Worst tech support/customer service helpline?

Lockstep · 07-05-2008 10:40AM

Please move to Galway then.

_feedback_ · 07-05-2008 10:40AM

Eric Cartman wrote: »

in order of shítness , 1 being the shíttest:

1. Dell
2. Eircom
3. Meteor
4. Three(3)
5. Smart Telecom
6. CD-Soft
7. IT Force
8. NTL
9. Sky
10. Ryanair

but on the upside heres 3 decent enough support lines, 1 being the best :

1. Apple
2. O2
3. BT

You must have a lot of bills, if you've dealt with all of those ^^ recently.

Doctor DooM · 07-05-2008 10:44AM

Eric Cartman wrote: »

in order of shítness , 1 being the shíttest:

1. Dell
2. Eircom
3. Meteor
4. Three(3)
5. Smart Telecom
6. CD-Soft
7. IT Force
8. NTL
9. Sky
10. Ryanair

but on the upside heres 3 decent enough support lines, 1 being the best :

1. Apple
2. O2
3. BT

No way would I ever say Meteor are worse than three. Even people who work for three hate three's CC line.

Ryaller · 07-05-2008 10:44AM

NTL beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's like pulling your own teeth out dealing with that shower.
I didn't know before last week, but apparently, if you don't hang up on them, they can't connect to their next call. I'd say I eked an extra 5 minutes of confused heavy breathing from the useless muppet I got last week. I kept waiting for him to say "thank you" or "sorry for not being able to help", but he was just plain ignorant, so I left him hanging. He didn't have a clue what to do. Kept on going "uhhh, is there anything else?" Classic.

chopperbyrne · 07-05-2008 10:47AM

David Lynch wrote: »

I work in Eircom, we are the best.

Eircom or Eircom Net?

Eircom Net went downhill quite rapidly when Stream took over as the majority of good staff left.

Dord · 07-05-2008 10:54AM

Ryaller wrote: »

NTL beyond a shadow of a doubt. It's like pulling your own teeth out dealing with that shower.
I didn't know before last week, but apparently, if you don't hang up on them, they can't connect to their next call. I'd say I eked an extra 5 minutes of confused heavy breathing from the useless muppet I got last week. I kept waiting for him to say "thank you" or "sorry for not being able to help", but he was just plain ignorant, so I left him hanging. He didn't have a clue what to do. Kept on going "uhhh, is there anything else?" Classic.

Well he should be able to hang up, but it wouldn't look good on his stats. So thats probably why he didn't do it.

punchdrunk · 07-05-2008 10:54AM

Three...

definitely highly trained Bollock Ninja's working there :mad:

Miguel_Sanchez · 07-05-2008 10:57AM

Eircom and Vodafone.

Last year eircom cut off my phoneline even though I didn't owe them any money. When I asked for a refund for the line rental I had paid for in advance I was told 'oh you won't be getting a refund' and that 'you mustn't have paid the bill if you got cut off' even though the screen in front of her clearly showed that there was nothing owing on the account. Idiots. Took me weeks to get them to finally admit they owed me money and to send it out.

Vodafone. Violated my data protection rights and then called me a liar when I pulled them up on it. Weeks of promised return calls that never happened. Unbelievably ****, rude, unhelpful and lying staff in their customer 'support'. They also went back into their logs and deleted the text message that was pertinent to the whole thing so they could claim that it was never sent.

07-05-2008 10:58AM

kickoutthejams wrote: »

Please move to Galway then.

Will do. And I like your avatar.

PurplePrincess · 07-05-2008 11:06AM

David Lynch wrote: »

I work in Eircom, we are the best.

You should probably see someone about them delusions.

It took me 3 weeks to convince Eircom that despite their system showing my house wasn't set up with a phoneline the fact I was ringing them from a phone plugged into the wall socket proved it was.
Eventually I got someone who believed me and 5mins later I had a phone number (and a few more grey hairs)

cornbb · 07-05-2008 11:10AM

Best: Special praise goes to Bank of Ireland 365 Online, they are extraordinarily knowledgeable, pleasant and helpful.
Honourable mentions: ESB, Revenue Commissioners, Meteor.

Worst: NTL, NTL, NTL. It usually takes over an hour to get through to a customer service person even though they manage to set aside a guy to ring me at least twice a month to offer me what is also a doubtlessly shítty phone service. Once you do get through to a customer service person they can't wait to get rid of you.
Honourable Mentions: Motor taxation department (whatever they call themselves), NTL's mom, NTL's dog, NTL's bastard inbred cousins.

elmolesto · 07-05-2008 11:12AM

Eircom and vodafone are definitely the worse I have come across

shinzon · 07-05-2008 11:18AM

I had the misfortune of being a multitude of people with the invalid credit card details on the playstation store about 2 weeks ago and had the absolute misfortune of dealing with the playstation store careline, for a company like sony not to let the customer care people have any access to the systems to see what the actual problem is is unforgiveable, twice i rang them twice had to give them all my details and twice i was told they had to send my details off to head office and that theyd ring me back, no resolution no attempt at any troubleshoot, just call centre speak for fook off and die

I happened to receive a customer satisfaction survey from them and basically launched a scathing attack on there helpline, and funnily enough about an hour later my problem was fixed

Whether the survey had anything to do with i dont know but seems a coincidence in my opinion at least :cool:

Shin

Duggy747 · 07-05-2008 11:19AM

Has to be HP for me, I work in a repair shop and most times I have to ring up over HP products, which is ALWAYS hell!

