Sorry but here comes a big rant….I’ve been having problems with my internet connection from BT for the past two weeks. I should add that I’m in the UK, BT stands for “British Telecom”, and UK residents are British.
So enough is enough after two weeks of sporadic internet connection problems which come and go as quickly as the wind changes, I check their status page and they state
No Webpages
We are currently investigating a problem which may mean you are unable to view web pages. Please bear with us as we endeavour to resolve this problem as quickly as possible. Meanwhile we apologise for any inconvenience.
They also go on in my local area to say that there are problems connecting to the internet and it will be fixed in 2 hours. 2 hours came and went, and now 10 hours later still no news. So I do the thing that any sane person would do and call BT up (okay, where’s my hard hat?)
Within 4 mins my call gets answered by a heavy Indian speaking male that I’m having great difficulty in understanding. Yes, it’s that 4 second delay for your brain to work out what he’s saying. Please don’t take this as racism, I find it very difficult to understand people with thick heavy accents, like some people have problems understanding people with thick Gordie accents or Welsh accents.
Anyway…..the call starts off asking me what the problem is, I state what the website says and immediately the Indian call center guy says (whilst reading the status page) “yes, it will be fixed in two hours sir”, I reply, “that’s what you said at 10am!”, he says, “yes sir it will take 2 hours”, I reply “Let me guess, you’re in India?”, he replies, “Yes sir”, I reply, “Do you know what time it is in England?”, he says “10 o’clock”. I replied “No, it was 10 o’clock 10 hours ago, it’s now 8 o’clock (in the evening!)”.
Here’s where the conversation takes a turn…
The BT Indian call center guy then replies “It will take 24 hours”. I reply…”What? you said 2 hours, now you say 24 hours?”. He replies, “Yes sir”, I reply “so why 24 hours now?”, he replies “because that is the maximum amount of time it will take to fix a fault”.
Aha! We’re getting somewhere. So I then reply “so suddenly you jump from a 2 hour fix to a 24 hour fix time, and that’s a difference of 22 hours!”, he replies “yes sir, it will take 24 hours. If you would like a status update you can call back our automated status line” to which I reply “yes and that says 2 HOURS!”.
I then say “but this problem has been going on for two weeks, so you want me to wait another 24 hours in the hope that you can fix it in another 24 hours making it 360 hours to fix the problem as opposed to 336 hours?”, he replied “yes sir”. At that point I realised yet again I’m just wasting my breath and say “okay so I was going to upgrade to your faster package but now you’ve just angered me even more and I’m going to move to another internet service provider”, he replies “Dear Mr David” (oh and he doesn’t know what my surname is!!!”), “we would be sorry to lose you as a customer and appreciate your loyalty, goodbye sir” and hangs up the phone.
As you can see this ineptitude of the BT Call Center guy was getting no where fast, and that someone in India just really doesn’t care about the level of service they’re providing. Likewise BT also doesn’t seem to care that I’ve been a loyal customer for the last 12 years! So I’m going to be shortly changing to a new ISP and new phone company at this rate.
If anyone at BT reads this, you have my number and you can call me at anytime, but somehow I believe you won’t!
Running commentary on the entire problem is available here.
I think who’s at fault in this situation is the company. They think that they are providing the best customer support they could offer when the truth is, they are not. They should provide more training with their employees in order to improve the quality of their services.
By: Outsourcing Providers Philippines on April 22, 2010
at 2:24 pm
I am totally fed up with BT! I have spent hours and hours trying to speak to somebody about the poor broadband connection that is needed for BT vision. WHen I do get to speak to somebody (usually in India) I am expected to unplug wires, move the hub etc etc. After doing this last time which took 75 minutes I was then told there was a problem with the service in our area! They are crap, crap crap. Problen is I hear that all the other providers are not much better. Why have we got people out of work while BT force us to talk to people on the other side of the world? Does anybody know a simple phone number where I can get hold of an British person who works with BT and give me the service I am paying for? Just got off the phone from a polite Indian sounding lady who was trying to get me to unscrew my BT plate on a Saturday evening for fucks sake! I told her no; I wasn’t going to spend my Saturday evening servicing their equipment. How long before the washing machine repair man asks me to dismantle the machine to see what’s wrong before he will come out!!! I may be getting older (50) but BT service is fucking scandalous.
