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

  • 26-05-2013 12:00am
    #1
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 146 ✭✭Prof Nincom Poop Ph.D


    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.
    Post edited by Shield on


«1

Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 23,212 ✭✭✭✭Tom Dunne


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


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,997 ✭✭✭Adyx


    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!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,910 ✭✭✭✭RoundyMooney


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

    Not helpful.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,238 ✭✭✭humbert


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,910 ✭✭✭✭RoundyMooney


    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.)


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    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.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 22,430 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 805 ✭✭✭SB2013


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,089 ✭✭✭keelanj69


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 659 ✭✭✭ToadVine


    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 ...


    .
    ..


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  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators, Regional South East Moderators Posts: 24,056 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sully


    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.


  • Posts: 0 CMod ✭✭✭✭ Paris Weak Valedictorian


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,940 ✭✭✭Corkfeen


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,972 ✭✭✭Vodafone: Paul


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,681 ✭✭✭✭P_1


    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


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,840 ✭✭✭Dav


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,997 ✭✭✭Adyx


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 35,524 ✭✭✭✭Gordon


    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.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,644 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26 sofitalliah


    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


  • Registered Users, Subscribers, Registered Users 2 Posts: 47,351 ✭✭✭✭Zaph


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,875 ✭✭✭✭MugMugs


    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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,255 ✭✭✭✭Esoteric_


    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:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 28,404 ✭✭✭✭vicwatson


    Tesco mobile has been excellent ime


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    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.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 22,430 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    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.


  • Moderators, Entertainment Moderators, Politics Moderators Posts: 14,549 Mod ✭✭✭✭johnnyskeleton


    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.


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  • Subscribers Posts: 2,670 ✭✭✭.BrianJM


    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.


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 22,430 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    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 have been watching your forum since you posted this. According to the forum there are 4 Vodafone reps
    Colm
    Darren
    Paul
    Aoife

    Colm's last post on boards.ie was on January 14th
    Darren's last post was yesterday. The post before that was last Wednesday
    Aoife's last post was May 3rd
    and your last post was the one I am quoting above ie 9 days ago

    That to me looks like abandonment of the forum even though the response time has somehow miraculously dropped to 34 hours (despite no responses).

    Could a notice be put up there that the forum is no longer being monitored as it is not fair on people to post there and be ignored. I have been resisting the urge to provide advice to people on the forum that they will most likely not receive any answers but don't want to be a nuisance there either.

    I can see how people would get extremely frustrated on this which could lead to bans etc which I think would be unfair.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,910 ✭✭✭✭RoundyMooney


    If those experiences ring true, then it makes a nonsense of the "response time" statistics. Would be interesting to learn how they're calculated.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 732 ✭✭✭Boards.ie: Nicola


    Auld-Yin wrote: »
    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.

    Response time is based on the average time between the OP and the first rep reply to a thread, based on a 28 day average.

    Response rate is the ratio of threads which have an official reply (ie from a Verified Representative), again over a 28 day period.

    When we were rebuilding the Talk to forums we felt some indicator of service levels was reasonable, both to manage member's expectations and give the Talk to companies an idea of how they were performing.


  • Subscribers Posts: 2,670 ✭✭✭.BrianJM


    Response time is based on the average time between the OP and the first rep reply to a thread, based on a 28 day average.

    Response rate is the ratio of threads which have an official reply (ie from a Verified Representative), again over a 28 day period.

    When we were rebuilding the Talk to forums we felt some indicator of service levels was reasonable, both to manage member's expectations and give the Talk to companies an idea of how they were performing.

    ...but how does a response time of 44 hours reduce to 28 hours when there has been no response over a 60 hour period and at the time of my original post the most recent response was over 110 hours old?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,910 ✭✭✭✭RoundyMooney


    Auld-Yin wrote: »
    ...but how does a response time of 44 hours reduce to 28 hours when there has been no response over a 60 hour period and at the time of my original post the most recent response was over 110 hours old?

    Maybe the stats reset every four weeks, as opposed to a rolling 28 day average?

    That's the only explanation I can think of.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,584 ✭✭✭✭Steve


    Auld-Yin wrote: »
    ...but how does a response time of 44 hours reduce to 28 hours when there has been no response over a 60 hour period and at the time of my original post the most recent response was over 110 hours old?
    Read the answer carefully.
    Response time is based on the average time between the OP and the first rep reply to a thread, based on a 28 day average.
    It doesn't say the response has to be from a rep so "I've the same issue" posts will improve the response time.

    Response *rate* would be more accurate in this case.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    Steve wrote: »
    It doesn't say the response has to be from a rep .
    Yes it does. You even quoted it.

    Response time is based on the average time between the OP and the first rep reply to a thread, based on a 28 day average.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,910 ✭✭✭✭RoundyMooney


    Steve wrote: »
    Read the answer carefully.
    Response time is based on the average time between the OP and the first rep reply to a thread, based on a 28 day average.
    Steve wrote: »
    Response *rate* would be more accurate in this case.

    It doesn't say the response has to be from a rep so "I've the same issue" posts will improve the response time.

    Response *rate* would be more accurate in this case.

    :D


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,584 ✭✭✭✭Steve


    Doh. :o

    I need glasses.


