Having a good old moan about smart

dub45

iano wrote:

Garfield, did you miss this question or is it on your list?
The form that we are required to download, complete and submit is NOT suitable for Credit Card payment. It only caters for bank account direct debit.

That may be a good thing! Surely you dont want your credit card details lying around Smart offices until God knows when? I think Smart are mad to be soliciting bank details from people months in advance of a possible connection.

iano

dub45 wrote:

That may be a good thing! Surely you dont want your credit card details lying around Smart offices until God knows when? I think Smart are mad to be soliciting bank details from people months in advance of a possible connection.

Whoever you get this sort of service from will have your payment details for the duration of the contract, which could be years. This applies to telecom Service Providers, ESB, Sky, etc.
The assumption is that Smart Telecom will follow their obligations under the Data Protection Act and secure the information apropriately, not leave it "lying around for months" in an office.

dub45

iano wrote:

Whoever you get this sort of service from will have your payment details for the duration of the contract, which could be years. This applies to telecom Service Providers, ESB, Sky, etc.
The assumption is that Smart Telecom will follow their obligations under the Data Protection Act and secure the information apropriately, not leave it "lying around for months" in an office.

Given some of the stuff that they appear not to have anticipated that is a big assumption and how can we have any proof of it?

The companies you instance already have products to offer and systems/structures in place for people who wish to avail of those products and in general would not be dealing with the arrival of many new direct debit forms through the post on a daily basis. They presumably also have experienced staff.

Smart do not yet have even one bb customer as far as we know. They are,in my view anyways, requesting bank details from people who cannot based on Smarts own schedule be signed up for many months. We do not know if they have even considered what they are going to do to deal with many (possibly hundreds?) of direct debits lying around in their post room or other areas waiting to be associated with web sign up forms. (Although they do ask for a phone number on the direct debit form they do not even ask for 'cusomer's to insert their Smart reference numer on the direct debit to aid its association with other sign up papers.

All of these forms will be presumably handled by new inexperienced people. The reports earlier in the thread that some of Smart's phone reps do not appear to be well informed would not inspire confidence overall in the training Smart are given to their staff. Any start up is going to have major problems no matter what they do but why bring unnecessary ones on? Smart should just request direct debit forms from people who can be connected in the next month or two.

Sponge Bob

You are being hard on them .

dub45 wrote:

Given some of the stuff that they appear not to have anticipated that is a big assumption and how can we have any proof of it?
The companies you instance already have products to offer and systems/structures in place for people who wish to avail of those products and in general would not be dealing with the arrival of many new direct debit forms through the post on a daily basis. They presumably also have experienced staff.

Smart have a large staff, certainly well over 200 , and are well capable of processing these orders if they start early , if they launched tomorrow they would have worse hassle. By March/April they should be able to enable blocks of customers per exchange per day (unless Honest Dave Mc Redmond frightens Comreg) , not that daft really given the access constraints .

Smart do not yet have even one bb customer as far as we know. They are,in my view anyways, requesting bank details from people who cannot based on Smarts own schedule be signed up for many months. We do not know if they have even considered what they are going to do to deal with many (possibly hundreds?) of direct debits lying around in their post room or other areas waiting to be associated with web sign up forms. (Although they do ask for a phone number on the direct debit form they do not even ask for 'cusomer's to insert their Smart reference numer on the direct debit to aid its association with other sign up papers.

Thousands and Thousands of DDs dude. Nevertheless they have time to iron their processes out by March/April .

All of these forms will be presumably handled by new inexperienced people. The reports earlier in the thread that some of Smart's phone reps do not appear to be well informed would not inspire confidence overall in the training Smart are given to their staff. Any start up is going to have major problems no matter what they do but why bring unnecessary ones on? Smart should just request direct debit forms from people who can be connected in the next month or two.

Hmmm. Smarts biggest mistake as I see it is the same one as ESATs.

It is a very very very bad idea to set up an operation of this scale and type in Dublin where you cannot really get or retain useful CS staff. The lack of training shows and the ongoing process of training new muppets each week becomes a drain on the competent ones . ESAT has consistently proved that over the years I regret to say .

