Telecommunication Customer Service Worldwide

imin8r writes " Whirlpool writes that an Telstra, Australia's largest Telco (who also happens to own all wholesale access to ADSL in Australia), had rejected an ADSL user's application from a small ADSL provider, but subsequently accepted their own ADSL application from the same user. The funny thing is, the smaller ISP sells exactly the same service as Telstra as they are a Telstra reseller. Both providers use the same line, same exchange and same equipment. However, the story doesn't end there. When Telstra was approached by the aggrieved user explaining what had happened, Telstra offered him a settlement to keep quiet. When he didn't, they disconnected his already connected ADSL service. One of the arguments for Telstra's bad track record with customer service is the fact that they were previously government owned but are now partly privatised (and listed on the stock exchange). As a result they own a lot of the infrastructure which has been paid with by taxpayers money, but any new Telco players still need to use a lot of Telstra's infrastructure. I'd like to know whether full de-regulation of the telecommunication industry in the United States has benefited customer service and also what effect it has had on providing innovative services. "

Comments

commercial monopolies are worse than government

[Anonymous Coward]

Commercial monopolies behave just as badly, if not much worse beacuse there isn't local accountability; ie, a government representative you can call and bitch at
We should only favor corporations when there isn't a monoopoly. Converting a government monoploy into a commercial one is *always* worse for customers... although, it is often a great deal for the politicians who made it commericial.... and of course, the new owners who realize a windfall wihout any real work...

Before and After...

[IO ERROR]

Before the breakup of AT&T, we used to say "New York Telephone sucks."

Then we said, "NYNEX sucks."

Then we said, "Bell Atlantic sucks."

Now we say, "Verizon sucks."

The name may change, but the suck remains the same.

Re:Before and After...

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words: British Rail.

In case you are not familiar with the British railway system, many many years ago there were a great many companies running railways. In 1923 these were "grouped" into four, and then in 1948 these (technically) private companies were (together with other transport undertakings) nationalised to form the "British Transport Commission", which managed to run increasingly large defecits. In the early 1960s this was abolished and the "British Railways Board" (still in existence despite privatisation) created, during which time the infamous Beeching reports were created and many branch lines closed. In 1968 the name "British Rail" was used as a trade name, with all its excuses (which also mostly persist to this very day) and Byzantine fare structure (which is even worse today).

Between 1993 and 1997 British Rail was privatised (in terms of operational functions at least) into the current structure we all know and hate; Railtrack (now Network Rail) running the track and major stations, and numerous Train Operating Companies operating the trains and most stations. Needless to say this involves much buck passing, and little benefit to passengers, especially when we must also add in the regulatory structure.

The point of this fairly lengthy post is to suggest that having separate line and operating companies has questionable benefit (also consider the privatised gas and electricity industries, with separate supply and billing companies, and the fun that this system creates). I'm sure you wouldn't want the STA (strategic telecoms authority), the local telephone company and the line owning company to constantly be arguing with each other, with the STA issuing ambitious targets (eg 92% of calls must be connected within 5 seconds) that are never adhered to.

If any facts are wrong, please correct me. However, to the best of my knowledge, there is no STA nor any punctuality target for telephone connection.

Re:Before and After...

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for Bell Canada in a large office that almost entirely consisted of customer service reps. Training for this position lasted three weeks. The company always stated that it would take 6 months to become completely efficient at the job. Here's the rub--the turnover rate at this office averaged 8 months. Most restaurants have a lower turnover rate than that! This means that, as a percentage, you only have a 25% chance that the person you are dealing with is competent at their job.
Unfortunately, this is a trend that will get worse before it gets any better. Big companies wouldn't think twice about cost cutting measures such as a high turnover rate as long as it looks good on a spreadsheet. I'd say boycott but local service is a monopoly here in eastern Canada. In such cases, there isn't much we can do as consumers, except bend over and take it!

Re:Before and After...

[arkanes]

There's a similar issue with the rail in the US. Amtrack is (by law) the only non-mass transit passenger rail service. Also by law, Amtrack cannot own track or carry freight. All the freight companies also own the track, and they cannot carry passengers.

The end result of this is that we don't have high speed passenger rail, because there's no incentive for the companies that own the rail to upgrade it. The same thing would probably have happened with telco - we'd all still be on noisy dialup lines because there's no incentive for them to do the upgrades needed for DSL.

Verizon

[JSmooth]

Similiar horror stories here but on a much grander scale. My part of the world (Rural Massachusetts) had limited high speed options for businesses. T1 from Verizon started at $750.00 for the line (ISP was extra). Then the city fathers, etc. got together and convinced Global Crossing to come in (before they went belly up). Now T1 with internet from GC at most $500.00. Long Distance was cheap, etc. However, the last mile was still Verizon lines. Right before GC came in a customer order and had installed a verizon T1 in less than 8 business days. For the same service under Verizon (A subcontractor) that service can take MONTHS).

Fact of life, those who have don't want to share.

I think the telco cust-serv in the US is bad.

[rushfan]

I have SBC, so YMMV.

