I'd rather talk to a lad in an Indian Callcentre with broken English

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D · 26-05-2013 1:00am #1

Than use the "Talk To" Forums anymore.

Now, I haven't used them all so I suppose I shouldn't lump them all in this (though a quick peek suggests I probably could, except for liberty) but, Three, 02, Meteor, Eircom I've used and all ended up having to go instore or ring them.

Useless.

I think the Three one links you to some bad AI somewhere, responses are usually the same lies. I think I'd get more relevant replies from Cleverbot or Alice.

It could've been a Boards shining Star instead it's just treated like a meal ticket despite promises that it wouldn't turn into such.

Response time/rate were a good addition but it's easily sidestepped by a simple reply from a rep, though they can't even be arsed to do that, with a resolution for alot of OPs (if their lucky) a week or two later.

Suggestion for an improvement: Add in a satisfactory score over beside the response things. When an OP Query is dealt with they could be redirected to a "How did we do" with a couple of questions. If Forum scores over X%, Boards will knock 10 Grand* off the cost of letting them on here and the companys will have an incentive to give a fudge.

*Maybe not 10.

Tom Dunne · 26-05-2013 5:43am

Interesting feedback from somebody on the site less than a month, with 127 posts to his/her name.

Adyx · 26-05-2013 6:00am

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Interesting feedback from somebody on the site less than a month, with 127 posts to his/her name.

Since when does post count matter? How about someone with 6+ years on the site then: I'm a customer of Vodafone and Komplett.ie. I have no complaints regarding the latter but I will never ever use the Vodafone Talk To forum again having used it once. From what I've read of that forum and the other mobile providers, all they do is ask you to PM your details and they'll get back to you (regardless of issue). So it ends up being faster to use more traditional methods of "customer service". On top of this you're forced to use the new skin as well!

RoundyMooney · 26-05-2013 9:15am

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Interesting feedback from somebody on the site less than a month, with 127 posts to his/her name.

Not helpful.

humbert · 26-05-2013 12:00pm

I've used the O2 one and the PC World one and on both occasions I was amazed at how successful it was. Much easier posting here when it was convenient for me than sitting on hold during working hours.

In the end it's one more option, if it's not working for you you can still use the more traditional alternatives.

RoundyMooney · 26-05-2013 12:56pm

Having said all that-considering that they pay Distilled Media for the use of the forum, are boards really in a position to call them on haphazard responses?

(And I agree with the poster above, some of the companies here are brilliant, others...well...the less said the better.)

Ken. · 26-05-2013 1:01pm

I got my daughter a Vodafone phone for her birthday last year. Their was a problem with her call plan and 3 hours on the phone to customer care couldn't sort it out. The Vodafone rep Darren was able to sort it in next to no time.
Very good service from them in my opinion.

Pawwed Rig · 26-05-2013 1:04pm

Adyx wrote: »

I will never ever use the Vodafone Talk To forum again having used it once.

I think the Vodafone issue is a reflection of the corporate policy towards customer service in general. They seem to have all but abandoned the Talk to forum at this stage. I have used the meteor forum aswell and they did address the issue I had, they do not seem to have input at appropriate levels to resolve issues quickly.

I would have a concern that posting on these forums can gain infractions from boards. I think there should be a separation of the rules. Dealing with these guys (vodafone in particular) can be some of the most frustrating conversations to be had. You try not to be a dick but the complete lack of responses can be frustrating in the extreme and may lead otherwise good posters to lose the head a bit.

The forums themselves helped me when choosing a new mobile phone supplier. Just looking at the level of complaints I could rule out Three and Vodafone immediately so they are helpful in that regard.

SB2013 · 26-05-2013 1:09pm

This is just an issue with customer service in general. The people who deal with the customers generally know very little and can do very little. They have a script that they go through with multiple choice answers. If your problem falls outside the script then they must send it further up the chain. The bigger the company, the worse it is. The advantage of the Talk to forums is that you generally deal with the same people.

keelanj69 · 26-05-2013 1:14pm

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Interesting feedback from somebody on the site less than a month, with 127 posts to his/her name.

How many posts did it take before you were allowed dispense these wonderful little nuggets of wisdom? I'd like to close my account before that happens.

ToadVine · 26-05-2013 3:41pm

The op is correct ... the Three "talk to" forum in particular is a disgrace. The reps take everything to pm, and difficult and awkward questions are simply ignored. I've also seen the reps tell outright lies.

