Have you had the misfortune to contact Telstra customer service of late? I had my mobile (but not my landline/Foxtel/Bigpond) suspended last Thursday, October 15, on a business trip, by Telstra’s own admission, for no logical reason (no money was owing on the account). The customer service officer told me that it may take one day or two days or perhaps two weeks to reinstate the service — after expressing my displeasure (!) it was reinstated in 20 minutes.
I arrived in Shanghai on October 17 and the mobile again was suspended. Telstra customer service don’t work on weekends, so yesterday and today I made seven phone calls from China, totalling over 2½ hours, and spoke to more than 20 different customer service reps. The strategies Telstra uses for handling customer complaints seem to be (and note: there is no money owing on my bill — as confirmed also by Telstra):
- Bounce the customer from complaints to faults to mobile queries to billing to credit management until the customer gives up.
- During bouncing, disconnect the customer’s call.
- Transfer to the call centre in the Philippines, where the office noise is so loud (perhaps they service jet engines there for Qantas) that they can’t hear you and hang up.
- Put customer on hold until they give up (I was on hold to credit management for 30 minutes before I gave up).
- Just promise it will be fixed immediately (as representatives Mark and Kervin advised) so that the customer will go away.
Every time you call, it takes about 7-10 minutes to be connected to a customer service representative and at every transfer you get the same questions: “What is your number? What is your name? What is your date of birth? What is your billing address? How can I help you?”
All these have happened to me in past two days but the phone is still suspended for reasons that Telstra advise it does not understand.
You can, of course, complain by email — the automated reply to my complaint included “We aim to respond within two business days however due to a larger than expected demand for our services wait times are currently exceeding four business days.” From previous complaints I sent by email for other problems, Telstra just don’t bother ever replying.
Telstra is a total disgrace.
I have found that whether it be Telstra, the banks or others, there is no need to go through the endless button pressing that they demand of of us till we give up . Probably their real intention. On about the third button press, yell ” operator, operator ” into the hand piece and lo and behold, you will be connected to one straight away. I do it all the time and have had no trouble. How did I find out ? My university student technology savvy daughter does call centre help desk in her holidays.
I had a similar experience when I moved house and wanted to take my Telstra Bigpond Cable Internet service with me.
I suffered all five steps above, plus another one. A customer lack-of-service rep suggested I call Foxtel! When I protested that Foxtel had nothing to do with my Bigpond internet he insisted.
I was skeptical, especially when he said that Telstra rents its cable from Foxtel (when I know it is the other way around) but desperate, so I called Foxtel. Of course a bemused rep there told me Foxtel had nothing to do with my Bigpond internet.
It took three weeks of this palava before I could finally convince them to send a technician. When he arrived, he identified the problem in seconds as a dodgy Telstra modem. He then proceed to unbox and connect 5 brand new modems before he found one that wasn’t faulty.
I’m finally now connected.
OK
First of all spank Telstra by logging a call to the TIO (Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman) http://www.tio.com.au. Telstra are charged a fee straight up and you have an advocate an INDEPENDENT advocate working on your behalf.
Secondly the call centre for the TIO is in Australia (on Collins Street Melbourne).
I don’t understand why people don’t use the Ombudsman’s set up for Finance, Gov and Telecommunications.
I’ve had dealings with the Banking (now Finance) and Telecommunications Ombusdman and have had satisfactory outcomes both times.
It continues to amaze me that with so many other potential service providers people simply just don’t walk. I did. It’s not so hard.
That is the only way that the message will be received by Telstra management and the other idiots driving similarly poorly customer focussed businesses. Once the cusotmer exodus begins to bite profitability, you can rest assured that each will launch it’s own “customers first” program.
The cycle can be shown to have happened to many other companies.
Sooner or later they will get the message – or their competitors will just crunch them. But, simply put, the onus is on every person who experiences this rubbish treatment to walk their business elsewhere
A bit of advice when this happens and you get a single run-around by a telecommunications company. Contact the TIO (Telecommunication Industry Ombudsman) with all the details and your written complaint. It isn’t fast but very effective.