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

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...

[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: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.