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