whose the worst customer service company in ireland ??

20 Times 20 Times

Prior Of Taize wrote:

Vodaphone are pretty horrific.

explain

Prior Of Taize

i bought a new mms phone a couple of years ago (Motorola v525 which was billpay only). mms wouldnt work whatsoever. which sort of defeated the purpose of getting one. so i went back to the shop and asked nicely. the guy checked the settings and said it should now work (without changing anything) so i went off and yet again they didnt work.

so i eventually rang up the customer care one and a half hours before they were scheduled to close. i spent 3 periods of time waiting (1 for each time i had to call back after being "cut off"). in total (without speaking to anyone) i spent over an hour waiting. at which point i just gave up. went into the shop the next day and said if he didnt fix it i would ask for a full refund. so he types in a load of settings and tells me it should work. it doesnt.

i went back the next day (i didnt live near the city at the time so i was only there once a day) and said that i was disgusted with the state of all this. he checks his settings and finds out he put in a .com instead of a .net in one of the addresses.

now in fairness i was very patient and went through all the forms of help available to me (didnt have the internet at the time where i was living) and it was vodafones fault it didnt work after i paid 200 quid for it. the waiting time ont he call centre was insane. i mean it didnt even say everyone was busy it just said wait a minute or whatever. anyway. i then said rightio f*ck vodaphone and got a meteor and an o2 phone which i have to this day. i am using 2 networks on 2 phones and i would never go back to vodaphone.

that being said it wasnt the guy in the shop that pissed me off tbh because he was helpful at least. but the waiting time on the phone is what got me. afaik it wasnt a free call and it wasnt a friday night or some busy time so there is no excuse why i was waiting well over an hour. i just expected better service (as a bill pay cutomer too).

Wertz

Sarge wrote:

explain

uh-oh...looks like you caught an off-duty employee

Prior Of Taize

that was the first thing that entered my head.

johnos

Eircom are woeful -- both on the web and on the phone -- and BT aren't far behind. But I think they are debliberately so: the don't want to talk to you, they just want your money, preferably by direct debit, TYVM.
I discovered recently that if you want to sign up to BT you have to talk to an 'independent verification agency'. This essentially involves someone barking terms and conditions at you in a recorded conversation, to form a legal contract, and who pleads ignorance every time you ask for an explanation. You can't say uh-huh. You have to say yes, clearly, or else she gets all cross. How that can be legal I don't know -- has one of these talking/hustle contracts ever been tested in court?
Best customer support experience I've had was when I rang HP about a piece of junk they had the nerve to call a printer. The guy on the line said 'Oh, that's made in (wherever/can't remember). They were probably all stoned there that day'!
Must have been his last day on the job ... I thanked him for his honesty.

Sully

podgeen wrote:

utv internet

Ill second that!

Deadwing

Having worked for eircom for a while myself, i can honestly say the reason the service is so bad is because:

1: thier training is TERRIBLE.
2: the stress levels in the job are so high its almost impossible to sound cheery and helpful on the phone
3: Contrary to popular belief, the customer is not always right. In fact, the customer is almost always a complete dickhead, ignorant, know nothing know it all tosser.

jetsonx

At Last, an Eircom employee speaks (albeit ex-eircom employee speaks)....so as in insider could you tell me what in the name of flying f"ck goes on inside Eircom...are people just taken in off the street an given a headset ? does Eircom have a kind of "central control centre" for dealing with residential fixed line customers or is it just a sprawling mess all over the county? Its like you speak to customer service representative and they are in Tralee...phone again 10 minuts later and you are on to Tramore....Who exactly are the managers in Eircom....did they all learn management from "Teach Yourself Management" books or was it a correspondence course they did ? PS: Where do Eircom employees get their excuses from??....they are fu^king hilarious. Is there a booklet given on induction day "The Golden Book of Eircom Excuses"

nlgbbbblth

Deadwing wrote:

3: Contrary to popular belief, the customer is not always right. In fact, the customer is almost always a complete dickhead, ignorant, know nothing know it all tosser.

well said - it's about time that 'the customer is always right' cliche is challenged.

The most insightful comment on customer service I ever heard was from an Easons manager back in 1991. He lived in the flat above mine in Harolds Cross.

