Worth New Topic - Top Ten Reasons You Hate BigPond

[Claudekrowe]

This is well worth it's OWN TOPIC

Thanks to James Calligeros; http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-re ... ?t=1973732

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Repost of James progress Top 6

Just a thread to let those who want to vent their 'opinion' towards the nation's largest and most stagnant telco do so. Please vent appropriately, and do not attack individuals; it is aimed at the company, not the people who work there. Have fun!

My top 10:

1. Service: The worst customer support in the world, sitting next to the like of Voda

2. Speed: I used to have good speed, and interleaving off, then interleaving was turned back on, and my line profile locked at max stability. "I'm sorry it is not possible to change your line profile, sir."

3. Attitude: The company as a whole has the worst attitude towards the Internet that I have ever seen. Without copper, this country would die, yet they still refuse to maintain it. Roll on, NBN.

4. Pricing: While just about all ISPs have competitive pricing, BP still refuses to change its plans to match those of ISPs such as Internode or TPG. And even with the profit margins they are making, none of it is going to improving essentials, such as support.

5. Accounts/Billing: So many people, including myself have copped so much crap from their billing department. I have been charged 3 times for a "Premium Home Gateway" that I never actually ordered. I also footed a $400 bill for apparently making more than a few calls to an overseas number in Japan. When I notify them of these issues, what do I get? An overdue penalty and a threat to cancel my service. TIO was useless as well.

6. Hardware Sales Team: The one time I DID order a modem, they stuffed that up as well. I ordered the single port modem, and the order was successful, according to the rep I spoke to. 2 WEEKS later, a "Premium Home Gateway" arrives at my door, and I'm charged $120 instead of $10. When I called Telstra to complain, I was told that the rep had ordered a PHG under my name, and there was nothing I could do about it. To add insult to injury, 2 weeks after that, I was then sent another PHG, with a letter from Telstra saying "As a courtesy, we are replacing your modem FOR FREE." Yes, that's right. I pay for a modem, get sent the wrong one, get charged again, then get sent a FREE ONE.

That's all I could think of. As of 29/8/12, I am a very happy Internode customer. Please post up your top reasons to hate Telstra/Bigpond. It would be nice to have one central place to view all those unhappy camper's opinions.

Thanks and regards,

James

Nice POST James - Give me time I can Give You Four to Make it Ten

[Claudekrowe]

Add another - The most Unreliable POP3 email service in Asia Pacific BY FAR!

The below Thread started today at 5 minutes past Noon and IT IS UP TO FIVE PAGES FULL IN OVER FIVE HOURS

Have a read of the posts in this (not happy Jan)
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-re ... 99&p=5#r82

T$r

One recent post from user "stormwrecker" is worth reposting

The fact seems to be that some email is trickling through, intermittently, in some places, sometimes.
But there is far from full return to service.
Absolutely TELstra should compensate customers for waste and abuse of our time, through inadequate and non-interested communication about the problem.
This has happened several times now – and clearly, as with the OS-based phone customer service line – customers are just treated like wallets who keep paying, and who can be dished up the absolute minimum of service.
It's really not good enough that "Scott" appears here randomly, saying sorry, but that he has no idea of why the main site misleads customers, ensuring that they waste hours of their time checkng settings, an that he hs no idea of what the problem actually is.

N.B. Scott referred to above is one of the Social Media dudes from big T, who chimes in on Whirlpool posts

[Claudekrowe]

And Another; Bigpond News will NEVER broadcast Bad News about the Mother Ship Tel$tra!

There is a fairly significant BP mail outage going on at present

Not a word about it on BP News portal - How Strange

[Claudekrowe]

Telstra continues to be very "economical" with the truth! Oh a SOFTWARE ISSUE - nice excuse T$!

acknowledgement - http://www.itnews.com.au/News/314793,te ... utage.aspx

Telstra has attributed a nationwide outage of its BigPond email services this week to an unnamed "software configuration issue".

"The issue commenced at 10.42am [on Tuesday] and was rectified and testing completed by 6pm on that day," a spokesman for the carrier told iTnews.

"Customers may have experienced delays with sending and receiving emails during this time. Webmail was not affected."

No further details from the post-incident report were supplied.

iTnews reported on Tuesday afternoon that Telstra was working its way through a backlog of undelivered emails.

Services had since returned to normal.

Well TELSTRA NORMAL anyway!

[Claudekrowe]

And here is another to Add to the Wall of shame

SECRETIVE Service DOWNGRADES, Proof here;
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-re ... ?t=1978694

Just does not pass the "Sniff" test - It is very OFF

[Claudekrowe]

Customer Case Study of how NOT TO DO Customer Support, by none other than our bungling "mates" at Telstra!

acknowledgement http://stevej-on-it.blogspot.com.au/201 ... -what.html

TELSTRA After the NBN - Now What

...
Telstra under David Thodey is revitalised and playing a very different game. But can he turn the company into what it could've been, can he unlock revenues and new markets and realise the potential of the business?

I think they are looking in the wrong place.

This isn't hubris from a Monday morning quarterback, but an analysis based on solid technical and business principles: "Customer Service comes first", "You can't cut your way to new lines of business" and, from Dr Deming the Quality Improvement expert responsible for Japan Inc's world domination in manufacturing, "If you focus primarily on costs, they tend to rise over time while Quality decreases. If you focus primarily on Quality, it tends to increase over time and costs decrease".

My evidence is a recent Customer Case Study I wrote up for a Bigpond Cable fault:

It took 6 weeks to resolve, but was never escalated, was a known "Problem" affecting many people, but with no known resolution or work-around and nobody allocated to fixing the underlying Problem.
The fault was rectified within 2 days due to an accidental interaction with a Customer Service rep.
There were at least 18 avoidable and correctable, at zero-cost, systems and management errors and failures.
This failed process cost Telstra $5-10,000 (estimated), around 100 years of profit from the service.
The whole process left the client, with many services, underwhelmed and actively considering Anything but Telstra.
The management team is solely responsible for allowing multiple systems failure to continue, but more importantly, for not actively pursuing a high-value client and converting the "fail" into winning back the client.
I believe the CEO, or at least the State Manager, should've personally contacted the client to apologise, explain the problem, how they are preventing it from recurring and offering a reasonable ex-gratia payment for the excruciating experience.
Ask: What would Richard Branson do? That and more...
The need for multiple levels of Customer Service is achingly apparent yet ignored: people who are time poor will pay a premium for better, more predictable service. Having to wait around 4 hours for a technician to go to the wrong address is a Customer Relations disaster and support nightmare.

The fault was not a connection, customer-action, line, equipment or configuration fault. Some automatic provisioning software went wrong and its actions could not be undone normally: this was a known, preventable systems fault that was allowed to continue and grow unabated and uncorrected.

It took a systems engineer an hour to find and remove the offending database record. The fault should never have happened and, in an efficient organisation, been fixed on the first day.

So, I'm impressed with Telstra's rolling out 4G networks, selling iPhones hand-over-fist and pocketing a few billion a year in NBN-related windfalls.

But I don't see Telstra attending to its Core Competencies nor addressing its most pressing operational problems. Does Mr Thodey and each of his Division and State Mangers have a "Top Ten" list of Quality, Process and Customer Service Problems they monitor and address each and every day? That is an item I'd like to hear about at the next AGM.

We so agree with you Steve-J here at Helstra