Classic example last week, rang them at 1890 923 902 over a machine and was chatting to somebody down in India. Told him what machine it was 3 times and then he proceeded taking information for the next 15 minutes. He asked me again what machine it was, I told him to which he replied: "Oh no, that's a business machine. I don't deal with that, you'll have to ring 1890 923 902"

GRRR.

So I rang the number again later and got onto a different person. After learning my lesson I told another Indian that he was dealing with a business machine. He tells me to hold on while he directs me onto someone, I wait.......singing along to Boston. Eventually I get onto another person, tell them my problem but, lo and behold, they tell me to ring 1890 923 902. I lose the plot, cue alot of screaming down the phone and I promptly hang up.

I nip out for a fag before my head explodes, come back in, ring the English HP number and within 5 minutes I have my problem sorted.

Bah! I hate ringing HP!!

Neil_Sedaka · 07-05-2008 11:22AM

NTL, the worst customer service and support since time began.
Heard a rumour once that their office was manned by a lone, rusty stapler! Wouldn't surprise me.
Not with them anymore, for several reasons.

megadodge · 07-05-2008 11:24AM

NTL and it's not even close.

At the very minimum you hold for 20 minutes (usually a lot more).
Then you deal with bad mannered people who haven't a clue what they're talking about.

Actually I'm gonna stop before I get too upset.
I haven't dealt with them for a few years now but still get pissed off at the mere mention of their name.

youcancallmeal · 07-05-2008 11:25AM

NTL are the perfect example of how not to run a support service.
Also I don't like the Revenue Commissioners because of that ridiculous automated system you have to "talk" to. I spent 10 minutes "talking" my way through the menu system including calling out my PPS number 3 times until the system could understand it. Then to top it all off when you finally get through to a human being the first thing they ask your for is your PPS number

After that though the staff are usually quite knowledgeable and helpful

jetsonx · 07-05-2008 12:07PM

Eircom Landline Support.

Lazy, incompetent, rude and a "don't give a dam, you can't fire me" attitude.

Badly need someone like O'Leary to do a root and branch reform.

Eircom Broadband Support is quite impressive.

Symantec

You might as well be speakng to a bunch of robots - infuriating.

kelle · 07-05-2008 12:12PM

David Lynch wrote: »

I work in Eircom, we are the best.

deisedevil · 07-05-2008 12:16PM

NTL are the worst there ever was and there ever will be. They have no idea about customer service. I have no intention in going into the big long list of problems their call centres have (mainly Clonmel) but i'll just say that I work in a call centre (one which wins awards every year, in the UK) and the difference between the two is so vast that I can't even begin to imagine how they are going to sort things out.
If you want tech support they will send mail after mail to a tech support agent who might call after a few weeks if your lucky. In most call centres I know you can call tech support straight away. Nuff said.

cornbb · 07-05-2008 12:22PM

I'm actually thinking of emailing NTL a link to this thread. Surely they can't be clueless enough to think that they're providing an acceptable level of service, they've been singled out here as being particularly awful. I feel sorry for their individual agents (unless they are personally rude to me) for having to work within such a horrendous system.

Susannahmia · 07-05-2008 12:30PM

After having to ring dell technical support on a monthly basis with my old laptop, I officially hate it. I often had to wait on hold for over an hour. Once, hour and fifty minutes. Sometimes you would be put onto someone with feck all English, or who was simply an ass, would take so long to explain the problem and have it properly resolved.

The last time I had to ring, the guy that I got onto was such an ass that I had to call back and ask someone else, the second guy was great, but combined I was on the phone over three hours!

I would reccoment that if anyone has a problem that can wait to ring at the weekend, you get transferred to the canadian call center, they are much more helpful for some reason and you are guranteed to get onto someone who speaks fluent english.

07-05-2008 12:42PM

Right, good post OP - prepare for rant.

Dell are by far the worst I've come across. When my computer that was a year old exploded last year from the fan(yes it exploded) I had to ring their wonderful service. Now Dell do things a little bit differently to other companies. You are firstly put through to someone based in India or somewhere in that part of the world before they pass you onto their technical support. Now, its not their fault but hardly any of these fellas/lassies could speak English properly in the 10 plus calls I made to Dell in a week period. You had to give your Computer key code and this could take up to 2 minutes because of the amount of times you had to repeat it. This was the start of the frustrating call. So your then put onto Bill or whoever to explain your problem. Over a week period I had to make so many phonecalls as noone called me back as promised so on the Friday I got shouting and explained the situation. Finally got my new computer ordered as my previous one was guaranteed. I was told I would get it in a week. I kind of knew the gob****e that told me this was probably talking out of his hole so I rang back the next day to make sure. I was then giving a totally different date a month later... Anyway, after 10+ phonecalls I got my computer sorted for the end of the month but ringing these guys was painful, ****ing painful.