'The majority of the general public are spastics'

Metacortex

Sarge wrote:

i personally think that the two major mobile players in the market is the best customer service you will get in ireland

my awards go to vodafone and o2

these guys get awards for there excellent customer service and there is a reason for this

Really?

My vote for the absolute worst service goes to O2. I've had nothing but bad experiences with them.

A few months back i went into an O2 store because i want to get my phone unlocked so that i could change to Vodafone.
Anyway, after waiting 15 minutes for one of the sales reps to look my direction, i was told i would have ring the customer service line to get it unlocked. Then i would have to ring motorola to get an unlock code and this whole process would take 5 days.

No problem there, except for the fact this wasn't the first time i had tried to unlock the phone from these bastards.

Attempt no.1 - I did ring the customer service line when i first got the phone. I was told i couldn't get the phone unlocked until i had spent over €100 on the phone.

Attempt no. 2 - After spending above amount of money, i rang the customer service line back. I was then told i would have to spend €150 in credit before i could get it unlocked. At this point i got angry and tried to explain to the idiot on the other end i was told it was €100 i had to spend. He completely denied it and hung up on me.

Attempt no. 3 - A few days later i rang back the customer service line and was told i would have to spend €100. When i had the money spend i was to go to an 02 store and they would unlock the phone for me.

Attempt no. 4 - I went to an O2 store who told me to unlock the phone i would have to ring customer service.

Attempt no. 5 - Rang customer service back, explained the situation. They told me that to get the phone unlocked i would have to (suprise suprise) go into an O2 store

Attempt no. 6 - (very annoyed at this stage) Went into an O2 store a few days later, expalined the situation. You'll never gues what he told me i had to do.
Yes thats right! Ring customer service.


After that i gave up. I bought a new phone and sim card with vodafone.

Deadwing

jetsonx wrote:

At Last, an Eircom employee speaks (albeit ex-eircom employee speaks)....so as in insider could you tell me what in the name of flying f"ck goes on inside Eircom...are people just taken in off the street an given a headset ? does Eircom have a kind of "central control centre" for dealing with residential fixed line customers or is it just a sprawling mess all over the county? Its like you speak to customer service representative and they are in Tralee...phone again 10 minuts later and you are on to Tramore....Who exactly are the managers in Eircom....did they all learn management from "Teach Yourself Management" books or was it a correspondence course they did ? PS: Where do Eircom employees get their excuses from??....they are fu^king hilarious. Is there a booklet given on induction day "The Golden Book of Eircom Excuses"

You want to know what goes on in eircom? you really want to know?? Fine, heres a breeakdown of your average day:

Start. Have team lead run around the floor shouting 'EVERYBODY IN CALLS NOW!!' Hesistantly press the in calls button on your phone knowing the deluge of sheer unadulterated idiocy thats about to come spewing down the line at you like sweage from a broken septic tank.

The calls: Anything ranging from (and these are all real exmples of calls ive taken)
Theres gay porn on my computer. (actual call, i swear)
Trying to hook someone up to the net for 20 minutes only for them to tell you the computer isnt plugged in to a phone line
Customer complaining he cant get on the internet after dialling up, nothing happens.
'Have you clicked on internet explorer icon?'
'why the hell would i want to do that?!?'
'to open webpages once youve connected'
'err..umm..dont i have to pay extra to click that icon?'
*sound of head banging off desk*
Teaching someone for TWENTY MINUTES how to click on the start button
Putting up with numerous irate customers daily, all taking it out on you, as if you were the CEO of eircom.
End of day. Leave eircom, go home, pray for death so you dont have to go back the next day.

I'd honestly love to see how youd cope if EVERY DAY i, and 20 other people like me, walked into wherever it is you work, and just gave out to you for the companies failignings as if it was your fault. Just try to imagine it, knowing that as soon as ive stopped shouting at you, bereating you, being verbally abusive to you, theres a queue of 20 or so people behind me all ready to do the same. youd soon lose your attitude about 'the customer is always right' then. I swear if a customer had to be put on the recieving end of the sh!t they give for 5 minutes, theyd never complain about bad customer service again.

