Bah!

Demon Heldesk sucks. My DSL line went down last Friday (physically
connected but my DSL login was failing) and when it came back up the
DSL router had put itself back into default NAT configuration rather
than my non-NAT config.

6 (6!) calls to Demon helpdesk later ("sir - it must be your firewall",
"sir - it must be your mailserver because I can't telnet to port 25 on
your mailserver IP address" etc etc) over 5 days until I actually
managed to get hold of someone (in this timezone!) who was both
technical *and* competent.

4 hours later the problem is fixed.

Why oh why do people outsource their helpdesk function to people who
can only read from their prepared scripts? Especially people who don't
seem to be able to escalate problems properly or even read the previous
notes in the problem ticket? All it does is annoy customers! It might
save them some money short-term but long-term is certain to lose them
customers - and hence damage their long-term profitability!

Gah.

Phil

 

The problem being that, if everyone is doing it, where else do you go?
It's interesting to see that some of the banks are highlighting their
use of UK-based call centres as a marketing plus point.

 

You just can't leave it, can you Launchbury.

 

Filthy dirty cash, sometimes millions of pounds worth of it.

Investors care about the numbers, not the logistics, or whether techies
like you are happy... And those behind the decisions, I doubt they'll be
phoning a broadband tech support line from their yacht in the Cayman
Islands.

Welcome to capitalism.

 

Short term maybe. Long term - company down the pan.

It's not a case of me being a techie - it's a case of me being a
'Business broadband' customer (and paying twice what a regular home
connection would cost) for very little return.

They'll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes. As will
I probably..

Phil

 

You love it.

Phil

 

You're not a customer. You're an RGU[1]. Once you accept this things
will become easier ;-)

As long as they hit their KPIs their profitability will be just fine.
When it comes to the "n% of calls resolved within 8 hours" metric, you
just happen to fall in the other (100-n)%

[1] Revenue Generating Unit

 

"Demon Hell Desk V6.6.6 for all you evil needs"

 

An awful lot of financial services companies seem to be back-pedalling
furiously on this one at the moment. When I woked at M&S the chargecard call
centre in Chester used to have hundreds of people working in it. Predictably
the jobs got outsourced a few years back.

The second to last time I rang them (ironically to cancel my account!), I
got put through to "Charles" and asked him to cancel my account. "Certainly
sir, that is all done for you".

Five days later, my replacement card turned up...

So the next time I rang, I tried again, but after five minutes I really
wasn't getting anywhere making them understand I no longer wanted and M&S
card. Casting aside the English terror of being called a racist, I asked if
there was anybody English I could speak to, as we weren't getting anywhere.
"Certainly sir", and I got bounced straight back to Chester, where
apparently there are now about 60 people whose sole job is it to resolve
calls that can't be dealt with in India. I had a chat with the guy on the
phone (while he cancelled my account!), and he said the number of staff
being taken on back at Chester is increasing every month. Given their recent
history, M&S really can't afford to be pissing people off right now, so
they're wisely spending a little more cash.

 

Dan White wrote

Snot just the banks and the like.

A recent experience of mine with the TV licensing folks led to the
discovery that they send some stuff overseas for processing. One
expensive (for them) round of snail mail and phone calls later and the
problem was resolved to my satisfaction. The ongoing correspondence to
drive home the point about cost saving bollox still continues.

 

# Shine on, next big companys buying your soul,
# Shine on, you are a customer but you ain't no fool

Ah - Kaipa..

And we all know that KPI just stands for "lies, damned lies and
statistics" don't we boys and girls?

Phil

 

"You remain trapped in the 15th Circle of Helldesk. Please remove any
trace of hopefulness or pleasure"

Phil

 

I'm glad that you have the spare time to be bloody minded enough for all of
us

 

Bzzt. That's twice you've failed to mention lusers, cluebats or LARTs.

Please try harder.

 

Dan White wrote

Somebody has to do it. Besides they are using a process which requires
an understanding of English dialect and accent. It seems fucking stupid
(and expensive) to me to send it to a bunch of foreigners to translate
and I am prepared to tell them so.

It has always been the case that there is a lot of shit being done in
the name of bottom line profit and **** the customer's likes and
dislikes and bean counters seem as oblivious to the lessons of history
as the rest of us. So it falls to us, the customers, to tell them
otherwise and to prove the point if necessary.

 

Aye - it can be a real bummer actually having to deliver the service
your customers have paid for..

Phil

 

Demon are shite. They don't really do "customer service" IME.

Move to a less-pikey ISP.

I think I posted words to that effect the last time they fucked up your
service.

 

Because it's cheaper. HTH

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I have a grovelling apology letter from them somewhere

didn't stop the reminders coming though

 

While you're at it, ask them to stop harassing me.

http://ireid.web.cern.ch/ireid/tvl1.jpg (and so on up to tvl6.jpg)

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