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Faults and being kept in the dark about them.
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[Deleted User]
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Virgin Media has changed this year. The service is no way near as good.
Yesterday in my area the service went off at about 6pm and didn't come back on until 11am today. No TV or Internet.
If you tried to ring the 151 number to find out when it was likely to come back on the pre-recorded message cut off after saying "Hello and Welcome to Virgin Media..."
We end up unplugging our sets and trying to get the service working again thinking that it must have been something we have done wrong.
Also would like to know why some programmes appear on catch up and others don't. Who decides?
Yesterday in my area the service went off at about 6pm and didn't come back on until 11am today. No TV or Internet.
If you tried to ring the 151 number to find out when it was likely to come back on the pre-recorded message cut off after saying "Hello and Welcome to Virgin Media..."
We end up unplugging our sets and trying to get the service working again thinking that it must have been something we have done wrong.
Also would like to know why some programmes appear on catch up and others don't. Who decides?
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so your angry because there was a fault ?
The broadcaster
Our broadband died a week ago yesterday, and it's taken about 20 calls to get an engineer round to fix it. They kept cancelling the call for various reasons without notice - NOT due to the weather - and finally a guy turned up to fix it yesterday. I was told all sorts of lies by the Indian call centre including "They are working on the street cabinet right now". This was during the evening and I can see the thing from my front bedroom so that's a lie. When challeneged on that one I was told It would be on in a couple of hours - it wasn't so I phoned and they said they would text me with a rebooked engineer visit. No text OR visit. Several calls later we FINALLY got to speak to a non-Indian operative who booked the engineer that turned up and fixed the fault.
I don't expect instant results, I work in an electrical service industry myself. BUT it is reasonable to expect that if they are going to cancel visits they booked that they call you and talk to you! It's also reasonable that the call centre don't tell loads of lies just to get you off the phone. They customer service HAS got worse IMHO - mainly due to the Indian call centre.
The indian call centre is the reason i no longer use the 151 service.
I have had numerous problems over recent months mainly due to poor infrastructure that needs heavy works to fix.
I have suffered numerous outages due to engineer works and would expect to be notified beforehand and provided with an estimated timescale as to when my service will be back up and running. Even if it was an email or text message as the service status page on vm website never works.
So more reason for a British company to oh have nothing but British call centres. Like all companies VM makes cuts everywhere but our bills remain the same regardless of how poor the service gets.
VM will have to really wake up when BT Infinity is more widespread as other companies can use the BT network, the only reason they do nothing with faults is cause they turn around and go well we offer the fastest brodband in the uk.
reality is no they don't ok on a large scale they do, but when you look at what h2o networks offer then VM are put to shame
Talking of Indian call centres, my internet connection was cutting off a few weeks ago, then connecting again, so I rang 151 and the Indian woman told me she was checking my modem and then came back and said it was continuously rebooting itself and I would need an engineer's visit.
One was duly booked and he came out a couple of days later. However, after checking, he said the modem was NOT rebooting itself at all, that all settings and connections were correct and that although he didn't know what had caused the problem, the call centre should not have told me so quickly that I needed an engineer's visit as often problems quickly sort themselves out within a couple of hours. He wasn't cross but he did tell me that this was a constant problem with the call centres, they are too quick to waste the engineers time.
I can't abide these foreign call centres, the lack of communication skills and genuine interest is obvious from the word go. 'What is your name?' I give my name. 'Thankyou for supplying me with that information. How can I help you?' I tell him the problem. 'Thankyou for supplying me with that information.....' and blah blah blah :mad:
Actually no it isn't. A British call centre would be equally in the dark at what is going on.
But what I find frustrating is the lack of flowing conversation when you get through to Indian call centres, it's very robotic.
Ah, that's worth knowing, thankyou.
They would at least be able to understand the basics like taking your name and understanding your problem though.
Agreed.
Engineer came today to fix the cable and internet - left with the TV and internet service only working intermitterntly and told me the cable going into the property needed replacing - call later today telling me that it would be the 24th until an engineer could replace that - meanwhile I cannot watch most channels. And I have no idea if my internet is not going to crash before I've finished this post :mad:
For this I am paying the best part of £120 and they want another £200 to have a set-top box with decent software!
As for the Indian call centre - calling them inept would be a compliment. They even managed to book two engineers today when the first engineer was able to at least work out that the 2nd was pointless. (one for TV, one for Broadband)
The only reason I have not told them to take their equipment is that the building management company will not allow a satellite dish - so I'm stuck with Virgin if I want access to many channels.
Called on my company mobile at a cost and was told it would be another two to three hours, I work from home and was stuck no emails, no phone and I coulnt even watch TV while waied fot a repair (why can't you watch your V+ recordings when the TV service is down?)
We are constantly pushed towards better deals by committing to bundles but when this happens you are really screwed, no TV, broadband and no phone
I have no aerial for freeview, I do not have a personal mobile phone or a dongle for my computer and why should I?
If Virgin want you to commit to their services then they should commit to give the customer no less than excellence. They can't help some faults but they should be prepared and they should keep to schedules and if they can't then at least have the courtesy to automatically offer an apology...they are a communications company...communicate with your customers!
I'd be happy with satisfactory - I was promised that a manager would call back, chased it twice and when I eventually did speak to a manager was told the reason it would take nearly three weeks - was because they have to dig up the road to fix the cable - had someone told me that then I might not have done my nut - I'm not unreasonable and realise that you cannot dig up cable at the drop of a hat - but the first rule of customer services is to keep promises - and the 2nd is to keep the customer informed.
I agree. If your repair is going to take more than a couple of days they should have made sure you knew why.
I much prefer to lurk reading the forums than posting, but this thread hit a spot.
When I first became a VM subscriber, I had the most appalling experience - too tedious to detail, but suffice to say it involved multiple lies from relatively senior VM employees, more broken promises and installation dates than I can say, plus zero information etc.
However, after the event, I concluded that nearly all the issues were fundamentally caused by the sub-contracted installation firms. They were very poorly controlled by VM - lying was second nature to them - seemingly unaccountable for their shocking conduct.
Once I was eventually up and running, I cant say I've had many issues since, though I recently emailed retentions protesting at the loss of so many tv channels and advisding them of my intention to either upgrade to VIP 50 to get a decent choice of viewing, or leave VM altogether for Sky.
Unsurprisingly, nearly 3 weeks later, no reply. (Just a price increase instead)
VM have NEVER been good at customer relations in my experience, but that just places them in the same camp as most service-provider companies - customers are gullible sheep to them.