Today I had my call from the Chairmans office.

I shall be making several suggestions to my contact when my issue at home is resolved.

To have to go to such lengths to resolve a problem is rediculous and the level of accountability is almost zilch.

I am going to bill BT for my time; the two days I had to have off (now 3!)

Hey Steve, have you finally got a date of when they are coming? If your account number begins with the GB then your in for an even worse time I can't understand how BT can get customer service soo wrong - I mean how many times have I heard "we are very busy", my answer when they say that is why not get more staff?

Am getting a date tomorrow.

Have no clue what my account number begins with. Have yet to receive any paperwork!!!

I'd actually like to go back to the days when the phone wasnt answered it wasnt picked up. Why pay to sit in a queue and listen to crap music and the usual "your call is important to us" bs repeated every 20 seconds.

Yes I agree, but when you are talking about 23M records on the old system IIRC and a much smaller amount on the new one I can understand why the training is taking longer to roll out. You also have to remember that taking 8 advisors per site into training for a week will result in approximately 80,000 calls going unanswered every week unless they can be filled via overtime or new recruits who would also need trained. They are bit between a rock and a hard place.

The main problem has been 'unforseen' problems with the implementation of the new system. This has caused problems with thousands of orders and it has had a huge knock on effect on customer service. The system is more resource hungry than the old one and records take a little longer to be displayed, orders are a little bit trickier to place than before etc etc.

You just need to look at the forums here to see the number of people who have had problems due to it.

Ultimately though, they are BT Retails problems and they need to address them. It is an ultra competitve market out there and if they don't improve then customers will go elsewhere.

Well today it has been impossible to get connected to the help desk, a recorded message says "we are unable to proceed with this call, try again later"

The question of course that has to be asked is, what was wrong with the old system?

Thanks for clearing that up with me.

The system that is being removed gave BT Retail advisors access to BT Wholesale and Openreach information that other CPs didn't have access to.

In order to remain 'equivalent' and on a level playing field in regards to access with other companies BT Retail decided to implement a new system.

john I have a no. which may help you.

pm me if you want it.

br
Steve

I emailed ben about my billing issue.. got the normal quick "sorry to hear that, I'll as the high level complaints team to deal with this for you" and I've heard nothing else. I did ask for a call back on the email but nothing?!

I emailed friday evening, got a reply in about 20 mins and then a call on monday.

When did you email him?

hehe would you believe that BT cs just called me and rescheduled the appointment made (prior to me speaking to Ben Verwaayen) from the 11th Oct to the 15th of Oct.

Thank **** I put it in the hand of High level complaints or I'd be having to put up with another reschedue.

I pity the customers who dont have access to methods to resolve these issues

Saturday. I said I'd be unavailable but left my mobile number. Interestingly the email reply was CC'ed to "cceo@bt.com", do you think that's the team?

Exactly - they can't even get the messages right when you are on hold - messages such as "please have your account number ready" or just some plesant music would be better, when in fact all you get is

"WE ARE VERY BUSY AT THE MOMENT" - as if they almost don't want you to wait! "WE WILL ANSWER YOU CALL IN 35 MINUTES"

So you hold.... then the c***s pass you through to another department so you get put back on hold, and hopefully get through to that department before it closes for the day.

BT CUSTOMER SERVICE IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING - FACT

I know this is the second reschedule too!

I hardly think the c***s as you so nicely call them transfer you just for the fun of it.Yes, there's long queues to get through to BT but dont take it out on the poor c*** that's answered the call, it's hardly their fault. They're just taking one call after another and another.........

Lets not lose sight of the original thread topic, and whilst not wanting to focus on cs reps themselves, the outcome is a very very unsatisfactory level of customer service whatever way you look at it.

Just as a note BT appeared on watchdog last night regarding these problems, also setup a new page

http://www.bt.com/newcustomer

BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and...20071010.shtml