Eircom customer service manuals warned staff not to obey law, court told

Comhrá

Unbelievable the lows a company will stoop to. Amoral behaviour.

https://www.irishtimes.com/crime-law/courts/2024/04/15/eircom-customer-service-manuals-warned-staff-not-to-obey-law-court-told/

…… A training manual provided to eir employees by parent company Eircom
warned them that they would face disciplinary proceedings if they obeyed
Irish laws covering customer complaints.

The same manual also outlined a series of “trigger words” that would allow
people calling the company with complaints to have their concerns dealt
with in an expeditious fashion. If those words were not used the
concerns of customers frequently went nowhere…..

Ciferos

Incidentally I had a complaint with them today, I know how their process is meant to work, I told them I would escalate this issue further, the person on the phone gave me 4 digit complaint number, I knew this is incorrect, but she got all narky and hung up, when questioned about this 4 digit "complaint number", so yep, definitely believe and have experienced this.

They give you the illusion of complaining, if eir cant fix or defuse it, they hang up and hope you will go away. (IF they even ring back!)

gmisk

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/courts/mother-with-no-service-was-unable-to-ring-999-for-sick-daughter-after-eir-told-staff-not-to-handle-customer-complaints/a205359551.html

Grim.

Have always found them a PITA to deal with but with most companies like them if you mention comreg or similar there tends to be some movement the initial story proves that.

The fine is a disgrace, but in fairness the bad PR will hopefully cost them serious coin.

Floppybits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122023948#Comment_122023948

Will it though? People have been complaining about the service from Eir for years and yet they are still operating. I can't understand how they are and why people go with them.

Cluedo Monopoly

What were the trigger words??

Eir customer service has always been utterly shocking. A lot of older people are too afraid to swap providers.

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024360#Comment_122024360

Triggers were 'official complaint' 'reference number for ComReg' and suchlike .

A Dub in Glasgo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024360#Comment_122024360

They are listed in the article

"Another section of the manual outlined the “trigger words” callers could
use. They included: “I want to log a formal/official complaint; I want a
case reference number; I want a reference for ComReg; ComReg advised me
to get a reference” and “I have a ComReg reference”. Callers using
these phrases were treated as making formal complaints and handled
relatively quickly."

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024379#Comment_122024379

Yeah it's a paywalled article for me.

TheIrishGrover

Well, it certainly made me think about moving. I've had intermittent problems with them but nothing that required contacting them for support (needed to reset router, that kind of thing). But i work from home usually so don't like the idea of that level of poor support when needed. I was with Virgin for years, when they were NTL and Chorus and I think there was some other name too. But they just got very expensive. Hear terrible things about Sky broadband and their support. 2 years away from Virgin, maybe I'll go for new customer deal.

That fine was pathetic. These companies will only learn those lesson if they lose customers because of their actions

magicbastarder

You gotta love the defence from eir that that was in the past, that their manuals are different now.

Does that work in general in court? 'your honour, I am not currently in the process of committing a crime, we are talking about something in the past so what's the issue?'

osarusan

By far the worst customer service I have ever experienced anywhere.

I literally had to send them a registered letter to end the contract, as their call line had such long queues it was never-ending. Digiweb are 20E a month cheaper and the level of service is so far superior.

magicbastarder

I once (through a rather torturous process, as I am not an eir customer) managed to get talking to someone in eir about the fact that a tree in my garden was leaning against a phone line. I'd no great love for the tree, planted by a previous owner, and was contacting them to let them know they had full permission to hack at the tree if they had a crew in the area. I thought I was being a good citizen.

After an initial 'we're not doing your tree surgery for you for free' response, they agreed to look into it, and came back to me several days later and triumphantly told me they'd found a workable solution.

I was to log a service request with my provider (virgin, as it happens) who would pass that to eir; who would then send a crew out to cut the tree, and then bill virgin for it. And that virgin may then bill me for that, but that was up to virgin.

'so wait, you want me to log a call with your competitor, to address an issue relating to your infrastructure, and that either virgin or I would pay for that?'

'yes, that's what I'm saying'.

Comhrá

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024543#Comment_122024543

+ 1 for Digiweb. I moved to them from Vodafone a year ago and they are excellent. I used their customer support once and they were very helpful. Even phoned me a few hours after sorting my issue to see if all was working properly.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024567#Comment_122024567

Openeir dangerous plant division for that these days, don't care who if anyone you use

skimpydoo

A few years ago my father got a new laptop and helped him try and migrate his email across to his new computer,. I could not get his eir email address to work with Outlook. I rang up the eir customer care team and asked them what email clients they support. I was flabbergasted when they told me only support eir webmail, which is as old as the hills and has not being updated and given a refresh.