The job I am in involves ringing a load of different banks, insurance companies, auctioneers, solicitors etc. Ulster Bank customer service is by far the worst with First Active after them(Funny they are both owned by RBS). I worked for UB too and the place was a joke! AIB are the best I've dealt with.

Guys, theres a girl that works in Dublin Zoo called Annie Lyons whos great on the phone. Give her a ring

Korvanica · 07-05-2008 12:51PM

Microsoft Xbox 360 Hardware Support, Noone there speaks english!! They cant understand ANYTHING

Sugar Drunk · 07-05-2008 12:57PM

chorus, a national joke. Filled in a form on the net, emailed twice and rang three times so that I could give them my money and have a chorus line set up. they had literally zero interest in looking after my query. i wrote a very strong letter of complaint which went unanswered.
id rather go without tv than deal with chorus

07-05-2008 01:00PM

Korvanica wrote: »

Microsoft Xbox 360 Hardware Support, Noone there speaks english!! They cant understand ANYTHING

Pm me the number please, I want to get a laugh

07-05-2008 01:00PM

So reading through this thread it's obvious to see that the worst tech support/customer support in the whole country is NTL with Three lagging behind.

Among the best are Meteor, O2 and the ESB

Gummy Panda · 07-05-2008 01:09PM

Microsoft xbox 360 helpline is terrible. My 360 got a RROD and when I rang them i got a nice American lad who told me that MS would move mountains to get it fixed. So 3 weeks later i ring asking to see where it was. I didn't get American lad but some indians who couldn't understand me. Then when i was getting frustrated i asked for a supervisor, I was transfered to another line and the phone was left off the hook. I waited 20 mins to see how long they'd wait before trying to get me to hang up. I could hear the bastards running around the table. Gamestop gave me a new after the trouble but that RROD. Straight to the skip and I'll never buy a xbox again.

Also Dell's customer care line is crap but there email tech support is great. I emailed them about my psu making crackling noises and they had a engineer out the next day.

cornbb · 07-05-2008 01:22PM

I've only dealt with Dell over the phone in around 5 years of owning Dells and I found them grand tbh. Maybe i was one of the lucky ones.

ronnie3585 · 07-05-2008 01:35PM

NTL by a country mile. Here's my story;

About two years ago we decided to get broadband installed in the house. I rang NTL and ordered a broadband package, no problems there took about 5 minutes and the guy was very pleasant, although he did say I would have to wait three weeks for intallation. I was given a time and date for when the tech would call out to install the necessary.

On that date I had to take a half day from work to let the guy in. On the day the tech was supposed to arrive at 1pm. 1pm arrives and no sign of him so I wait and wait and wait. I then ring NTL at about 5pm, another hour on hold and I was then told that the tech was in the area but was very busy and couldnt make it to my house. Because he couldn't make it I would have to wait another four weeks to get the necessary installed! Fu*cks to this I think and I ask the guy on the phone to cancell my order. He then says that he can't do it so I'm put on hold for another 40mins in order to speak to someone in sales. Finally I get through to sales and speak to a girl who could barely string a sentence together. It takes another 20min for me to explain to her that I want to cancel my order - eventually she gets the message....or so I thought.

About six weeks later a bill arrives in the post telling me nearly 100 bucks has been taken from my account by direct debit for the installation and first month of the broadband package. Aghast I ring NTL. Another 1hr and twenty on hold. When I finally do get through I'm left talking to a poor foreign guy who cannot understand what I'm trying to explain to him. I then ask to speak to a supervisor. Another thirty mins on hold. Finally get to speak to a supervisor and explain the situation. He assures me 'bud' that everything is 'sorted', the order and direct debit cancelled and my money refunded....or so I thought.

Two months later I happened to be home on lunch one Monday afternoon when a NTL van pulled up in front of the house. The guy comes to the door and tells me that he is here to install the broadband package. I tell the guy to head off as the order had been cancelled. Pissed off to say the least with ringing NTL I send an extremely snotty letter/email to NTL HQ demanding an explaination and that they confirm to me in writing that the order has been cancelled etc. Two weeks pass and no response. In the next letter/email I threaten to bring proceedings against them. Another ten days pass and I finally get a reponse from NTL, all of two lines confirming that all was the way I demanded it.

I cannot understand how such a big company could get it so wrong. The piss poor standards and frankly borderline incompetence must be rife all the way up to the top of the company.

*Rant over:D

As a parting shot I ordered a broadband package from Eircom. Placed the order on the Friday, received the router on the Tuesday - end of story. In two years I've had about two problems, both of which were dealt with in a very courteous and speedy manner by Eircom, no complaints at all.

Worst tech support/customer service helpline?

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