Are UPC Workers That Clueless?

Resi12

Long Time Reader, First Time Ranter!
So my mother ordered the Pay Per View Wrestling just this Sunday gone for my Brother, So it was 9.30pm and it still hadn't come through.

So my mother rang, and was subjected to the dreadful Opera music for 15 minutes(Can they possibly be that busy at 9.30pm on Sunday??!) when she finally got through to some girl.

My mother explained the situation so the girl said to unplug the box, Grand.
Did that and plugged it back in... Stilll nothin, So my mother told her and she said to take out the card then unplug it then plug it back in.
Grand......
Did that, and suprise still nothing so yet again my mother told her, She said put back in the card(Guessing she forgot to say that part), We did and still nothing, Then she said the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,
Take out the card... and WIPE it with a TISSUE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

How on earth would that get PPV to go through!?! It was obviously a internal problem as we got all the other channels!

My mother went back and felt quite annoyed when the girl said it should come through at 12am. And she would ring back at 10pm after they closed to see if it had gone thorugh.

Well 10pm came and got no phone call I am guessing she just had no clue and wanted to get home, So then we rang and we got that stupid animated voice and it said that problems were hapening with the wrestling and it should be through as soon as possible.

Now fair enough the girl said this but only after nearly 15 mins of time wasting, Why didn't she just say this in the first place!?!
Fair enough it did come through at 12am but I just think that they are horribely trained and the Managers/Supervisors should be trained properly first.

Been with them almost 13 years and never had problems like that, I knew UPC were terrible but we are lucky not to get problems so we never have to ring them. Thank God, anyway I just had to rant. Did anyone else get this problem?

Dennis the Stone

I've been through so many hoops with them now, they really don't have a clue and nobody in there cares. It is nothing short of outrageous; I can't for the life of me realise how a company cares so little about it's reputation and customer service. They must not care, because nothing ever changes.

Hyzepher

NTL rang my mother and told her that moving from analogue to digital would save her money, so she agreed to get it. next day NTL rang back to make sure the time agreed for the enfineer to call was still OK for her AND TO MAKE SURE SHE HAD A TV! WFT

The engineer never turned up either - nothing new there

rubadub

Resi12 wrote: »

Then she said the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,
Take out the card... and WIPE it with a TISSUE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Sounds odd but does work. Never see them wiping magnetic strips or the chin & pin things in supermarkets? its the same idea. Think it realigns the "magnetism" or gets rid of static. In the pin & chip ones it might get rid of oxidation on the contacts, this is a way to fix many PC bits too, just reseating ram or plug in card, they oxidise/rust over time and connections can be dodgy. The card holds your account info AFAIK, and must be accessible.

Hyzepher wrote: »

AND TO MAKE SURE SHE HAD A TV! WFT

Probably had cases where people had no TV at the time, e.g. new house and waiting delivery. Then they get the TV and cannot figure out how to connect it, or say it doesnt work. Most people have no idea how to plug in TVs properly, esp. with all the decoders, dvd players, xbox etc.

They did a good job in my parents, gave them new good coax and scart leads etc.

jaymo

Check this one out...

I moved into my new home just over a week ago. One of my first tasks was to order TV (NTL or Sky...decided to try out NTL)

I placed the order online straight away and only today decided to give them a follow up call to see the status of the order as I hadn't heard anything.

Following a call to their call centre team (in ireland) I have just been informed there is a 5 week wait when ordering ONLINE as opposed to 5 days if you order over the phone.

One of the reasons for this is the ONLINE orders go to a new system based in India, which the sales team cant access!!

ADDITIONALLY.

If you order over the phone rather than over the internet there is a different SETUP COST! from €50 to €75. I asked why and was told me because of the great telephone support (this was after waiting 5 minutes listening to music before the call was answered).

I told them I think SKY TV is now a lot more appealing..... and she said, okay thank you, good bye.

Isn't this a typical example of a) Great Company outsourcing to "save money" but without thought of how it will affect both their own staff and the customer AND b) Some call center staff who just don't care anymore.

So, next... should I order Sky online or offline...humm

Hyzepher

rubadub wrote: »

Probably had cases where people had no TV at the time, e.g. new house and waiting delivery. Then they get the TV and cannot figure out how to connect it, or say it doesnt work. Most people have no idea how to plug in TVs properly, esp. with all the decoders, dvd players, xbox etc.

They did a good job in my parents, gave them new good coax and scart leads etc.

Yeah but she was already an NTL customer and they rang her up to offer her a better service.

GerardKeating

Resi12 wrote: »

Now fair enough the girl said this but only after nearly 15 mins of time wasting, Why didn't she just say this in the first place!?!
Fair enough it did come through at 12am but I just think that they are horribely trained and the Managers/Supervisors should be trained properly first.

Like ALL call centre staff, they are required to follow a script which deal in technical support calls, same applies to Sky or even DELL.

And following the script will sort most of the problems.

As to why they did not mention the problems the first time, maybe they did not know, the first few callers with a problem are guinnea pigs, the later calls get the benefit of them noticing a lot of calls on a certain topic and figuring out there is a real problem, which must have happened since the put the recorded message on after your initial call.

patrickmooney

An aside, but I notice that PPV event was free-to-air, at least for me on UPC Dublin. The live event was in the clear, repeats are now blocked. Weird.

rubadub

Hyzepher wrote: »

Yeah but she was already an NTL customer and they rang her up to offer her a better service.

But she was moving from analogue to digital. They need to test this line. e.g. a poor line might look fine on analogue, but might not register at all on a digital box, or come in blocky. I have 4 UPC installed points, my brother put in another, I have tried the digital box on 2 UPC points, both fine, and my brothers DIY job was stalling and unwatchable. I know 3 people who went to digital (which is now cheaper) and when installed they had to get new coax put in, their analogue was fine, but digital did not work.

Also I mentioned setup, they have to put the box in and the scart in the TV. This sounds easy but is beyond many people. They probably have had calls before with people saying it is "broken" and had an unnecessary callout. Pricks for not turning up to her. I am not a UPC fanboy BTW, don't think they exist!