I do think their model would work if they set up their CS in Arklow or Drogheda or Portlaoise or further afield lke Letterkenny . Hopefully they realise that before they get a reputation for a bad customer service experence.

Ultimately only time will tell ....by about next August I'd say ...... but spreading the admin load as they did by soft launching last week and verifying the customer can pay by DD before provisioning them is a damn good idea if you ask me .

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

You are being hard on them .

.............................

Ultimately only time will tell ....by about next August I'd say ...... but spreading the admin load as they did by soft launching last week and verifying the customer can pay by DD before provisioning them is a damn good idea if you ask me .

Given all you say I dont think I am being hard enough on them at all:) It is interesting that you compare them to Esat and they still cannot get their accounts department to work at this stage! Anyways whatever about new customers being connected I cannot see them having any significant number of 'switchers' connected before the Ist May at the very earliest Id say (I hope I am very wrong!)

Moriarty

Why can't you just wait a month or two and bash them then, instead of constantly pre-emptively bashing them like you're so fond of doing?

Sponge Bob

dub45 wrote:

Given all you say I dont think I am being hard enough on them at all:) It is interesting that you compare them to Esat and they still cannot get their accounts department to work at this stage!

I was pointing out that the tragedy of ESAT is that never corporately realised what they were doing wrong. BT moved its CS operations to the North East of England and Belfast 10 years ago or more because they simply could not get worthwhile staff in the South of England so its not like they SHOULDN'T know. Vodafone and O2 moved out of Dublin . They are a success.

Anyways whatever about new customers being connected I cannot see them having any significant number of 'switchers' connected before the Ist May at the very earliest Id say (I hope I am very wrong!)

I agree wth you on that prediction but thats because I think McRedmond will frighten Comreg the poor dears ....and not because Garfield ballsed up his GANTT charts .

lomb

Sponge Bob wrote:

I was pointng out that the tragedy of ESAT is that never corporately realised what they were doing wrong. BT moved its CS operations to the North East of England and Belfast 10 years ago or more because they simply could not get worthwhile staff in the South of England so its not like they SHOULDN'T know.

I agree wth you on that prediction but thats because I think McRedmond will frighten Comreg the poor dears ....and not because Garfield ballsed up his GANTT charts .

yep can get as many good staff a u want in the north east of the uk, very deprived areas there.
dublin is not the place to locate any cs operation. id choose leterkenny, cork, galway, etc anyday over dublin.

dub45

Moriarty wrote:

Why can't you just wait a month or two and bash them then, instead of constantly pre-emptively bashing them like you're so fond of doing?

I am not bashing them at all I am just pointing out features which concern me and thousands of direct debit forms flowing into a company should concern us all particularly when inviting them at this stage is completely unnecessary.

Apparently not anticipating the question of switching concerns me as it has such a potential for problems as we already know.

Fudging the cap and contention issue concerns me.

Smart are asking us to trust them its up to them to earn that trust.

Sponge Bob

You are SOOOOO bashing them DUB45 but I am merely indulging in constructive cynicism

I'll get invited to the pissup though !

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

I was pointing out ....................I agree wth you on that prediction but thats because I think McRedmond will frighten Comreg the poor dears ....and not because Garfield ballsed up his GANTT charts .

Smart/Garfield apparently never gave the question of switching any consideration. If this is so it is extraordinary as a very signficant amount of their customers are likely to be switchers and even with all going ultra well it will take between five to six weeks to switch. So I dont think there were ever any switchers on the Gannt charts!

Moriarty

They're here aren't they? No ones forcing you to buy anything from them if you don't like what you see.

Imo you're being too confrontational. There's a line between constructive criticism and bashing, and you passed that some time back.

lomb

dub45 wrote:

Smart are asking us to trust them its up to them to earn that trust.

thats the whole point smart doesnt need to earn any trust they are CHEAP. since when did anyone ever trust ryanair and yet their planes travel nearly full.

all this talk of increasing upload speeds is codswallop. smart are aiming the product at the mass market. since when did nissan make a maybach. they want to sign up a hugh number of customers to get and draw money on a revolving creditline.
their pricing seems to cheap to me tbh. it could all be a con to ramp the shareprice, it has already doubled in the last year. the main investor/s could then cash out leaving everyone holding the can.
of course i hope this isnt the case as smart competition is always welcome

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

You are SOOOOO bashing them DUB45 but I am merely indulging in constructive cynicism

I'll get invited to the pissup though !