  • Subscribers Posts: 2,670 ✭✭✭.BrianJM


    Maybe the stats reset every four weeks, as opposed to a rolling 28 day average?

    That's the only explanation I can think of.

    That had occurred to me but I dismissed it. If stats were reset every 28 days you gould have a response time into 100s of hours then next day it's 1 hour or less.
    Not very meaningful.
    Another question could be 'how often is the calculation made?'


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,875 ✭✭✭✭MugMugs


    It's clear to me that Vodafone are wasting money being here..... And losing custom. My thread is an indication that I don't matter and as such, I'll head off to another provider.http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2056950282


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,609 ✭✭✭Boards.ie: Danny


    Response time is calculated on a rolling 28 day window, including the weekends. It is the average time between the OP's post and the first post by a verified rep of that forum. It seems like a simple statistic, but has a few caveats.

    Say a company has a response rate of 20 hours on 100 threads in the last 28 days. Then one day they respond to a thread that's over 3 weeks old and got lost, it can skew the response times horribly. It happened very recently in the Vodafone forum, somebody went digging up old threads and as a result their response times shot up to over 100 hours. For that reason, and to counteract as best we can the effects of the weekend we take the 90% percentile, the 10% of all threads responded to with the longest response time are discarded when calculating the average. So that's on reason for a big drop recently.

    Then there is the other thing that we're not taking into account - if a rep never responds to a thread that will not affect the response time. It affects the response rate. So if everybody starts threads and they are ignored for a week the response time won't jump to 168 hours or whatever until a rep responds. The response rate will plummet though.

    Feel free to respond with some observations or suggestions for improvement on these metrics, all feedback is welcome :)

    Danny


  • Subscribers Posts: 2,670 ✭✭✭.BrianJM


    I need to give this some thought, however:
    ...if everybody starts threads and they are ignored for a week the response time won't jump to 168 hours or whatever until a rep responds....
    Suppose that it's just four persons ignored for a week. If one is responded to, then time is 168 hours. But this gives a false impression because three received no response. This, presumably, would be reflected by a response rate of 25% but that's almost meaningless. e.g. replying to one of four in percentage terms would be the same as replying to 150 of 600 I think.

    Maybe number of new posts for the period should also be shown.

    Whilst that may be useful it could be misleading. There are posts going back to the start with no rep. response but in a lot of cases they are about poor connection or a setup problem. A short post by rep. saying 'transmitter fixed' or 'solved by PM' etc. would complete the thread.

    ~~~~~~~~~~

    Another matter which doesn't affect the statistics but is still in the remit of this thread:
    there are times when a rep. has responded a few times, has asked for info. via PM and then at some stage seems to ignore the thread.
    It gets taken up by another rep. who requests some information. - The information already sent by PM and posted in the thread.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 10,910 ✭✭✭✭RoundyMooney


    How about allowing the OP to rate the thread on conclusion (good bad or indifferent?)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,410 ✭✭✭bbam


    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.

    I used the three folks there a few times and found them great. They did their best and actually listened to my problem. They couldn't do anything for me but at least they tried.
    The phone support for three is a funny thing. The guys in India are so polite, nice and respectful. But they know nothing except follow the same steps for every problem, can't deviate or listen. Just repeat the same steps in the nicest possible way.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 11,255 ✭✭✭✭Esoteric_


    VF are at 21% response rate. That's actually shocking, especially after seeing them blatantly ignore MugsMugs.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,087 ✭✭✭Duiske


    Esoteric_ wrote: »
    VF are at 21% response rate. That's actually shocking, especially after seeing them blatantly ignore MugsMugs.

    They are not responding on Boards at all. You either have to call Vodafone or go to the Vodafone support website.

    http://www.boards.ie/ttfpost/84949702
    Hi folks,
    We apologise for the recent delay in responding to queries - we are currently in the process of increasing our team, in order to make sure everyone gets a response.

    In the meantime, please see the details below for alternative means to contact us:

    If your query is urgent, please call:
    1907 for billpay queries
    1747 for PAYG queries
    1740 for technical issues with landline or mobile

    If your query is not urgent, please visit us at the following link, or email via this link.


    Thanks,


  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 22,430 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    Would it be an idea to temporarily shut the Vodafone forum until they replace their staff? Paul posted here 3 weeks ago that it was his job to make sure the forum works and he must have been removed from his post as he has not posted in the interim. Meanwhile Vodafone Darren is putting up apology after apology on the Vodafone forum saying that they are unable to deal with queries. 15% response with 100+ response time? This is showing absolute contempt for boards and it's users.

    http://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2056965401


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,578 ✭✭✭Slutmonkey57b


    in my experience the only way to get decent customer service out of an Irish company is to send a registered letter to the ceo/company Secretary. (advice I picked up on boards!)

    Everything else gets ignored.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,152 ✭✭✭✭KERSPLAT!


    in my experience the only way to get decent customer service out of an Irish company is to send a registered letter to the ceo/company Secretary. (advice I picked up on boards!)

    Everything else gets ignored.

    Simply not true. Vodafone here is a shambles at the moment but the lads have fixed things for me before and some of the others seem to do OK and thats just on boards. I've often rang Vodafone and Meteor and the service is pretty good too


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