate -- they will inevitably take the latter course. They are morons.

They are morons, because this does not scale. (Thus Geoff's comment about 95%)

They are morons, because there is another way.

Basically, you attach a proper diagnostic system to the exchange. I know you can do this, because I was working on exactly this sort of system two years ago before the company, ahem, went bust. (Well, £100 million companies don't exactly "go bust." They just change direction. In America, they go into Chapter 11. Here, they find a Greater Fool, in this case Tiscali.)

You then attach a proper diagnostic system to the user's computer. Ideally, you'd do this to the router, but that would require, in Agent K's memorable words, "that flashy thing." So you attach it to the computer, which is trivial. There's an operational problem here. Obviously you can't remotely attach a proper diagnostic system to the user's computer if the fucking broadband is down.

If I were a large ISP, I would have to scratch my head at this point. Not too long, because I'm bald and still have dandruff -- incidentally, I think this is very unfair and should be brought to the attention of the relevant authorities -- but around 30 seconds should do it. εύρηκα. (There is no such thing as an exclamation mark in Ancient Greek.) I need a bath, badly.

No ... that wasn't it.

Before signing a client up to my service, I will supply them with a CD packed to the brim with yummy diagnostic software.

The reason I know how to fix these problems is probably the same reason that I am no longer employed in the telecommunications industry.

Never mind. Time to go back to my day (night) job in the most important industry that Great Britain has ever known, now that banking has gone down the tubes. Yes: On-line advertising.

Re: They're right, you're wrong

[peterbirks.livejournal.com]

But it's not £200 of BT's money. The actual cost could be far less. What I'm saying is that the imposition of that charge on the customer creates bad will -- and it's very rare that any cash is generated as a result. Customers who know that the problem isn't at home carry on regardless, while those who are less certain either (a) solve the problem themselves and vow to shift or (b) just give up and join another supplier.

That still seems to me like a bad business model for BT.

And recent surveys have backed me up on this. BT has dropped way down in the list of customer satisfaction. And Virgin seems to have moved up. Perhaps the old NTL culture is actually changing.

PJ

You're wrong; they're right; but your premises are dubious. (I'd check the foundations, if I were y

[real-aardvark.livejournal.com]

I think there should be a button on blogs for "I just know what he's going to say next." Maybe even a "You are the 999,999th person to know what he's going to say next" sort of thing.

But you are absolutely right. The actual cost to BT (on an EBITDA basis) is undoubtedly less than £200. There's a slight possibility that it is more than £0, what with a man in a white van having to drive over to the exchange and hit the relevant naughty bit with a hammer. Let's just compromise at £50, shall we?

That's still rather expensive.

However, you are correct. Your observation blows a huge hole in my throwaway comment that BT are, a la Challinger, relying on 95% of the complaining population to just suck it up. I'm sorry about that. £50 -- notionally -- is certainly less than £200 -- notionally. I should have noticed that.

Your observation also blows a huge hole in my main point, which is that there is a way to handle this through technology rather than through "customer support."

I mean, obviously.