So long as my dd form is not funding the pissup!

dub45

lomb wrote:

thats the whole point smart doesnt need to earn any trust they are CHEAP. since when did anyone ever trust ryanair and yet their planes travel nearly full.

all this talk of increasing upload speeds is codswallop. smart are aiming the product at the mass market. since when did nissan make a maybach. they want to sign up a hugh number of customers to get and draw money on a revolving creditline.
their pricing seems to cheap to me tbh. it could all be a con to ramp the shareprice, it has already doubled in the last year. the main investor/s could then cash out leaving everyone holding the can.
of course i hope this isnt the case as smart competition is always welcome

If people did not trust Ryanair why would so many put their lives on the line every time they fly with them?

dub45

Moriarty wrote:

They're here aren't they? No ones forcing you to buy anything from them if you don't like what you see.

Imo you're being too confrontational. There's a line between constructive criticism and bashing, and you passed that some time back.

What do you consider bashing or being too confrontational?

Moriarty

Sigh.

Sponge Bob

dub45 wrote:

What do you consider bashing or being too confrontational?

Thundering at a softlaunched service as if had they already throttled you maybe. ?

Were we ever a Netsource customer perchance Dub45 ?

lomb

dub45 wrote:

If people did not trust Ryanair why would so many put their lives on the line every time they fly with them?

cause they are CHEAP thats why, in life i have noticed to provide something cheaper than someone else corners must be cut. all the fancy use of wording like 'leverage' line unbundeling doesnt take from the fact that eircom wont provide them the use of the copper from the exchange to the house for less than eircoms cost. hence are they pulling a majic bunny out of a hat where they are 50% cheaper than their competitors. ps in business u are lucky if u make 10% on turnover-this is a FACT. iif eircom provided services for that price they would haemorrage money.
either the overheads have been pared to the bone (ie crap service like ryanair) or the whole thing is an elaborate ploy to ramp the shareprice and create 'value' for investors before they 'take their exit strategy' bear in mind venture capitalists have an alarmingly short time to create 'value' they give themselves 2-3 years to 'exit' this has been proven time and again. they then generate 'magic' 100% returns on investment that mere mortels cant do and they are very aggressive. note-this is just one scenario.

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

Thundering at a softlaunched service as if had they already throttled you maybe. ?

Were we ever a Netsource customer perchance Dub45 ?

Why do you consider questions about switching, direct debits and the Terms and Condtions thundering? And it is hardly a soft launch when Smart are saying that the first connections are due in March/April which is now only between two and six weeks away?

And while Moriarty may regularly wish to throttle me in the physical sense:) I was never a Netsource customer and I dont download enough to be throttled.

dub45

dlofnep wrote:

This is one long thread.. I got to page 11 and got bored..

Firstly, thanks to the rep for taking the time out to answer all the questions. I have one question which I am still unsure about.. Well maybe 2 questions..

1) Given that we would have free line rental and cheap 2mb broadband, what sort of charges would be incurred for standard calls? I don't see anything there.. I don't want to sign up to a 12 month contract and then be killed for call prices.

2) Do you support migrations from the Eircom adsl service to you service? I'm guessing probably not because adsl2+ is different, correct?

Just want to clarify that.

Garfield has pointed out a couple of times in the thread that full details will be available before a customer actually signs a contract. Smarts call charges are available on the web site and they are hardly like to change too much.

Migration is a very gentle word for what is likely to be a painfull extraction process and there are no details yet of any migration proposals.

Sponge Bob

The DD is not an issue IMO

The T&C can be amended anytime, you may cancel anytime before the exchange goes live .

Most Q's I asked in this thread were answered while some will be soon(ish) but they are telephony ones. I do not consider the answers so far to be dishonourable or indicative of imminent sharp practices by Telco standards .

If Smart disengaged I could change my mind but for now I believe that they will take some of our comments on board...as UTV have done on more than a few occasions .

You are right to say "extraction" as it will not be a Bitstream Migration will it ??

