Update: BT buys EE – are mergers good news for customers?

To some extent I have to argue about customer service. With my mobile I am with Vodafone (who outsource customer service to the Philippines – and they are clearly tutored not to give an inch and are extremely rude. This has not been my experience with all outsourced services in the Philippines.

Provided you are not daft enough to stick to the ‘easily obtainable’ BT service numbers and find one that takes you to the UK and more expert departments you will find them extremely helpful. Unfortunately when it comes to getting an engineer (despite claims on BT Service guarantees) will often take weeks – and then even months if you ever get to resolve you issues at all (our line problem has been known about for over a year) and then you take pot luck if you get an indifferent or a good engineer. We have a handful of engineers serving a large area where we are often working under awful stress (no I am not a BT engineer) 🙂

But yes I agree we really need more competition and total unbundling of exchanges. While remembering ‘more’ does not always mean better. Our problems go deeper than ‘customer service’ – we need more and better trained engineers along with enforced infrastructure improvement – all this needs to happen simultaneously or we are never truly going to move forward with broadband provision. Additionally f prices were more uniform across the UK we would also not have the problem of rural areas being merely patched up/left to degrade.

I agree and I am in Somerset near Wincanton and cannot get any signal in the house and only intermittent ones (2g) if lucky 30 metres from the house

I tend to agree with you. We are constantly being told by the over wealthy elite in Government, media and Business how wonderful private businesses are in relation to being publicly owned. 1) With the right Manageras and accountability and business plan – there is absolutely no reason why publicly owned (nationalised) businesses should not be profitable and successful. (After my years of experience in a public corporation essential to the business & social needs of the community). 2) We are advised that when a major public service/part of essential infrastructure is sold off – we will have more competition, driving up value for money, efficiency and lower prices, etc., etc. But what has been the reality? Abysmal performances from many in the top percentile of lack lustre managers. yet they are taking conglaturatory super salaries, bonuses & perks from the wealth we ALL strive to create.. Even when finally found to be failing badly – they go with massive golden hand shakes! Ludicrous shambolic capitalism at it’s worse. 3) We are then advised to employ similar people at the top in the few and most important remaining publuic services or at the head of the many Quango’s, etc., and what do we find? Similar problems, hundreds of patients in NHS Hospitals dying or put at risk through lack of skilled and timely decision making etc. 4) Finally the supposed benefits of privately run large industries and businesses – frequently rising prices bearing no real relation to supplier market movements, major accidents caused by laxical business control, estimations on major projects frequently anything from 25% upward underestimated, some even 100% under! An increasing reduction to a small core of giant players – often now under foreign financial control, creating a risky future. Poorer customer servicing – managers hiding from their customers and employing outsiders of little or no experience of the business they are procurred to represent. We now cannot take back and re-nationalise our essential infrastructure businesses, because the National Debt stands at £1.3 trilliohn and rising all the time so the costs are beyond even a pipe dream.. So what hope of us getting truly fair deals (not designed to fleece us) from any of the reducing numbers of communications suppliers? They can carry on just as they are, who will stop them? The current profitable playing fields are fibre optic telecomms connections (a technology developed by Post Office Telecomms way back the last century!) and “4G” radio phone transmissioning and boy are they being milked! I tire of all their silly marketing games and put up with cheaper lower performing standards, while they last …I cannot believe that Which or anyone else is going to get me a much better deal at a truly affordable and woirthwhile cost.

The reason why problems are so difficult to resolve is that BT is run by lawyer-accountancy principles, not engineering principles. It make business sense to have a centrally controlled customer queuing system to resolve faults, but it is almost impossible for engineers to cure intermittent faults this way.

For example, the fault may only occur when it is raining. To find it easily, the engineer has to attend when it is raining, not when his work sheet says he should. It is a matter of luck whether the engineer attends on a showery day and can actually observe the fault and measure the line to find it. As BTOR is (and has to be) a monopoly there are no comparisons with different fault repair systems that can be made. For intermittent faults, I would recommend assigning one engineer to a particular fault and giving the customer his mobile number so that they can communicate on a more direct basis and make appropriate arrangements. (In my example, for the engineer to attend on a showery day.)

Re our first point – public versus private service provider. I agree in principle but having lived through the time when nationalization was common I’d like to ask where are the staff and managers who could provide better services? They are the same people we have now surely unless someone invents super people. For myself having experienced the misery of British Rail’s shocking service in the past I much prefer the system now – despite it’s flaws and problems Believe me they are nothing compared to the nationalised system when most staff didn’t care about customers, service or punctuality. And no I am not a Tory . I was always a Socialist until I first saw Mr Blair on tv I’m sorry to say it but people are not self motivated They need tough but fair management to give good service as well as expertise of course. And good managers are as common as hen’s teeth.