The_Conductor

That may be well and good.
However- not all customers are imbecilic morans, nor should they be treated as such.
When applying for the home install broadband package, I was subjected to sarcastic belittling comments from a techie on the line, because I was having difficulty getting on the internet. He refused to accept my explanation that there was a problem with the DNS server ***at his end*** because no-one had told him there was a problem. I tried to explain that if I pointed my computer at an alternate DNS server (the Esat-BT one) that I was suddenly able to get all the webpages to come up. He refused- made me uninstall my firewall, my antivirus software, reinstall the version of IE on the Eircom install CD, reload windows over the top all to no avail. Eventually when windows would no longer boot- and hung when loading- some two hours later, he explained he needed to talk to a specialist and would put me on hold. He promptly hung up.
Enraged- I booted into safemode and cleaned up Windows, uninstalled the IE crap, loaded up Firefox (which he appeared to never have heard of), changed the DNS server to Esat BT and off I went fine. He rang back 2 hours later, to tell me, that yes, there was a problem with the DNS server, and it should be solved by Monday, that there was no-one there to fix it over the weekend.

The following month (this was last year during the postal strike) I got a call from my bank manager wondering the reason for an unauthorised overdraft. When I got customer services in Bank of Ireland to check- Eircom had put through a direct debit for over 2000 Euro (rather handily in the middle of the postal strike- so I would not have any manner of querying the bill).
When I queried it- I was told I had been billed for BB install 3 times (why- I don't know- it was supposed to be free- as I opted for the self install) along with a raft of other charges. I was able to prove that about 90% of them were impossible (e.g. international calls that occurred simultaneously for example) but was told that actually- even if your Eircom bill is a single bill- it relates to services from a number of different companies, all trading under the Eircom umbrella. I clocked up 268 phone calls, a total of 8 hours and 12 minutes, attempting to talk to people to have these charges refunded. Eventually in sheer frustration, a friend advised me of the e-mail address of Phil Nolan, the chairperson of Eircom, and advised to e-mail him detailing my problems.

Within a week 3 seperate cheques, for in-excess of 700 Euro arrived in the post. I was still annoyed, as I was still owed a little shy of another 1200.

I lodged a complaint with Comreg- shysters the lot of them, who promptly forwarded me back to Eircom, or Eircon as I prefer to call them, customer services.

I once again complained (to another board member) who had an operations manager call me and went through the problem. He investigated the issue and after much chasing on my part (over an 8 month period) a further series of cheques arrived- for the bulk of the 1200.

In total I have clocked up over 8 hours of calls to Eircom, chasing my money that they illegally and without any justification or apology, withdrew from my account. This involved several half days taken off work, and a lot of peak time mobile phone calls (as I had at this point disconnected the phone line at home- as I did not trust Eircom to honestly bill me).

While the original bill figure (almost 2 grand) has been repaid by Eircom, my costs in chasing it (8 hours of mobile phone calls, 5 half days off work for calls and meetings with Comreg) have not. Nor has any person from Eircom apologised- on the contrary the operations manager laughed while reading the case notes.

I am only one person- who has been treated like sh*t by Eircom. That is why I hate you, and all Eircom employees. Now shut up and go shove your self justifications elsewhere.

RuggieBear

Deadwing wrote:

crappy job rant .

quit.

I've done much worse jobs...

The_Conductor

Ps-

I actually logged the names of everyone I was talking to (only 28 differernt people- as most of them were talking to me many many times), the dates and times of the calls, the nature of the calls, any information imparted or promises made by the people I was talking, the details of promised callbacks (of the 23 promised callbacks only one actually occured), the number of times I was put on hold and the call accidently dropped - the whole sorry saga.

I have the whole lot here- and can post it if you would like me to. It might not be entirely fair to do so- I do know that you do not have the means to do very much for customers.

I worked as a technical specialist in a call centre for 5 years. I know the crap you have to deal with. I also worked in quality control for a year- and had a number of agents removed from calls and sent for extra training after hearing them on the phone.

I do know that you have to put up with a lot of trite on the phone- but bare in mind, some customers may have been put through the mill more than you could ever imagine- before you start to annoy them.

To this date I do not have a phone line here in the house, because of my experiences with Eircom- and have actually started a petition with Smart Telecom to try to get them to activate the Ballydowd exchange early- so I can get a phone line, bb etc from them.

