Broadband support calls ‘cost millions’
Thursday 15th October 2009, 8:53AM BST.
Hmm ... with these false credit card details I'll ring customer services
Frustrated broadband customers from Shropshire are among those footing a multi-million pound bill by being kept on hold on technical support lines, a new survey has revealed.
More than 15 million calls, costing an average of £1.75, are made to technical support lines every year, according to data from the uSwitch comparison website, with connection problems a common complaint.
Almost half of the 12,000 customers questioned said that they were not satisfied with the computer technical support on offer.
Of the service providers, Orange and Tiscali finished bottom of the satisfaction table, with ratings of 42 per cent and 47 per cent respectively.
A Shropshire Star survey in August revealed that computer users in Shropshire were up against a postcode lottery when they signed agreements for broadband connections.
People were paying between £5 and £50 per month for connections but said that they were receiving speeds that varied dramatically, from two megabits per second to 50mbps.
They also reported that the quality of service also varied dramatically with connections sometimes depending on nearness to telephone exchanges.
The latest survey, carried out by uSwitch, showed that TalkTalk kept customers waiting longest on hold with an average time of 12 minutes.
Jason Glynn, of uSwitch, said that it was “disheartening” to see companies were continuing to charge customers for technical support.
He said: “In such a competitive arena it’s surprising that they haven’t wised up to the fact that customers expect more from their broadband service than a cheap deal.
“They want a service they can rely on – and when things go wrong they need assurance that their service will be back up and running again as quickly as possible and at minimum expense.
“If they are not happy they will simply switch away.”
In total, nearly £6 million a year is spent by customers on calling up technical helplines.
Up to six million broadband customers called for technical help over the last year, with network connection problems cited as the most common complaint causing people to call for help.
Customers also usually have to call technical helplines at least twice to fix the same problem – just four out of 10 customers successfully resolved a problem in just one call, the survey showed.
Shropshire customers have repeatedly been critical of broadband provision in the county, though providers like BT have insisted that good connections are available in the area.
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I feel I must comment in this.
Regular readers will know that my business is internet services.
We supply Broadband, (amongst many other things like domain regsitration, email and web hosting, web design, data back up solutions etc)
I never cease to be amazed by customers who want internet connectivity at the lowest price – (which we can’t compete with !) – but THEN complain they don’t get good technical back up.
The fact is – you get what you pay for.
It’s cheap for a reason!!
Think about it…
If a large broadband supplier has say 1,000,000 customers, and JUST 1% (and it’s prbably more than that) of these has a problem at any one time – then that equates to 10,000 phone calls! – So –
NOW tell me HOW anyone can give a good technical service with good qualified people on the end of the phone line with that many calls going on !!?
And – in many instances – problems are caused by the customers installtion and equipment -not the broadband supplier ! -and the larger companies won’t get involve with that –
They can’t! – becuase most calls will be answered by operators who can only read from a pre-defined script or set of operational tests that won’t properly analyze your “problem” –
And so – is it any wonder that people get frsutrated when they have to keep on calling back becuase “this, that, or the other” procedure didn’t work!
What you will find is that IF you come to a smaller provider like us – It WON’T be cheap(er) – BUT you will get GOOD service, technical advice and backup – and – becuase we are small – and local – we CAN address all those “issues” so that when resolved – WILL ensure your system works properly !
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what makes it even more frustrating,is the fact that companies like virgin media use indian call centres for tech support cause its cheaper for them,yet pricey for you.
they sound as though their reading from prop cards most the time,& if you ring with internet proplems & your tech minded about pc’s already,you feel like your talking to someone who has no real idea,plus you have to keep asking them to repeat what they say.
i’ve been a virgin media customer for 20 years,since the telewest days,& tech support has never been so annoying or expensive.
i’m glad i dont have to ring them very often unless its about slow or complete loss of service.
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The main source of these problems in my opinion is the pathetic infrastructure we have to put up with in Shrewsbury (and Shropshire). If people were connected with optical fibre as opposed to a tattered piece of string that BT put in 60 years ago then perhaps they’d be getting reasonable speeds, less downtime and not feel the need to phone support lines.
Unfortunately the only way of getting faster broadband in Shrewsbury currently seems to be to move house :(
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