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

The DD is not an issue IMO

The T&C can be amended anytime, you may cancel anytime before the exchange goes live .

Most Q's I asked in this thread were answered while some will be soon(ish) but they are telephony ones. I do not consider the answers so far to be dishonourable or indicative of imminent sharp practices by Telco standards .

If Smart disengaged I could change my mind but for now I believe that they will take some of our comments on board...as UTV have done on more than a few occasions .

You are right to say "extraction" as it will not be a Bitstream Migration will it ??

I wasn't suggesting any imminent sharp practises.

You cannot read the Terms and Conditions at the moment without a password! So it is impossible to have any views on them The T&C I was 'thundering about' is the question of the cap which I think it would be better for all concerned to clarify in advance of the service being launched.

Sponge Bob

Go to the website. thus

http://www.smarttelecom.ie/products/broadband/step3.php?number=91580000

Thar they be T&Cs

The CAP or Fair Usage policy will come along all right but will hardly be 4Gb down and 1Gb up and €36 a Gb thereafter like Eircom will it ?????

That Eircom entry level product costs €40 + €24.20 Line rental per month for 512k , which is almost double what Smart will charge. No comparison IMO

dub45

Sponge Bob wrote:

Go to the website. thus

http://www.smarttelecom.ie/products/broadband/step3.php?number=91580000

Thar they be T&Cs

The CAP or Fair Usage policy will come along all right but will hardly be 4Gb down and 1Gb up and €36 a Gb thereafter like Eircom will it ?????

That Eircom entry level product costs €40 + €24.20 Line rental per month for 512k , which is almost double what Smart will charge. No comparison IMO

Thanks for that link but you can't download them without the password and they dont make easy reading where they are. - the website clearly states 'no monthly limit' now that either means what it says or................? Thats why I think it would be far better to clarify things now otherwise theres bound to be trouble down the road. A fair usage policy is not the same as No Monthly Limits.

colin300

Sponge Bob thanks for that.
But I would link to point out to people we can all visit the link so dont post up the t&c's we have had enough of people quoting whole messages to say 1 line of txt. If you are going to raise a point ok take excerts but dont quote all of it. Its pretty long.

dub45

dlofnep wrote:

...............
But let us call a word a word, what sort of downtime is an average eircom broadband customer looking at switching from eircom to smart telecom.
.................

That is the $64,000 dollar question as they used to say. Not just from Eircom but from any of the isp's. AFAIK no new company has tried to woo away so many people before so it is difficult to see things being made easy by the other isps to put it mildly. So unless a process is put in place (unlikely!) who knows?

dlofnep

dub45 wrote:

That is the $64,000 dollar question as they used to say. Not just from Eircom but from any of the isp's. AFAIK no new company has tried to woo away so many people before so it is difficult to see things being made easy by the other isps to put it mildly. So unless a process is put in place (unlikely!) who knows?

If not a migration, I'm guessing average of 14 days?

dub45

dlofnep wrote:

If not a migration, I'm guessing average of 14 days?

Well on the practical side Smart are going to have to contact the customer and say we will be in a positon to connect you............ The customer then has to give a month's notice to his isp. He then waits to be disconnected. When he finds out hes disconencted he then informs Smart his line is available. Is there any alternative to this from your isp experience or am I missing anything out? Bear in mind that the isp will not be making it easy for all of this to happen as well as any efforts that Eircom may be making seperately. And bear in mind that this will be happening presumable for hundreds of peopel simultaneously. And that Smart apparently gave no consdieration in advance of thier launch to this question of switching. Its hard to be optimistic about it :eek:

SkepticOne

lomb wrote:

there is hugh untapped demand for anything cheap be it houses, cars or airtravel. CHEAP sells and sells big.

Yes indeed and this is what Smart needs to concentrate on, imo. Get the product out first. Anyone it doesn't suit can stick with their existing ISP. Don't try to make everyone happy. Look at Ryanair. People like to complain about them, but how many people travel to London by boat and train these days?

dub45

SkepticOne wrote:

Yes indeed and this is what Smart needs to concentrate on, imo. Get the product out first. Anyone it doesn't suit can stick with their existing ISP. Don't try to make everyone happy. Look at Ryanair. People like to complain about them, but how many people travel to London by boat and train these days?