I agree with stubbles BT are terrible at customer services I tried them when they first started broadband and left after 2 years vowing never to return Sadly 5 years later I was persuaded to give them another chance OH what a fool I was, another 12 month of purgatory tied to a contract that was costing me twice as much as they originally said and threatening letters I had to go to the regulator who agreed and BT backed off I still got letters for 6 months after but could ignore the threats etc
If this merger goes ahead we will all be at the mercy of 2 giants and possibly find any complaints about one product bringing on a ban from all their services
We don’t need media dictatorships in the UK

I agree with the comments about BT, both my daughter and myself were BT, I was just on for phone, but she was on for phone and broadband ~ prices higher than anywhere else, customer service non- existent and in fact the helpline were staffed by very rude people. When I complained about a fault it took 3 or 4 phone calls to get to an engineer, engineer was supposed to come but didn’t. Eventually I changed to Sky: then the BT engineer called and said they had been looking for the fault, but could not find one, till he came here and then he pointed to my nearly severed line just outside the front door and said ‘that is your problem’. I was so angry because I had swept the leaves away only the day before and it was perfectly alright, so I shouted at him, ‘you did that’. I guess I really frightened him because he stuttered a bit and then said suit yourself and disappeared. I was shaking with anger, but fortunately Sky did not take so long to come and I was happy then. I have had Sky T.V., Broadband and Telephone for a good few years now and I am very happy with them. They do answer the phones, although they are busy during the day, but evenings are fine with me. The are friendly, helpful, always ring back when they say they will, or soon after, and I have no complaints. They are not as expensive as BT, but even if they were dearer I would not swap.

I’d love to know why somebody gave this a thumbs down ?

Probably the engineer who probably cut the line ??

In rural areas providers don’t see enough custom to make it worth their while. In unbundled exchanges providers have to install and maintain their own equipment (oh sorry I mean hire BT’s Openreach engineers). Not enough fully trained engineers. Not enough forward thinking.

I suppose BT is securing loans on future revenues – made even more potentially lucrative by the elimination of another competitor.

The link is :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/telecoms/11387875/Virgin-Media-urges-Sky-to-raise-broadband-prices.html

dieseltaylor, I’ve been with Nationwide now for very many years and I trust them – I’ve never had occasion to do otherwise. Investment banks – a different kettle of fish.

The first time the conduct of banks concerned me was when they denied that phantom withdrawals from cash dispensers were possible. That seemed an unreasonable claim at the time and it proved to be wrong.

My main personal grievance has been when banks have decreased interest payed on savings accounts while launching a new account with substantially higher interest.

Recently we have seen some big fines for RBS, HSBC and Barclays. I recall that Barclays put aside £500 million to cover fines and their shares rose when this announced.

As I see it, the mobile phone companies are more in the petty crime league, for example adding a bit to the cost of monthly payments for phone contracts, though some have been hit badly with unexpected charges.

My only personal grievance was when T-Mobile took over from One2One and doubled the call charge from 10 to 20p per minute, peanuts compared with the loss of savings income from banks.

I do trust the mobile phone sector more than the banking sector. Last time I checked Which? Consumer Insight, that was the majority view.

Malcolm r – I have worked for three clearing banks for a considerable time. The customer ethos was hugely stronger then than it is now, and the staff were better trained. Branches could resolve most problems at the counter or by telephone to your branch.

Certainly never perfect but much more responsive to local opinion as they competed for customers in each town.

This just shows how useless and old fashioned the voice telephone has become. Any company that cares about its customers should provide email or web form access. That way, they can queue the messages and not the customers.

How many person-hours are wasted every day with people “holding on” to telephones?

Organisations that use telephone call centres should be boycotted, and Which? could call for call centres to be abolished.

The government may need some persuading, though. Call centres are an excellent generator of VAT, ie they are not only a waste of time but also are a stealth tax. They also provide another benefit in that they employ people who would in many cases be otherwise unemployable, and thus keep them off benefits.

With regards to large corporation’s attitude to customers, Pay Pal appear to be breaking UK marketing laws with their new user agreement that makes it compulsory for users to allow their telephones to be rung at any time, day or night, with Pay Pal or its associates’ marketing messages.

on

https://www.gov.uk/marketing-advertising-law/direct-marketing

it says

>>>

5. Direct marketing
You must check if customers want to be contacted by fax, phone, post or email, and give them the chance to object.
When you collect customer details, you must get their permission if you want to send them other offers or promotions.
You must also ask for their permission if you want to share their information with another organisation.

<<<

I have emailed
complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
and asked them to enforce this law.

In order for them to take action, it may help if many more people resident in the UK send them similar messages.

That’s not the only law they are breaking. They use the rip-off Customer Service number 08707 307 191 which is in violation of the Consumer Contracts: Information, Cancellation and Additional Payments Regulations which came into force a year ago.

Typical arrogant American company attitude: “We can, because we’re big and nobody will stop us.”