I posted some critical comments about Three on their forum, and within about an hour I had Dav making the following comment to me "It looks pretty unfortunate that you've little else for doing tbh". Pretty disgraceful as I am a customer of Three and I was asking a relevant question about changing t&c's. Are "difficult" questions and critical comments not allowed now?

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Interesting feedback from somebody on the site less than a month, with 127 posts to his/her name.

Classy. Is that the way feedback is judged?

But then Tom I suppose you'll dismiss my feedback too as I've only been here 3 years and have about 600 posts ...

.
..

Sully · 26-05-2013 6:58pm

I'm sure Tom wasn't being insulting or patronizing towards the OP on purpose, it either came across that way due to a badly phrased post or there was more to his response. Either way, its not the usual reply Tom would give so lets hold back the pitchforks and give our Newstalk Host a break (:P).

As for the forums - I have actually found the o2 one to be very good and saved me from going in store, calling or using the dreadful online chat. I know there were numerous issues with Three and Vodafone, and the PC World Forum has sunk (it appears) since Declan left. The Komplett forum is slow, a bit hit and miss, but once the lads reply its fairly good.

I'd like to see a rating system introduced or an award scheme for the best Talk 2 Forum. Its imperative for Boards that the Talk 2 Forums work and work well. There does seem to be a bit of a 'If they pay, we won't be holding them to account' for poor response times or poor replies.

But overall, the forums are fantastic and a great addition to the site. I'd like to see more companies using them and interacting with Boardsies who need customer care.

coffee_cake · 26-05-2013 7:41pm

I think a rating system sounds like a good plan, though not anonymous and people should make a comment on why they gave a bad rating, for transparency.

Corkfeen · 26-05-2013 9:18pm

I'd suspect the companies would appreciate it too, it will help them in terms of improving the service. Any time that i've used it, i've found them to be extremely useful.

Overheal · 26-05-2013 10:43pm

I'm pretty sure Distilled Media doesn't want the Talk To forums becoming useless points of communication and, AFAIK, companies have been refused approval for a Talk To forum or been revoked of one in the past for not being up to par, so this feedback IS important and will surely be looked at. See Dav's post

As far as those forums are concerned too, thats not really a case of how long a poster has been around for - I could imagine situations where people register just to use the Talk To's. I agree with Bluewolf though it should be similar to other rating services like Yelp, where the complaint should be matched up transparently to the user who was unsatisfied with a specific interaction.

Vodafone: Paul · 26-05-2013 10:59pm

As both a boardsie and a rep, there's lots to take on board here.

I've started polls and feedback threads in our own forum before but maybe here is a better place to gauge whats needed in our talk to forum.

Boards is a great resource, as a company we've stumbled at times here but I definitely want to make sure our talk to forum is of use.
It literally is my job to make it work. If it doesn't work the it needs to change.

P_1 · 27-05-2013 1:19am

The way I see it is that there's a balancing act that has to be struck between the reps of the company staying 'on message' and the customer being spoken to in 'plain English'.

Both the companies and customers need to understand this IMO

nesf · 27-05-2013 5:51am

Adyx wrote: »

How about someone with 6+ years on the site then: I'm a customer of Vodafone and Komplett.ie. I have no complaints regarding the latter but I will never ever use the Vodafone Talk To forum again having used it once. From what I've read of that forum and the other mobile providers, all they do is ask you to PM your details and they'll get back to you (regardless of issue). So it ends up being faster to use more traditional methods of "customer service". On top of this you're forced to use the new skin as well!

I don't know what Vodafone can do. I mean no sane person is going to post up their mobile number and enough details to pass Vodafone's security check so there'll always be PMing your details and getting back to you. They have to take your details and feed them into whatever department handles your complaint and wait for that complaint to get back to them. Unless Vodafone prioritises engineers and whoever to handle Boards.ie cases there's nothing the reps can do to speed things up normally. I imagine precisely like email support in many companies, because there isn't a person talking down the phone to you there will be delays.

Dav · 27-05-2013 12:46pm

Some important points:

1) Boards.ie doesn't tell any of the businesses who have a Talk To forum how to do their jobs. Obviously enough, we provide training on the platform and guidance on how best to deal with certain sorts of things. If you see a list of unsatisfactory responses or you don't think any particular company isn't doing things right, well then you can factor that into your purchasing decisions. The response time and response rate statistics are there to help you see what any particular company is like to deal with. It's also worth pointing out that all the companies were happy to see these added as it's important for them to show people how they're dealing with the issues that arise on their forum.