It turns out eir did not have certain security certs setup so without those certs Microsoft could not allow you to use eir as they considered it a security risk.

I ended up setting my dad up with Thunderbird and he was a happy bunny. Thankfully the only issues we have had since is with their tv service which keeps buffering. Thankfully that sheet show of a company are not providing my tv or broadband.

Floppybits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024543#Comment_122024543

100% on digiweb. With them 4 years now and no complaints. Was with sky which runs on the eir network and the service just kept on degrading. So much so that if my wife was on a zoom call I couldn't be on one as well at the same time. Digiweb no such problems.

Patrick2010

Do Digiweb not run on the Eir network?

L1011

Digiweb (and Sky) are available on NBI and SIRO also

Floppybits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025484#Comment_122025484

My Digiweb is on the SIRO network and was the main reason why I went them. Didn't want a provider that used the Eir Network

chopperbyrne

I worked in eircom.net tech support in 2004/5.

A small number of staff were directly employed by Eircom, but most (including me) were contract staff through a company called Stelfox, and Eircom ran everything themselves.

We were never encouraged in any way to not let people know the complaints process.

A few months before I left, Eircom outsourced the call centre to a company called Stream Global Services (who have since been purchased by Convergys), and everyone got full time contracts with Stream.

Immediately things changed though. Almost all of the weekend staff that were hired were Indian or Pakistani, who were perfectly capable, but honestly, their English wasn't up to scratch and calls between them and Irish customers just didn't work.

Stream also were much more concerned with answering calls quickly than providing a resolution for customers. Basically, as long as Stream met their SLA's for calls handled they were happy.

Like myself, a lot of people moved on quickly after Stream took over.

I don't think they have the contract with Eir any more, but whoever is running it is likely similar.

TheRepentent

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122025730#Comment_122025730

HCL took over the contract after Stream

10-10-20

I can't believe that it took this long for such action - and that the fine was only 7.500 EUR…? Absolute ****-show. Have a look at these as proof:

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057653942/official-eir-complaints-process

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2057854046/lodging-a-formal-complaint-with-eir

And more here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aboards.ie+eir+complaints&newwindow=1

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026122#Comment_122026122

Bad to worse with that move

Eir took the customer care back in house.

XT1200

Ah come on folks. It's ComReg's fault

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/comreg-dismisses-eirs-claim-of-incorrect-allegations-following-court-case-1613964.html

Clo-Clo

Years ago had no real options for BB, called Eir and they said it would work at house. Guy came out to install from KN Networks and said I would be wasting my time as it would be terrible and he wouldn't advise me to install

I spent months trying ot get them to stop the direct debit and then once it was stopped to refund me, was a total disaster, never again would I go near them

PopePalpatine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122024630#Comment_122024630

Ugh, don't remind me about their TV service. We made the mistake of switching to them about 5 years ago when they had the bright idea of slapping their logo on some homeplugs and an Android box. The box would take about 5-10 minutes to connect to the wi-fi, and anything of HD quality was constantly buffering. Of course, because it was using our broadband connection this would hog the bandwidth, so if you wanted to watch YouTube/Netflix or play online, that'd suffer too.

A €7,500 fine is just the cost of business for them, they know they've got hundreds of thousands trapped with no alternative.

magicbastarder

Their turnover is over €3m per day, a €7.5k fine is derisory. About four minutes worth of turnover for them.

thebourke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027631#Comment_122027631

I was thinking the same thing…the fine was too low….

corks finest

Tbf id ructions with them in the past,

I mean seriously bad stuff,swore I wouldn't go near the cnuts again,

10/12 years later I chanced them again,

Pleasantly surprised tbh,

Day the engineer was supposed to call-:he turned up

Any niggles we had ref connection was sorted within 2 days,

VF just couldn't/ wouldn't match their prices despite me near begging them,

Now we have 2 cracker 5G Sim only plans ( e20 cheaper than VF combined)

Broadband e12 cheaper than VF

So far alls good,

Annoying thing that the bill has gone up but for now I'm happy enough,

Next year if VF can promise a cheaper option we will jump ship

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027631#Comment_122027631

Does anyone known if there an upper limit contained in the legislation?

