Eir - The disintegration of an entire company?

dodgygeezer · 09-11-2018 09:54AM #1

What is going on behind the scenes? I have spent hours this week trying to contact Eir about an issue. I work as a doctor so I can’t spend indefinite hours on hold. This section of boards contains many similar stories. People don’t have time for this.

The disdain and obfuscation shown to loyal customers is staggering. The bland generic answers, shuffling from department to department.

- no indication of what is going on and when it’s likely to end
- no indication of where you are in a call queue
- web chat “no representative available”
- that’s bloody song “take that money and watch it burn” indeed

I’m gone when contract ends in January

Robxxx7 · 09-11-2018 09:57AM

dodgygeezer wrote: »

What is going on behind the scenes? I have spent hours this week trying to contact Eir about an issue. I work as a doctor so I can’t spend indefinite hours on hold. This section of boards contains many similar stories. People don’t have time for this.

The disdain and obfuscation shown to loyal customers is staggering. The bland generic answers, shuffling from department to department.

- no indication of what is going on and when it’s likely to end
- no indication of where you are in a call queue
- web chat “no representative available”
- that’s bloody song “take that money and watch it burn” indeed

I’m gone when contract ends in January

Sounds similar to waiting in A&E

dodgygeezer · 09-11-2018 10:00AM

Robxxx7 wrote: »

Sounds similar to waiting in A&E

:-) :-) touché!

mickdw · 09-11-2018 10:05AM

Probably some attempt to drive it into the ground and take over cause it really is beyond bad at this stage.

BobMc · 09-11-2018 10:23AM

While theres many horror stories about Eir, I'm not a customer but the rest suffer from the same problems too,

all good when its good, but as soon as it goes tits up, customer service in general with the rest of the telco's aint much better either

Robxxx7 · 09-11-2018 10:35AM

BobMc wrote: »

While theres many horror stories about Eir, I'm not a customer but the rest suffer from the same problems too,

all good when its good, but as soon as it goes tits up, customer service in general with the rest of the telco's aint much better either

Totally agree ... you see it with all the major Telco companies .. the smaller companies handle customers much better ..

I do wonder if the threads/posts on this particular forum should be used as some sort of training on how not to handle customer complaints.
I know that customer support was being brought back in house (back to Ireland) so maybe there are some teething problems .. but certainly not seeing any evidence of any improvement yet ... having said that ..look at how all the major Telco's handle customer issues and you see a general malaise completely.

I've had my issues with Telco companies good and bad .. and only use their helpdesk if i really have no alternatives.

BronsonTB · 09-11-2018 10:43AM

They wont' publicly be able to say what is currently happening behind the scenes.
Only that that are currently changing location for customer service.

We will have to wait & see when the new call centre (Sligo) is fully staffed & up & running.

Wanderer78 · 09-11-2018 11:22AM

Asset stripping maybe?

EdgeCase · 09-11-2018 11:59AM

I think people would have sympathy for their teething problems if they were just totally upfront and explained that they're having issues switching over to in-house staff.

In the medium and long term, the customer care situation may become drastically better when they move back to their own staff, have better training and and proper access to information. However, the position at the moment is absolutely ridiculous and will undoubtedly cause a lot of people to consider switching elsewhere when their contracts are up.

They're fine as long as you have absolutely no need to ever actually speak to them! I still find Eir Mobile better than 3 from a technical point of view and it was great to have access to 50GB of roaming data in France and Belgium and so on and I have had no issues with the qualify of their FTTC broadband, but it's crazy that you basically cannot speak to them and when you do get through they often don't know how to help you, or even worse, they do their best to help you and are hamstrung by the system they're working in.

Basically it's a decent product / service when it's all running and nothing goes wrong but you might as well be shouting into a bucket for all the help you get if you need to talk to them and no amount of branding and advertising will solve that one.

It must be hellish to be on the end of the helpline number too. Can you imagine getting a stream of angry customers who've all been waiting 45mins+ and then not being entirely sure that you'll even be able to get the information you need to help them? I know customer care staff tend to be more motivated and retained when they're in a position where they can actually provide decent support and solve problems.

It does have a lot of similarities with the HSE!

Alun · 09-11-2018 12:07PM

EdgeCase wrote: »

They're fine as long as you have absolutely no need to ever actually speak to them!

Much like me with Virgin. My connection is perfect and everything works, at least for the time being, but I dread the day I ever have to actually engage in any meaningful way with their CS for whatever reason.

I hope I haven't put some kind of jinx on it now!

gerard1970 · 09-11-2018 12:26PM

I know just how you feel dodgygeezer.