2) Personal account business has to be done in private for all sorts of obvious privacy as well as legal reasons. It is still unbelievable how many people post their name, phone number and various other personal details on this site, but the reps have a duty of care not to engage with that person on the thread and merely point out that they should edit the post (they also report these posts to us to snip as quick as we can) and send a PM. Almost all queries beyond a general information question require personal details to determine the exact circumstances of the issue and to get a resolution.

3) Big companies are big! This might seem like a daft statement, but these companies who have Talk To forums are too big to be able to react as quickly as we who are daily internet users who are used to quick turn-arounds would want. You have to appreciate that there are a lot of internal hoops to be jumped through by any front line staff to get results because in many cases you're talking about senior management who simply don't use or understand the internet (despite the fact that in some cases, you're talking about ISPs) and who remain unconvinced that a thread with several thousand views about a given problem is hugely damaging to a company's reputation. A big part of the existence of these forums (as I see it) is to allow a company's social media and/or customer service teams show how they need to be more flexible in dealing with common issues such as incorrect billing and lack of service.

4) This is a minor, but important point, but it's not Distilled Media that provides this platform, it's Boards.ie Ltd. That might seem like semantics but you're talking about 2 different companies - some guy brought Boards.ie to the Small Claims Court over something that happened on Adverts and despite numerous attempts by us to explain to him, the Garda investigating the initial complaint and the registrar of the courts that Boards.ie Ltd does not run Adverts.ie and hasn't done for 3 years, this fell on deaf ears. The guy didn't even bother showing up to the court which was a wonderful use of our time and money as you can all imagine. For the record, Adverts.ie is run by Adverts Marketplace Ltd.

Adyx · 27-05-2013 4:51pm

nesf wrote: »

I don't know what Vodafone can do. I mean no sane person is going to post up their mobile number and enough details to pass Vodafone's security check so there'll always be PMing your details and getting back to you. They have to take your details and feed them into whatever department handles your complaint and wait for that complaint to get back to them. Unless Vodafone prioritises engineers and whoever to handle Boards.ie cases there's nothing the reps can do to speed things up normally. I imagine precisely like email support in many companies, because there isn't a person talking down the phone to you there will be delays.

That's kind of my point. It's not that I had a bad experience on the VF Talk To forum; I just don't see any advantage to using it vs. other customer support services, especially when it's potentially a lot slower to get a resolution since most replies from the reps seem to be "Please PM me your details". That's not their fault of course. But the whole thing seems a little pointless to me.

Gordon · 27-05-2013 5:11pm

Adyx wrote: »

But the whole thing seems a little pointless to me.

ken wrote: »

I got my daughter a Vodafone phone for her birthday last year. Their was a problem with her call plan and 3 hours on the phone to customer care couldn't sort it out. The Vodafone rep Darren was able to sort it in next to no time.
Very good service from them in my opinion.

Seems to be good for some situations at least, I'm sure you'll agree.

nesf · 27-05-2013 5:49pm

Adyx wrote: »

That's kind of my point. It's not that I had a bad experience on the VF Talk To forum; I just don't see any advantage to using it vs. other customer support services, especially when it's potentially a lot slower to get a resolution since most replies from the reps seem to be "Please PM me your details". That's not their fault of course. But the whole thing seems a little pointless to me.

The big advantage is that you have a paper trail, unless you record your phone call with customer service you don't have this. So you could be promised the moon, sun and stars by some moron with no intention of doing anything and you'll be hard pressed proving it.

In general this is why I prefer to deal with customer complaints through email and other written forms.

sofitalliah · 27-05-2013 6:58pm

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Interesting feedback from somebody on the site less than a month, with 127 posts to his/her name.

Each poster is entitled to a opinion ya arse bandit Tom..:D

Zaph · 27-05-2013 10:19pm

sofitalliah wrote: »

Each poster is entitled to a opinion ya arse bandit Tom..:D

Well if that's the standard of feedback we can expect from you in the future, I see no reason for you having continued access to this forum.

MugMugs · 27-05-2013 11:58pm

Vodafone: Paul wrote: »

As both a boardsie and a rep, there's lots to take on board here.