Quite frankly I do not trust Eircom, nor do I consider them a reputable company. Please do not take my comments above personally- Eircom is just a very raw nerve with me......

Deadwing

RuggieBear wrote:

quit.

I've done much worse jobs...

i did.

And smccarrick i know what you mean, i heard an awful lof of horror stories about eircom while i was there, but thats just taking the piss.
I still stand by my saying that 99% of the customers we had were absolute morons tho.

RuggieBear

Deadwing wrote:

i did.

ah good for you. No point staying in a job (unless you are getting huge wads of cash) if it is slowly sucking the spirit out of you.

zokrez

Bad

- Spar Milltown - overcharged a couple of times due to mistakes on scanning. Brought it to attention of manager. Might as well not bothered.

- Spar Ballsbridge - everything overpriced. Manager told me that they can charge what they like as did SPar head office and Consumer Affairs !

- Tesco - love catching them out when the price on shelf is lower than at tills - product is free then. I couldnt contemplate Online purchase. I KNOW they would make a bags of it and that I would have to complain. Not worth the aggro. Hate having to shop here. Horrible place.

- A un-named solicitor in Dundalk who ripped me off, made a compalint to the Law Society who sent in Legal Cost Accountants who priced the job at half the price I was invoiced !

- TR Motors, Harolds Cross - never answer their phone.

- Advance Tyres - said I needed a new tyre when 3 others places said I didn't

- Gateway - because I bought a PC off them and they p=ssed off out of the country.

- Foko - saw the writing on the wall and managed to get my money back for a couch that I had a feeling was never going to arrive.
Good n Bad

BT - By virtue that they made a mistake but rectified it immediately I notified them of error. Bad because of the error but good because it was sorted.


Good

- CD Wow - super customer service, the customer is always right.

- United Tyres - Dundrum - great service. Had a problem, they sorted out quickly and keenly

- Superquinn - class act. Retailers would do well to take a leaf out of their book.

- The Coombe Maternity Hospital - gave me what I wanted !!!

- Chapter One restaurant. - they were so nice a number of months ago when my elderly father was walking by and had a slight tumble on the pavement outside and they gave him a free meal and drink and ordered a taxi for him. Class.

- Passport office - my wife's passport was out of date and we were under pressure to get a new one and they were so nice in helping us get a new one quickly.

I'll think of more. Helped get some of them off my chest.

jetsonx

Zarke, interesting Name N Shame list there.

I am surprised you got some action from the Law Society - I thought that
organisation was just a pack of cronies - obviously not.

Would be interesting to hear from more people who've been screwed over
by Irish solicitors.

RuggieBear

jetsonx wrote:

Would be interesting to hear from more people who've been screwed over
by Irish solicitors.

my mother had serious issues with an overcharging solicitor....seemed to make up charges off the top of her head....and also never gave my mam a written quote which is required by ( i think) section 68 of the 1974 (or maybe, 1994?) solicitors act.

Law Society were no use...absolute waste of time

zokrez

RuggieBear wrote:

my mother had serious issues with an overcharging solicitor....seemed to make up charges off the top of her head....and also never game my mam a written quote which is required by ( i think) section 68 of the 1974 (or maybe, 1994?) solicitors act.

Law Society were no use...absolute waste of time

Ruggie you are right however I do know of someone who similarly were quoted a huge price at the conclusion of a transaction that was never quoted at start, which solicitor did not deny. The person wrote to the solicitor saying that it was very underhand and told the solicitor what the recommended fees for this type of business were from LAw Society and enclosed a cheque for this amount almost half and then deducted a "hassle" charge of €250 ! Oh yeah they cc'ed the letter to the Law Society and never heard a dickey bird again. Cheque was cashed !

thelordofcheese

Eircon
After a long runing and utterly farcical broadband saga i have no faith in this half-arsed, arrogant and unhelpfull monopoly. A full account of this adventure in nonsense can be found here

well theres even more to it that is in that post, including Emailing the CEO of eircom [good 'ol Dr phill] and having him send out a minion to test out line.
According to the enginneer that was sent out "your line is perfect, it can't get any better, however the broadband people WON'T tell us what constitutes a broadband line, so there is nothing i can do".

joejoem

God dammit I cant get through to the passport office, garenteed frustration.

