“Helpline”, what a misnomer… Ok, so I’ve been dwelling on this one for a long time and it’s only after a month of crap from Telstra that I want to vent. Now this is NOT a Telstra bash by any means, its more a general rant relating to how modern companies are treating customers through their “Support/Help” lines.
Now I’m a mild person to deal with, and will always err on the side of safe if there is a chance I could be wrong or mistaken. But I tend to get a bit upset dealing with some support people when they dumb me down. I won’t tar all staff with this rant because for all the bad ones, I’ve had plenty of positive experiences from people who obviously enjoy their jobs and are good at what they do. I will add that the support person will have rules to adhere to in a call and time limits, scripted answers, amount of assistance all factor in to the amount of help you can get.
Well, let me tell you of my recent experience and hopefully you can walk away with a bit more edge when you next dial that number. It’s started over a month ago, I wanted to transfer my Internet from my local ISP to Bigpond to take advantage of the bundle deals they offer. I will say that I view Bigpond generally as the ISP of the “Jones Family” without bagging them too much, they do supply a generally foolproof product that comes in one-size-fits-all. Now I have used them a couple of times in different forms over the many years and they ARE convenient. To cut through a very long but not boring story here is the condensed start.
1. Order Bigpond Internet connection for home. Bigpond+local ISP do not talk so 1 week promise of completion.
2. Two weeks later ring to find out that my whole conversation with the first Sales lady never happened, I’ll be fucked I wasn’t dreaming lol..
3. Attempt no.2, stalls because of some balls-up, I get no apology and fingers pointed by both parties lol.
4. Finally old ISP disconnects (they submit a disconnection note to Telstra), I ring Bigpond and am now told it’s going to be another week because they NOW send modem order to their warehouse and also book the exchange to be connected. It’s here the frustration level raises, I was certain that the guy who pulled my “codes” off the line is the same guy who will do the Bigpond “codes” the next week and its only an order number that stops him from doing it at the same time.
5. Ok action, a few days earlier than expected I get connected and even though my modem hadn’t arrived, I’d set up my old WiFi modem up an it worked. Cool 
So now I have Bigpond and relatively happy, I check my speed and am disappointed to find out that its dropped significantly. Old ISP down: 13Mbps, up: 1Mbps… Bigpond down: 6Mbps, up: 0.3Mbps. Hmmm, I wait till my Bigpond supplied gear arrives and still the same, no matter what time of day/day of week. With this information I ring up BP support tech support line, and the first person gets me to do the usual, empty cache/reset modem and tests line. He seemed quite proud of himself when he asked me to open a webpage “see its lots quicker” PMSL. ok at any speed past 1.5Mbps a general webpage will load in a blink of an eye, so measuring a pageload speed visually is fundamentally flawed. Ok I do a Speedtest.net test while he was online an informed him the EXACT same speed, he then rattles off it may be because the line is new and should “settle” down after a few days and to ring up in 48hours if its not changed. I wait. 72hours past now and yup you guessed still the same…
This is where it got interesting and where I lost my patience. Rang Bigpond “Tech Support”, Paul answers. He starts again with the modem reboot etc spiel, fuck me I’m not a twit and tell him so. He ups the ante and states that “you have adsl1″ and that I should’ve ordered ADSL2 if I wanted that sort of speed. HMMM, now I ask him where that option was when I initially ordered this, because I was of the understanding (and had it in front of me) that I would receive “the highest speed available in your area”. He continues to inform me that I needed to “upgrade” my connection and that it was my fault that it is so slow. He now changes track and starts to crap on that my “8Mbps speed is all there is available to my area”. What the hell has happened then when my old ISP (which is a Telstra Bigpond reseller) can supply me on the identical same line and equipment a speed that easily doubles what I am getting from my BP?? I ask him connection. He then tries to justify the speed as good, well charlie-brown it doesn’t cut it! My upload speed is pathetic at 0.3Mbps, thats a whole third slower. “Upload speed is irrelevant, you mainly download when viewing pages!” Ok, its here I am nearly finished but decide to inform him the benefits of uploading emails, files, photos, videos etc at a reasonably high speed (which even at 1Mbps is like watching grass grow). I think he heard it in my voice (he calls me “Sir”) and tries to offload me to Sales to discuss if I’d like to upgrade to ADSL2.
I had had enough and thanked him for NOT helping, he politely gives me the number in case I need any more help regarding tech support from this discussion (yeah buddy I did write it down). ring-ring I’m now onto sales at Bigpond, a female answers and I calmly inform her of my dilemma, she says hang on and looks into it. Comes back and tells me that ADSL2 IS available and there was no reason why it shouldn’t have been done at that time. Baffles me! She then tells me she has arranged for the exchange to be upgraded to that effect. Cool, 4days to wait (from now its 3) and I should have ADSL2 that is the fastest speed available in my area. What bothers me is that it wasn’t done in the first place, and then it was argued about so much when I did point out the shortfall. The conspiracy theory comes to mind that given a flat rate charge for data sold at a slower speed is generally cheaper, and most people will not know the difference unless they test it out and have a controlled speed history beforehand to compare to.
So here is the crux of my rant, if I was Joe Average and called this support person, I’d be at the mercy of false information and spin to the effect that I would feel silly for questioning it in the first place. When placed in this position, I’d suggest having facts in front of you and be informed so that if they try to run you in circles hoping to make you dizzy, you can stick to your guns.
You know what IS scary in this, I once had a BP tech support tell me that I needed to reformat my laptop and reinstall Windows because their Bigpond 3G wireless stick software installation could not complete. I hung up on that advice and the next person eventually pushed my issue to the next level of support to find out that something on their end was not registering my 3G SIM. They are so lucky I didn’t go their initial route…
Phew, ok I feel better now hehe. I’ve got more stories that reflect the lack of support given, but won’t bore you with such waffle for now Please don’t accept shocking service, fight back and get what you paid for.
Ron B.
PS. Don’t get me started with the Automotive industry hahaha…
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