Customer Service Experiences
Mar. 27th, 2008 08:01 pmTonight I sat down with my esteemed housemate to transfer all the bills over into his name. How long did this take, do you think?
Thames Water
They answered the phone almost immediately, were happy with the idea that the account should transfer to a new person, spoke to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
braisedbywolves briefly to confirm his name and are sorting this all out. Total time: 3 minutes.
NPower
They supply both our gas and electricity.There was a minor amount of holding, and then I spoke to a cheerful if loud woman who took all the extraneous names off the bill and will putbraisedbywolves's on instead, and for both bills. Total time: also about 3 minutes.
BT
They have a fiendish menu system. I negotiated it once, and they said we could do a ten day working transfer of the line. As I passed the phone over the little catch on it that hangs it up got pushed. So I navigated the menu system again, got put on hold, and then got cut off by their end. I rang then back again, navigated the menu system again (I swear it's different every time), got through to someone and explained about the ten day working transfer thing, and got told that this meant we'd have to change phone number. So because the house shouldn't have to change phone number just because I'm moving out, and the only way around this is apparently to close my account and open a new one, this meant a five minute wait while transferring to the accounts (sorry, Customer Options) department. Once on to them I explained the situation and got put on hold for another five minutes while the bloke had a chat to someone about what to do with the apparently unprecedented situation of someone moving out of a shared house. The answer is that our phone line has to be disconnected and reconnected tomorrow, and that there's no way to do this entirely by just shifting data or allocations around. At this point the phone got passed over tobraisedbywolves, and there followed some more disconnections, but by this time the BT bloke had a mobile number to keep ringing back so kept doing that til he'd got through every long winded tedious part of the process. But apparently it should all work and braisedbywolves has made sure he has a reference number to call and shout at them with if the phone (and thus the broadband) isn't functional again by tomorrow evening. Total time: about 40 minutes, including three lengthy hold periods, a lot of tedious menu navigating, some hard sell about the various call package options despite the fact we made a total of £1.63 of calls last quarter, and lots of sarcasm about hold messages. But they did make the dogged effort apparently required to get through it all, so I feel I can't completely slag them off.
TV licence
I rang them up, navigated a complicated menu system of the sort that listens to what you say so you can't be sarcastic at it, and then got told that they're only open til 6.30 so they couldn't help me. Total time: 3 minutes but with no actual effect.
Orange Broadband
The companies that sell us methane, electrons and water can change the name of the person who pays for these services by changing something on a database, right there and then while we're on the phone. The company that sells us data access cannot do this. They are going to send us a piece of pulped wood fibre with some ink on it by way of the postal system, which we must then add some more ink to and return to them also by the postal system, or possibly pigeon. Total time: is going to depend on the vagaries of the Whitechapel sorting office. Pffft.
Must also finish and print out a letter to the council tax people while at work tomorrow. Fun fun fun.
Thames Water
They answered the phone almost immediately, were happy with the idea that the account should transfer to a new person, spoke to
braisedbywolves briefly to confirm his name and are sorting this all out. Total time: 3 minutes.NPower
They supply both our gas and electricity.There was a minor amount of holding, and then I spoke to a cheerful if loud woman who took all the extraneous names off the bill and will put
braisedbywolves's on instead, and for both bills. Total time: also about 3 minutes.BT
They have a fiendish menu system. I negotiated it once, and they said we could do a ten day working transfer of the line. As I passed the phone over the little catch on it that hangs it up got pushed. So I navigated the menu system again, got put on hold, and then got cut off by their end. I rang then back again, navigated the menu system again (I swear it's different every time), got through to someone and explained about the ten day working transfer thing, and got told that this meant we'd have to change phone number. So because the house shouldn't have to change phone number just because I'm moving out, and the only way around this is apparently to close my account and open a new one, this meant a five minute wait while transferring to the accounts (sorry, Customer Options) department. Once on to them I explained the situation and got put on hold for another five minutes while the bloke had a chat to someone about what to do with the apparently unprecedented situation of someone moving out of a shared house. The answer is that our phone line has to be disconnected and reconnected tomorrow, and that there's no way to do this entirely by just shifting data or allocations around. At this point the phone got passed over to
braisedbywolves, and there followed some more disconnections, but by this time the BT bloke had a mobile number to keep ringing back so kept doing that til he'd got through every long winded tedious part of the process. But apparently it should all work and braisedbywolves has made sure he has a reference number to call and shout at them with if the phone (and thus the broadband) isn't functional again by tomorrow evening. Total time: about 40 minutes, including three lengthy hold periods, a lot of tedious menu navigating, some hard sell about the various call package options despite the fact we made a total of £1.63 of calls last quarter, and lots of sarcasm about hold messages. But they did make the dogged effort apparently required to get through it all, so I feel I can't completely slag them off.TV licence
I rang them up, navigated a complicated menu system of the sort that listens to what you say so you can't be sarcastic at it, and then got told that they're only open til 6.30 so they couldn't help me. Total time: 3 minutes but with no actual effect.
Orange Broadband
The companies that sell us methane, electrons and water can change the name of the person who pays for these services by changing something on a database, right there and then while we're on the phone. The company that sells us data access cannot do this. They are going to send us a piece of pulped wood fibre with some ink on it by way of the postal system, which we must then add some more ink to and return to them also by the postal system, or possibly pigeon. Total time: is going to depend on the vagaries of the Whitechapel sorting office. Pffft.
Must also finish and print out a letter to the council tax people while at work tomorrow. Fun fun fun.