People who wish to alternate between Ryanair and Aer Lingus do not have to cancel an ongoing contract to do so - nor face the prospect of not being able to fly at all while this contract is being cancelled.

GreeBo

dub45 wrote:

People who wish to alternate between Ryanair and Aer Lingus do not have to cancel an ongoing contract to do so - nor face the prospect of not being able to fly at all while this contract is being cancelled.

oh for crying out loud would you just get over it?
What do you want smart to do, hold you hand?
*YOU* signed up for whatever contract it is you are involved in, not them so *YOU* can deal with it.
If you subscribed for Time magazine and then decided that you prefer the National Geographic offer there is feck all NG are going to do to help you out with Time.
Sheesh, you are such a moany phucker :cool:

lomb

dub45 wrote:

People who wish to alternate between Ryanair and Aer Lingus do not have to cancel an ongoing contract to do so - nor face the prospect of not being able to fly at all while this contract is being cancelled.

i personally hope smart do succeed as i like anyone am a selfish person. if they do succeed they will take a lot of customers from eircom forcing them to SLASH their overheads and lay off 1/3 of their workforce. eircom could never compete with their offering on their current overheads.

Adey2002

Can we keep this thread useful please. It's long enough as it is without making it worse. Hopefully an admin will clear the pointless posts. (inc this one)

GarfieldConnoll

dub45 wrote:

People who wish to alternate between Ryanair and Aer Lingus do not have to cancel an ongoing contract to do so - nor face the prospect of not being able to fly at all while this contract is being cancelled.

The Aer Lingus analogy works more like this:

You're airborne (accepted and executed contract) and you decide you don't want to fly Aer Lingus anymore.
Obviously, you can't change service provider mid-flight. So for your onward/ return/ next journey, you decide to fly Singapore Airlines.

Now that requires co-ordination. Maybe the next SA flight doesn't link up exactly with the Aer Lingus flight and you have to wait at the airport/ change airports etc.

Giving out to the Aer Lingus flight crew that it's unaccceptable they haven't co-ordinated their flights with Singapore Airlines, or worse, that they don't support mid-air transfers, won't help. To be honest, they'll probably tune out after a while.

So, back to broadband. There are 100K+ broadband customers in Ireland. The aim over the next two years is to get to 500K+. Smart have announced to the market a significant 'step-change' in pricing and service. As lomb points out, there is a huge untapped demand for cost effective broadband in Ireland.

For existing broadband customers there are a number of relationships to be managed.

1. BB customer's retail relationship with ISP.
2. ISP's wholesale relationship with eircom.
3. Smart's wholesale relationship with eircom.

And as Dub45 rightly points out...

4. Smart's retail relationship with our new customer.

We won't do anything to a new customer's line without co-ordinating it with the customer.

Transparency and communication will be key. That's one of the reasons we're here on this board.

I appreciate all the feedback that has been received and we are reviewing some of our decisions on that basis.

Thank you for all the positive comments that have been made. Thanks too for all the pointers on possible problems. Any suggestions on how these possible problems can be addressed or mitigated against would be appreciated. We're looking at it internally already, but there seems to be some very bright people on the board, so please suggest how we can do it better.

Thanks,

Garfield.

Moriarty

All split out of the main smart thread. Keep any of this stuff in this thread from now on please.

The Insider

Sponge Bob wrote:

I was pointing out that the tragedy of ESAT is that never corporately realised what they were doing wrong. BT moved its CS operations to the North East of England and Belfast 10 years ago or more because they simply could not get worthwhile staff in the South of England so its not like they SHOULDN'T know

LOL, BT Have CS Operations in Swords, Dublin!!

Creamy Goodness

the main reason i don't like smart telecom is that one day they rang my house and my mum answered. they were looking to win us over to their service, my mum said that she would have to talk it over with the bill payer (my dad) before agreeing to anything.

so a week later we get a greetings letter from smart telecom saying welcome to greater savings and all.

now they MAY BE cheaper but we didn't give you's consent to change over, anyways to cut a long story short, because of your stupid customer grabbing tactics you've lost yourself a potential broadband customer.