See this thread on how to get to talk to somebody:

https://www.boards.ie/ttfthread/2057924065

1. Go the Comreg site and click on "Queries & Complaints". https://www.comreg.ie/queries-complaints.
2. Click on got a question. There's an option there to start a WebChat, but this wasn't working on Friday, so I just filled in the on-line form and laid out the facts, as I saw them.
3. When that was done, I then went to the eir Complaints page - https://www.eir.ie/complaints, clicked on "Log a Complaint" tab and clicked on the option to send an email.

Turbohymac · 09-11-2018 12:38PM

Amazing how the people here on boards keep pure ****e companies like eir. Eircom or whatever they try to disguise themselves as ..VERY POPULAR . I moved 5 years ago thankfully and I now have a decent service from another provider .. but somehow there's people waiting years for a basic service to be provided by these wasters..they cant even update their network without subbing everything out to companies like kn networks.. what happens down the road after a storm etc who keeps the system running.. there a disaster..and even their fibre ie running from the last pole along Dykes and undergrowth to reach end users down my side of the country..how long before some rat decides to have a fiber snack
Total joke

gerard1970 · 09-11-2018 11:50PM

Turbohymac wrote: »

Amazing how the people here on boards keep pure ****e companies like eir. Eircom or whatever they try to disguise themselves as ..VERY POPULAR . I moved 5 years ago thankfully and I now have a decent service from another provider .. but somehow there's people waiting years for a basic service to be provided by these wasters..they cant even update their network without subbing everything out to companies like kn networks.. what happens down the road after a storm etc who keeps the system running.. there a disaster..and even their fibre ie running from the last pole along Dykes and undergrowth to reach end users down my side of the country..how long before some rat decides to have a fiber snack
Total joke

Hi turbohymac. In fairness to eir, I haven't had any issues with FTTH. I was being crucified by the excess usage charges and my issue was trying to get the fair usage cap removed. I thought this was done in September - after spending hours trying to get it removed - but I found out that this wasn't the case when my last bill arrived.

fritzelly · 10-11-2018 01:10AM

EdgeCase wrote: »

I think people would have sympathy for their teething problems if they were just totally upfront and explained that they're having issues switching over to in-house staff.

In the medium and long term, the customer care situation may become drastically better when they move back to their own staff, have better training and and proper access to information. However, the position at the moment is absolutely ridiculous and will undoubtedly cause a lot of people to consider switching elsewhere when their contracts are up.

They're fine as long as you have absolutely no need to ever actually speak to them! I still find Eir Mobile better than 3 from a technical point of view and it was great to have access to 50GB of roaming data in France and Belgium and so on and I have had no issues with the qualify of their FTTC broadband, but it's crazy that you basically cannot speak to them and when you do get through they often don't know how to help you, or even worse, they do their best to help you and are hamstrung by the system they're working in.

Basically it's a decent product / service when it's all running and nothing goes wrong but you might as well be shouting into a bucket for all the help you get if you need to talk to them and no amount of branding and advertising will solve that one.

It must be hellish to be on the end of the helpline number too. Can you imagine getting a stream of angry customers who've all been waiting 45mins+ and then not being entirely sure that you'll even be able to get the information you need to help them? I know customer care staff tend to be more motivated and retained when they're in a position where they can actually provide decent support and solve problems.

It does have a lot of similarities with the HSE!

Their new recruitment/bring everything in house is not working out as well as they thought it would be - they've got rid of all staff pretty much at this point whilst having no one to replace them.
Very demoralizing for the staff to keep hearing the same thing over and over - took me an hour to get to speak to someone blah blah. Heard it 30 times already and for the staff that are still to be made redundant knowing their days are numbered. Despondent is not the word
Also a desire that everyone should be doing stuff online and never have to contact anyone on the phone (yeah weird, a telco that doesn't want you to phone them)

In fairness a lot of issues are not the fault of eir retail themselves but OpenEir - remember Eir retail (side) are no different than Sky, Vodafone etc. A lot of issues are from the OE side and nada Eir can do about it til OE fix it.

Impetus · 08-01-2019 08:03PM

dodgygeezer wrote: »

What is going on behind the scenes? I have spent hours this week trying to contact Eir about an issue. I work as a doctor so I can’t spend indefinite hours on hold. This section of boards contains many similar stories. People don’t have time for this.

The disdain and obfuscation shown to loyal customers is staggering. The bland generic answers, shuffling from department to department.

- no indication of what is going on and when it’s likely to end
- no indication of where you are in a call queue
- web chat “no representative available”
- that’s bloody song “take that money and watch it burn” indeed

I’m gone when contract ends in January

It seems to me that Eir is in breach of contract, and should be served written notice to this effect, by reg post (keeping tracking number) and move on with your life, getting another company.

Eir - The disintegration of an entire company?

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