BT is twittering

One of the nightmares of moving home in England is you have to deal with your phone lines and Internet etc. Although there are some other companies like TalkTalk or Sky out there to offer Internet connection without having a BT landline, the majority of ISP (Internet Services Provider) still require a BT landline. If you are one of the unlucky ones like me, moving to a new flat that hasn’t got a BT landline, you will be charged for £120 something for a “connection fee”.

I managed reduce that to £29 by signing up an eighteen months contract, but that comes with efforts and lucks. I made four calls. The first one I was told I had to pay £120, no other options. Second call I was offered the deal to reduce to £29, but I said I would think about it and get back to them. The third time I called, the operator didn’t know there is such a deal so I told him there is one. After confirming with his manager, he placed the order for me. The next day, I got a text message telling me the order was placed, but the charge was £120. I went mad, as you would have guessed. So for the fourth time, I called them, and they corrected the order for me, also let me know there will be an engineer will come in THREE weeks time to connect the line for me. After that, I can then start to order their Internet package and it will take another FIVE working days to go live. So simply put, from the moment you call, it will take one month at least to have internet, if you are lucky.

The story does not end yet. I called again today to see if I can postpone the appointment with the engineer. And guess what, I was told the order was cancelled because “the client doesn’t require moving home anymore”. They managed to drive me mad twice in one week! Amazing! I asked to speak to her manager. The next logical step is to put me on hold, she spoke to her manager, and came back to me apologising that she got it wrong, the order is still valid. So I required to postpone the order, she said she will need to change with her manager again. Then I was on hold for another 10 minutes. She came to back me, apologised and thanked me for my patience, because her “system was shut down” so she had to “reboot it”. And… I was on hold for another 10 minutes.

During the holding time, I just had to let my anger out somewhere. So I twittered it (1, 2) and harsh it as #BT. Surprisingly BT on twitter picked that up and replied to me straight again. So I started the conversation with him/her and they responded very quickly. I was impressed. Not by the speed, but by the fact that BT, a commonly perceived as monopolistic company with not reputable customer services, cares enough to get on twitter and talk to people who say good/bad about them. That is worth a thumb up from me. However, I would still prefer to have a better customer services over the phone. Although you are expressing to help me on twitter, but I don’t how you are going to do that.

Lastly, I managed to postpone my appointment. Just in case I will be told otherwise in the next call, I wrote down the operator’s name and made her promise to delivery what she said. Well, let’s cross fingers for that.

*** Update: 30/04/2010 Friday Afternoon***

I just received a call again from BT. They had to change the appointment ONCE AGAIN because the last appointment I booked was on Saturday and they don’t do Saturday services. I was guaranteed by the last operator that she will send someone on the Saturday morning to fix my line. She was so sure that she even gave me her name as a promise. If you are a BT PR manager who cares enough to read this post, and you want to get that person’s name or my account number to pull that conversation record, leave your email address here.

I will keep update this post until my Internet is up.

*** Update: 18/05/2010 Tuesday Morning***

First thing first, I have finally got a BT land line connected!

I was waiting at home this morning (had to ask for a leave at work) to wait for the engineer. However he/she didn’t turn up! At around 09:00AM a lady from BT called and told me the line is connected. I think she is in a “special case handling team” or something similar. I spoke to her before when I was frustrated, but she was always very polite to me. Anyway, I shouldn’t moan about “it doesn’t really need me at home to wait for the engineer” bit. Now it’s connected, that’s what matters the most.

A special note on one of the email that BT Care sent me.

Sorry about send you that email by mistake, I seem to have missed the fact that you had included your order number in the subject field. I have been looking this order and I am sorry that you were given the wrong information regarding the availability of our engineers to visit your property on a Saturday. I have been looking into this and I do apologise that I am unable to arrange an appointment for a Saturday for you. This is down to the availability of Openreach engineer is your area.

It’s not too hard to apology when a mistake is made and it does earn back some of your credibilities!

*** Update: 26/05/2010 Wednesday Evening***

I finally have connection at home! I’m connected! Despite I requested to deliver the broadband to my work address, and they called me the day before to and let me know it’s indeed going to be delivered to my company address, at the end it was still sent to my flat in the morning. Luckily my flatmate happened to be home to receive, otherwise there could be another delay. But anyhow, it all worked out at the end! What’s more, I didn’t need to pay for the reconnection charge because “there was already a line connected”, confirmed from an email respond from BT.

Conclusion
1) It took 37 days days since I made the first call until finally got connected
2) Spoke to about 5 different people regarding this case
3) 5 Emails from BT

Tagged as: BT, Customer-Services, Twitter