Tazz T

I'm surprised to see so many people saying Meteor. I've been with them 5 years and think they're OK.

The obvious one that no one seems to have mentioned is Irish Broadband.

Special mention should go to MBNA for appalling service and NIB - a financial institution that doesn't reply to mail and isn't even linked to its other branches by computer.

jetsonx

however the broadband people WON'T tell us what constitutes a broadband line, so there is nothing i can do"

another absolute classic....one more Eircom customer service quote I can add to my collection. I will post all of them in the near future.

How about this one my neighbour got "sorry you can't have broadband, there is
a huge dent on a telephone pole down the road"

7aken

dell --- firstly, i know there 'only doing their job' when you buy a bottom line pc for E399 and the price magically shoots up to E1,220

secondly, im not bilingual, nor very good at deciphering heavily accented indian support personnel

thirdly, after turning down the 'very generous' offer of adding a floppy drive to my basic system, the pc eventually arrives minus a floppy bay.

what kind of business treats customers like that, im never going near dell again, am even considering weldin my own non proprietary floppy bay into the case.

jetsonx

7aken wrote:

dell - you buy a bottom line pc for E399 and the price magically shoots up to E1,220

How did that happen ?

galwaydude

i rang the american embassey helpdesk a few weeks ago and they charge 2.40 a minute.What a joke as the nob on the other end of the phone told me to check the web for the information that i was looking for.

Also found NTL servicedesk a joke, took me 4 calls to their desk to get BB installed, first time the agent told me that BB wouldnt be in my area for the next 18 months even though i got a leaflet through the post telling me that i could get broadband. What a tool.

I found banking 365 always excellent and also the aer lingus helpdesk quiet good - always very helpfull on the phone.

With customer service desks you cannot win as your always going to get the odd bad call and odd stupid call.

I worked for a customer service company in north dublin for a year and it was pure torture.

jaggeh

considering i work in customer service i have to speak up.

you would be surprised at the amount of customers who are the problem.

1. everyone has just had a baby like 2 days ago, so the population of ireland has just doubled and does so every day.
2. their emergency is more important than everyone elses
3. they dont know how to keep a civil tone
4. after spending 3 days breaking your back trying to help someone, they decide that you arent good enough and lodge a complaint, not realising that the complaints process has even more red tape than what you were trying to cut through for them.
5. they phone you every hour and ask for an update, then get angry when their isnt one because you told them THE BUILDERS ARE ON HOLIDAY FOR THE NEXT 2 WEEKS YOU DUMB **** WE CANT DO ANYTHING UNTIL THEY COME BACK. like that only using these words "the contractors are still on holiday, you will have to wait till tuesday week when they return to work"

for every customer who is satisfied with my help theres 10 who i assume want to **** down my throat for an hour, then theres another 10 who shouldnt be allowed reproduce for the good of mankind.

7aken

jetsonx- you have just induced a rant
(note-i hate dell so was buying for a friend)

1. the nice lady asked if i would be using the machine to watch my favourite dvd's, i said it might be likely - bump- i now need a suite of software to play my dvd's
2. will i be using the machine on the internet, yes -bump- i now need a norton subscription
3. would i be using the pc for creating and printing documents, yes -bump- i now need a printer
4. i then made the mistake of querying how much extra a flat panel monitor would cost -bump- im getting one whether i like it or not. (i had to request three quotes for them to remove the flatscreen)
5. would i like a to purchase a support package, no -bump- im also getting one whether i like it or not (two more quotes to remove it)

total cost at this stage was ridiculous. then comes the endless bouncing around from call centre to call centre to try and get this rectified (took about a week and a half to get the order placed the way i wanted it) and then, i end up back talking to the 'nice' lady who had caused all this.

finally, when they asked if i wanted a floppy drive, i looked in my workshop a realised i had a few knocking around so no thank you nice lady, i dont want a floppy drive. then the system arrives, my friend is delighted. i look over the system, looks fine, even has the slot at the front where a floppy should go..... open it up and -bump- no muthrf*kn bay for the floppy. wot a shower of proprietary w*nke*s

as above, im seriously thinking of welding one in, if i do i'll post details in the modding section

mods-sorry for cus'n

Franky Boy

Creative.......I had such a bad experience with one of my mp3 players and they were such dicks!