By: nick on December 11, 2010
at 6:57 pm
Yeah it’s not good nick, problem is it’s cheaper to employ people in India so that’s what BT do. I had more success calling 150 although sometimes I still got shunted to India they seemed to be more sympathetic and would add credits to the bill. Someone’s I managed to get through to someone in the UK if they weren’t in overflow mode – too many calls queued up.
By: Dave Burrows on December 11, 2010
at 7:53 pm
If it’s any consolation Dave, nothing’s changed in the past year…. I’m having a remarkably similar experience. I fee sorry for the call centre staff in India, but enraged that no-one takes responsibility in the UK, where BT are based, and supposedly serving…. What a wind up. My broadband this week has been <0.2mbps!!!! That's narrowband in my book. Still investigating the cause… meaning the wait for an engineer is embarassingly long, so they'll hold me in a queue for a while… Grrrr……
By: Jonny on September 22, 2011
at 11:06 pm
Hi Johnny, that’s not good. Sometimes I do get a <0.2mbps either download or upload. I can't say t his will fix it for you but give it a try, it might.
1. Check with speedtest.net that you're getting slow download or upload
2. Go to whatismyip.com and write down your IP address
3. Power off the Homehub (don’t disconnect) for about 5 mins (this will allow you to get a new IP address when you power it back on
4. Power on the Homehub after 5 mins and let it stabalise
5. Open up a dos/command prompt in Windows (Start > Run > cmd > ok) and type ping http://www.google.com and ensure you have an internet connection
6. Go to whatismyip.com and check you have a different email address
7. Go to speedtest.net and check your speed
If it’s a temporary issue and not a permanent failure then this might fix it for you.
The other way to get an engineer or to get someone to investigate in the UK and bypass the India Call Center is to go to Twitter and tweet to @btcare. They are in the UK and will try to help and can initiate line tests and will call you.
Hope this helps!
Dave
By: Dave Burrows on September 23, 2011
at 6:43 am
india call centers need scrapping n people in the uk re training to nolies no false promises two months of slow net then a bt prick engineer turns net of by mistake then they cant get it on just full of rubbish advisers hang upthey put u through to wrong depts
By: leon on December 7, 2011
at 1:22 pm
JohnG 27/1/12
at 13.45
I have just spent a whole week asking the Indian call centre for help. My broadband went off last Saturday. The help desk promised me someone would come and fix it on Monday, no one turned up. I was then promised a visit on Wednesday, no one turned up. I was then told it was a network fault. Eventually on Friday an engineer arrived, changed the modem and I was back on line in 10 minutes. The Indian call centre seems to generate more problems than it solves. Bring the service back to the UK. JG.
By: John Grant on January 27, 2012
at 2:55 pm
i`ve been on the line to India again to-day as i`ve no internet connection.After 75 mins of checking hub,cables,status and everything else in the house the call centre engineer decided there was a hard wire fault in my house and to call a local I.T engineer to check it out.I was going mad what with his very hard to understand accent and his outcome of where the fault lay.After not doing a thing for 2 hours as i had to calm down from this call centre fiasco i tried to log on again and lo and behold (you`ve guessed it) everything is working again.I worked for B.T for 23years and if we gave service as badly as this our job would have been on the line.Come on B.T you make enough money for gods sake get the Help Desk side of this company sorted out.I`m off to another server by the way after this lates fiasco.
By: ray d on February 16, 2012
at 10:21 pm
Many people throughout the world speak this beautiful language of English in different dialects.
If you think that we Indians don’t speak the way you do or something close to what you people are capable of understanding that you are familiar with, why don’t some of you come down to India and teach us your language so that next time you come across a call-centre guy based in India, you can at least make out head and tail of a conversation, if you know what I mean.
Indians write excellent English but when it comes to speaking with proper intonation we are lagging behind. Again if there are ways to improve communication skills, there is no dearth of institutes that teach English but standard is not always good as most of them are manned by Indian faculties who themselves don’t know how to speak in proper English. I always think that the best way to learn a language is to learn it from the native speakers.