Seth Brundle

...and on a lighter note

https://twitter.com/DrHaroldNews/status/1780288141850448193?t=GZMPbwnk0BE5nAH2XSDijQ&s=19

skimpydoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122027585#Comment_122027585

5 years ago Eir start using Apple TV boxes. I should know as I was at the launch of it The Apple TV boxes are great, the buffering drives me mad.

celtic_oz

surprised Comreg held their ground. Typically they are fairly toothless.

A MASSIVE fine for Eir is the only penalty that will get anything changed.

RTE radio did a piece on them yesterday ..outlines their disgusting customer service practices.

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22384887/

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122028931#Comment_122028931

Having a listen to that now.

Absolutely abysmal stuff, it really shows you can't trust a word of what they say on the doors. I am still getting hounded to sign up for phone watch (a subsidiary of eir) very pushy sales technique id say it works on scaring older people into joining.

You really need to be proactive when it comes to cancelling and tracking when contract up etc.

TheIrishGrover

Well, my contract with Eir ended…… TODAY actually (Pure coincidence). Off to Digiweb so. Thanks for the input.

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122029061#Comment_122029061

Do you need to give them notice you are cancelling? (30 days)

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122029013#Comment_122029013

About ten years ago I was being hounded by them both with phone calls and front-door calls (usually when having dinner) and it got to the point that there was something every few days.

As I wasn't a customer of theirs, I wanted my details removed from their marketing lists and every time they called, i made this demand to no avail. (I hadn't been a customer of theirs since I got it in writing about twenty years ago that one of their "Winback" agents lied to me).

Anyhow, I decided to make a formal request to their Data Protection Officer but at the time there seemed no way digitally to contact them. So I printed off a letter and dropped it into HSQ. This letter made the point that I had asked countless times to be removed. It also mentioned that as I would never, ever, ever become a customer of theirs, I did not want to be pestered with their marketing so as of receipt of my letter (which was hand delivered!), any call made (either by phone or to the door) would incur a non-negotiable charge of €10,000. Any continuation of the unwelcome calls would signal acceptance of my terms.
There has not been one more call since!

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122029087#Comment_122029087

Literally never been with Eir at this address or phone watch.

I logged a complaint and they couldn't guarantee they wouldn't keep calling to the door...

I contacted the CCPC, nothing they can do, they suggested legal advice.

I might need to do something similar to what you did fair play!

grinder23

Eir sold phone watch in 2013

TheRepentent

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122026193#Comment_122026193

oh that doesn't surprise me , I worked in Eir tech support for their broadband around 2012 I think ( call centre work…sh1te job but recommend everyone do it once to as a life lesson) and HCL took over and managed to make the job worse. Told manager to fuk off leading to my one and only time I ever got fired from a job :)

Furze99

For anyone that missed it and interested in this, worth listening back to the The Business programme on RTE Radio1 last Sat morning. Eircom/ Eir CEO Oliver Loomes was interviewed and an interesting view of the corporate mindset. This was just a day or so before the court judgment and publicity https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/the-business/2024/0413/1443353-the-business-saturday-13-april-2024/

gmisk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122029199#Comment_122029199

Ah right didn't know that.

In that case I am getting hounded by Eir and the company they used to own Phonewatch :)

witchgirl26

I'm in no way surprised. My friend moved to them for tv & broadband & ended up cancelling within a week because of their customer service. There was an issue with the tv from the get go so she rang up & went round in circles, even being called a liar at one point by the agent on the phone when she said that this was the 3rd time she'd rang on this (it wasn't - turns out it was the 4th - within a week). Just shocking. She said it was worth paying the few extra quid to one of the other providers to not have to deal with their customer service.

TheIrishGrover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122029070#Comment_122029070

Don't know. I'll let you know how I get on

cml387

Does anyone remember when Eir had a forum in the "Talk To " section?

I remember reading the experiences of some contributors to the forum with incredulity that Eir could treat customers that way.

Hyperbollix

Last year, fiber broadband finally came to my area. Shortly after the line works finished, a middle aged executive looking guy arrived at my door from Eir. Said he was the Chief Broadband Installation and Facilitation Engineer for this area or some makey uppy title of that nature. He seemed a bit old, well dressed and professional to be hawking broadband contracts door to door.

After a long spiel, I told him I already had broadband via dish with a local company and that local company would now be getting my business as a fiber customer. And even if they couldn't provide me with Fiber, I would rather resort to dialup than enter into an 18 month contract with a crowd of gougers like Eir. That abruptly ended the sales pitch which was a good result all round.