I called them to get DSL when I moved (within Cali). I went to DSLReports.com and saw where the CO is and how far away I am. I called SBC -- They told me I'm too far for DSL (yeah, right, I'm like 1/3 the max distance).

So, I called Covad (who uses SBC's last-mile line) and got 1.5/384 with them. SBC's customer service doesn't know what they are doing, and what's worse is they don't really care to know.

Their office hours are horrible (I mean, most huge non-monopolies have 24hr customer service), you can't phone in a payment easily, if you get online billing, you don't get a paper bill anymore.

And the sad part is they seem to be on par with all the other baby-bells.

Just my rants on my local phone monopoly and they
're lame customer service....

(although AT&T's local phone customer service is 10 times worse from what I hear)

- Rushdan

Re:Phone features increased

[presearch]

...now we have tons of choices and tons of features
Sure. 2 bucks for this, a buck for that, another three for this.
They still charge extra for TouchTone support.
All just to set a few bits in your record in the switch.
And it takes hours, if not days, for those bits to get flipped.
Yeah, it's great.

Re:Kinda funny how it works out...

[Now15]

That is misinformation. The user only got his Telstra ADSL connection because Telstra didn't want him to complain to Australia's Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO). Such complaints generate automatic fines against Telstra, whether or not the telco is at fault.

And indeed he did retract his complaint to the TIO, instead, he just released his story to the media.

Cheers
Simon Wright
whirlpool.net.au

Re:English?

[hesiod]

> Anyone out there who could translate this into English for me?

Not sure what there is to misunderstand, but here you go:

These two ISPs are part of Telstra, the taxpayer-funded broadband network that was, at least partially, deregulated (no longer government-owned). Mr. Mann was told by Telstra that he could not get ADSL service through the first company. When Mr. Mann then went to the second company, Telstra said there was no problem, even though the service is identical and the lines (I believe) are all owned by Telstra & not the individual companies. Therefore, if Mr. Mann could get access to one, he should theoretically be able to get access to the other.

When he pointed out this fact to Telstra, they cut off his service altogether and offered him a settlement to never mention it to anyone (AKA "hush money"), as that inconsistency could look bad to a third party. Also, Mr. Mann seems to claim that the person sent to his house to do the disconnection was pretty mean/rude about it, suggesting that was intentional by the company to keep him quiet (that may or may not have been the point, I could have been reading more or less into it than was really there).

Re:Deregulation is good, sometimes..

[op00to]

As a die-hard Jersey inhabitant, I call BS. The lines for the DMV are just as long. Privitization did not help the DMV as much as you say. What about emissions/safety inspections? Remember that debacle? All privitization. Remember EZPass? Privitization. Sorry, both parties will screw up in equal amounts.
If we're faced with this sort of situation, I'd rather have the government to complain to than some corporation -- remember, we have a direct line to complain about any publicly run service! We can bitch to our elected officials -- and trust me, your congressman WILL get things done better than any customer service department in any similar situation.

at least he could actually get service

[aldousd666]

I had a long 3 month ordeal back and forth with verizon. The salespeole, and the cancellation department kept assuring me that I would be able to get service, and the service never came on. They cancelled the order 6 times and re-submitted it, sending me 2 modems and connections kits, after all of that they said that for some unknown reason I couldn't get service, and assured me that a manager would get back to me. No calls. no service. They suck. If I were this guy, I'd have been counting my digital blessings. I wouldn't have tried to fight over who was providing the service, after all, wouldn't dealing with them directly probably be cheaper than going through a re-seller anyhow?

Re:Kinda funny how it works out...

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah it's common knowledge here. Telstra broadband = bigpond

Re:Telecom? Customer Service?

[Snowdog668]

At least in the old days of AT&T if something broke you knew it was AT&T's problem. In my office I have to deal with four different companies. One company installed the internal system, SBC owns the lines, our "value added reseller" uses SBC's lines, plus we have another company for data and long distance. A few months ago our VAR decided to take us off of SBC's switch at the CO and put us on their own. Of course they sent out a letter saying that this would cause a 20 minute outtage but we should not notice a difference other than that. The problem was that their hardware couldn't handle the distance to the CO and kak'd most of our phone service. Of course everyone blamed everyone else and it took three months to get it fixed. What should have been an issue of "ok, VAR, you broke it, just put everything back to the way it was" ended up having me get all of the company's involved in fixing their part and basically setting up our billing and route programming from scratch.

Why customer service sucks...

[sterno]

The reason why customer service sucks is because price is a quantitative tangible measurement and customer service is not. Generally speaking, people don't compare customer service when they shop, they compare price. Therefore, in order to be more competitive, companies have tended toward cutting customer service in an effort to reduce costs.

It's been interesting though to see how the overall reduction in customer service standards has given openings to some companies. Here in Chicago, a new cell service came into town trumpeting that they have award winning customer service. Whether there service is actually good or not, I cannot say, but it does suggest that, in a market with consistently bad customer service, it can be used as a competitive differentiator.

Now, as this applies to the local phone market, it looks likely that it will soon become an uncompetitive market. Here in Illinois, they recently passed legislation to allow SBC to change the rates they charge the CLEC's. I expect to be seeing my DSL bills skyrocket as a result.