I've started polls and feedback threads in our own forum before but maybe here is a better place to gauge whats needed in our talk to forum.

Boards is a great resource, as a company we've stumbled at times here but I definitely want to make sure our talk to forum is of use.
It literally is my job to make it work. If it doesn't work the it needs to change.

You should take the feedback so. You've got a 61 hour response time....... And climbing. As friendly as you all are its rare to see a pain free resolution. Threads have to be bumped to get a response and if they're not then they just drift off into the abyss unanswered. That in my opinion is seriously bad form by such a significant company and doesn't lend much faith in your presence on boards. It's more damaging than anything right now.

Esoteric_ · 28-05-2013 12:05am

Tbh, I've found the Talk To forums pretty useful, with the exception of Meteor, who hadn't a bloody clue what was wrong with my service and advised me to get a new sim, when I already was 100% sure it was a network issue for various reasons (turns out it was indeed a network issue, which a person working in my local Meteor store was able to tell me within about half a minute!).

Haven't used the VF one in particular, but have had dealings with Eircom and PC World and found the response times fairly fast (a day or two at most) and the reps very helpful.

I don't think boards staff can tell a paying customer how to run their business or customer support services, because each company would have its own procedures and rules with regards to customer service.

I find the talk to forums much better than phone calls, because there is a paper trail somewhat, and better than email, because I never get a response to my emails. :pac:

vicwatson · 28-05-2013 12:16am

Tesco mobile has been excellent ime

01-06-2013 1:14am

Vodafone: Paul wrote: »

As both a boardsie and a rep, there's lots to take on board here.

I've started polls and feedback threads in our own forum before but maybe here is a better place to gauge whats needed in our talk to forum.

Boards is a great resource, as a company we've stumbled at times here but I definitely want to make sure our talk to forum is of use.
It literally is my job to make it work. If it doesn't work the it needs to change.

I hope it's ok to point to a particular example via this thread?

There is a thread in VF called "customer service - or lack of". The OP highlighted their issue and at some time later a VF rep requested they PM their details. The OP does as asked and then waits, and waits. They eventually post back onto the thread as they have received no further response. Another VF rep asks them to PM details and so the OP does as asked. They wait, and wait.

The above frustrating circle continues with VF rep No3 and then again with VF rep No4. Not one VF rep took control of the issue and it was blatantly obvious that the customer was being ignored.

How are customer queries dealt with once they hit the back office of the Talk To forum? Does the rep who requests the PM have that customers queries assigned to their jobs list? Are the queries flagged for follow up or closing out and how often do these reviews take place?

The above questions stand for all of the Talk To forums.

Pawwed Rig · 01-06-2013 9:08am

Without trying to focus too much on Vodafone I think it needs to be pointed out that since Vodafone Paul's response here the response rate to queries has dropped further to 37%. That is 2 out of every 3 people who put in a query here are ignored. The others are responded to but as the previous poster has pointed out responding does not mean resolving.
As I said earlier in the thread I think Vodafone have all but abandoned boards.ie.

I forgot previously that I also used the UPC forum and they resolved an issue for me that tbh I thought was going to be a long slog so thumbs up to UPC and Meteor. Vodafone gets an F though.

johnnyskeleton · 02-06-2013 7:04pm

Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D wrote: »

Than use the "Talk To" Forums anymore.

Now, I haven't used them all so I suppose I shouldn't lump them all in this (though a quick peek suggests I probably could, except for liberty) but, Three, 02, Meteor, Eircom I've used and all ended up having to go instore or ring them.

Useless.

What about if your only phone is the one that is causing problems and you don't want to ask someone else for a lend of their phone because of embarrassment?

If you want an immediate answer and don't mind the price of a phonecall, then ring your service provider. On the other hand, if you have internet access it saves you the cost and the hassle of a phone call.

.BrianJM · 03-06-2013 1:57am

Dav wrote: »

... The response time and response rate statistics are there to help you see what any particular company is like to deal with....

I would be interested in how the response time (& rate) are calculated.
On Friday afternoon the response time for a certain forum was 44 hours.
Now, about 2½ days later it is 28 hours.
A check of the listed reps. shows that the last post by one of them was over 4 days ago. I've skimmed through the posts for the last few days and didn't notice any recent replies from reps.

I'd rather talk to a lad in an Indian Callcentre with broken English

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