Again there are regional variations in the English speaking world. Educated Indians who can speak good English, they have an accent that is very close to what you call ‘Received Pronunciation’ or more commonly known as ‘BBC Accent’ in this part of the world. Online resources are very limited as well. If you could help us regarding this or at least try to understand the situation we are in, without criticizing the standard of English spoken by Indians in a brash or blatant way, it would be of much help.
Also, Voice and Accent training should cover all the aspects of communication skills, before an agent or an advisor is cleared ahead for the Process Training.
Please Reply.
By: A Bloody Indian on February 25, 2012
at 2:30 pm
Fully agree. Absolutely crap service. Get call centres back in the U.K. Hardly ever get what I pay for, with B.T. 2days last week landline was down, this week Broadband keeps going down.
Time to break up the B.T monopoly.
By: bob on March 1, 2012
at 12:02 am
I am on the line to ‘Indian’ Telecom now.It has taken them 35 minutes to understand my complaint. Every statement they make, I have to repeat back to them in order to try and ascertain where this conversation is heading.
They have managed to send an engineer to a property that is a new build with no current connection succesfully, complete my house move changeover and also bill me succesfully for the last 5 years at the last property. They have managed to send me correspondence to my new address and send my the BT Vision card succesfully… BUT… they have managed to ship the Broadband eqpt and the Vision eqpt to an address that has been defunct for 6 years.
My thickly accented chum on the other end has ‘made a note’ of my requests and details and assures me that Parcel Force will be redirecting my package to the correct address to arrive tomorrow. Anybody care to lay some odds!?
I suspect that I may well be working from a 3G dongle and watching no TV for some weeks to come….
By: Jamosthelongboy on March 16, 2012
at 3:02 pm
I know what you mean. As a disabled woman I have been treated like dirt as they are so prejudiced.
I am still waiting for the “technical support” I use that term loosely to call back at the time they agree which passed ages ago.
All I need is a new hub as this one keeps dropping the connection but they refused to do this. I wish I had never gone to BT but living in the countryside I have no choice as Virgin and Talk Talk dont cover the countryside.
By: Lesley on April 3, 2012
at 3:08 pm
I work for a British company and I don Like to speak to Britishers I prefer speaking to US or canadian people
mostly uk people so called gentlemen are narrow minded
By: Ann on April 5, 2012
at 11:01 pm
The main reason-the calls go to India is because of cheap labor ,and thats the reason people in India don’t take these jobs seriously and it would be a temporary work place for most of them
By: bloody San on April 5, 2012
at 11:07 pm
I have seen your hand and I raise you 5 weeks without a telephone connection and 3 weeks without Broadband, all because BT were struggling to fix an underground cable. BT are completely and utterly crap. Only way, I got any sense was to go to the press on behail of 20 residents, in a similar position. Claiming compensation for loss of service and I have moved to Sky. At least they have a UK based call centre. Also, thank God for 02 mobile broadband, as I am self employed and it gave me a lifeline.
By: bob on July 30, 2012
at 11:54 pm
I think BT are crap,I have recieved constant phone calls from offshore boilerhouse monkeys almost daily for over10 YEARS.BT say they can do nothing and try to bullshit there way out of it.They told me to go ex directory then managed to cock up the directory missing my name out completely without being asked,but still the phone monkeys keep calling.Useless
By: Paul on July 29, 2012
at 1:58 pm
I do not think we can blame the people in India for trying to do a very difficult job. Don’t misunderstand me I quite agree we all hate speaking to someone from a different country when we have a complaint.
personaly I hate having to pick up the phone these days.I would rathe write a letter any day, but it is getting more difficult to find an address for these company’s.
We should remember where the fault really lies, and this is with the British companys who will not satisfy their customers.Sky call centres are exactly the same you can’t understand them either,I often wonder how they understand us.
By: Jenny on September 5, 2012
at 1:53 pm
BT service is really crap. I used to work with BT and I am an Indian. Please try to understand, it’s not the problem that has anything to do with Indians, it’s the poor quality of training they receive which in turn goes against the interest of the customers.
By: A Bloody Indian on September 6, 2012
at 6:53 pm