Yes, I detest the company British Telecom (BT) with all my heart. As far as I am concerned, they are the Microsoft of the telecoms world! No, that’s not true. Microsoft don’t even come close to this lot.
Their service is p**s poor and I will be sacking them in the near future. I don’t suppose they really care, but it will make me feel better and I live in hope that one day they wake up and realise that losing customers in droves due to their crap service for so many years is perhaps not a good business model after all!!!! The mighty have much further to fall than the rest of us.
Here’s the first example of the cockups and ineptitude of the so called experts in telecommunications. Pleeeeease! I will post other examples soon…
I’m moving house this week. In plenty of time, I have ordered a new telephone number for the new house. As we have access to the house before we move out of the one we’re selling, it gave me more time to get my broadband order in time to negate the “7-10 working day” delay between ordering and it becoming active. I’m trying to set up a business and am studying for a qualification, so cannot do without Internet access. So, BT very happily set up the new number, which went live on Friday (it is now Monday). Great stuff.
I spoke to my ISP on Friday once I’d had notification from BT that the line was live and said I’d like a new account setting up for Broadband. Nope. “Sorry sir, the line isn’t showing on our system yet. Please wait up to 72hrs for activation. We’ll try again on Monday”. Hmmm. So I can use the line and make calls, but nobody can flick a switch and activate broadband for 72hrs?!?! Ok. So, I rang my ISP again this afternoon (Monday, 75hrs later) and…”Sorry sir, the number is still not showing up!”. What?! So, I rang BT. I got their very efficient sounding automated line checking service. It said the line wasn’t showing up as active (erm, really?!) and as there was a long queue, would I like a free call back within 45 minutes? Yes please. I gave my mobile number and sat waiting. I’m on the pooter with my mobile in my shirt pocket. 45 minutes later, the ringer went off for literally a fraction of a second. Missed call from an 0800 number. I rang it…”we have tried calling you back, but there was no answer”. Pardon? I’m human. If I’d been sat with my finger on the answer button, I would have missed the damn call because it rang for such a short time! So, I tried again. Guess what? Yep, exactly the same. So, BT have a record of their system ringing my number. From their point of view, their job is done. Tossers.
Right, so I was a bit miffed by now as you can imagine. All that preperation starting to unravel. I then decided to ring the line fault service and speak to an actual human. Now, BT have this amazing menu system that keeps you in an endless loop as soon as you start picking options that suggest you are getting closer to speaking to a person. It’s designed that way (I suspect!) to keep you from doing so! So, I then rang the operator. I told them that I was stuck in this loop and they put me straight through to a person in the line fault dep’t! Wow! So, I started telling this polite lady called Anna what the problem was. She said, the line won’t show up with my ISP and is listed as “inactive” because the “order is still open”. Erm, sorry what? She put me hold while checking something and cut me off. Great. Back to the operator. Back to someone different in line fault dep’t. He said: “Yes, your line is inactive because the order is still open and you need to speak to customer services”. Oh, great. Thanks for your help! He put me “straight through”…
After 25 minutes on hold, waiting for customer services (oxymoron!), I got someone on the phone. Yes, an actual human being. They could speak and think and everything! Anyway, they said: “Oh, right. Well you need to speak to the line testing department because the order is still listed as open”. I lost the plot at this point and got a tad annoyed. Her explanation was that only the “line testing department” could close the order and she put me “straight through”.
I got another person on the phone. I patiently explained the crap I’d gone through so far and she said “Well, why did you speak to customer services?”. “Erm, because that’s who I was put through to!”, I replied. “No. They can’t deal with this as it has to be us!” she said. So, after almost 2hrs, I’d actually managed to get someone in BT to take responsibility for something. Bloody amazing.
She explained what was going on. Are you ready for this? I still don’t quite believe it……My new line was “activated” for calls on Friday lunchtime as promised and as per the text message I got. Great, still with me so far? The reason the new number/line wasn’t showing up with my ISP or with BT is because the line wasn’t activated for Broadband! This is what “the order is still open” means! Ahhhh. She then said: “The reason the order is still open and that the line isn’t activated for broadband is because you haven’t telephoned our department to tell us that the line is working correctly”. What the f*&k?!??!? Are these people taking the p*ss?
So, I’m supposed to develop super paranormal psychic powers and automatically know that as a customer, I am supposed to ring the company who are providing my telephone line and tell them that it works. Whereupon they will “activate” my line for broadband!?!?! OH. MY. GOD! What planet are these people on??
She further explained that she could not “close the order” because I had not plugged a phone into the line at the new house, made a call and confirmed that it works!!!! She wouldn’t budge on this. But, hang on a minute…BT are a multi-billion pound, international telecommunications giant. I, as their lowly and insignificant customer have to get in my car with a telephone, drive to the new house we are about to move into, plug the telephone into the socket and make a call to confirm that the line is working. BT can’t do this remotely?!?!?!??!! Incredible. I am truly amazed.
Oh, yes…To add insult to injury…because I didn’t ring them until today and because the line wasn’t activated until today, I have now lost three days lead time on my broadband order. As there’s a seven day lead time from order to activation, instead of waiting until the middle of this week, I now may have to wait until the middle of next week. I’m in the process of studying for a new qualification and need access to various websites. I am also right in the middle of setting up a business and cannot do anything without Internet access. Which is precisely why I spent so much time and effort last week setting up a new telephone line and new account with my ISP. Talk about snafu and fubar!!!!
Yes, BT have to take the biscuit for being the most incompetent company in the world. By far. They eclipse Microsoft by an order of magnitude, and that is a major achievement! My congratulations.
I am still reeling as I write this rant. I have spent 2hrs of my life today…two days before I move house, like I have nothing better to sodding do, speaking to six different people in six different departments and locations across the UK in order to find out that one thirty second phone call on Friday afternoon could have saved me all this trouble! Unbelievable.
Once again, BT have proved their ineptitude and incompetence and general lack of consideration for customers who spend fruitless hours upon hours trying to get some effective action to be taken. It’s pointless.
Jim
The Rant Man 