Wednesday, December 7. 2011'Tis The Season To Be ......John Linton .....very frustrated and looking for alternative employment. There is little 'joy' to be had from being involved in providing residential ADSL services but over the past few years there is even less 'joy' than usual. It's true that providing residential ADSL services provides a constant challenge and that, over the years, you develop a very interesting and enjoyable relationship with a percentage of your 'customers' whom you get to know by their given names via correspondence and other means. Some of your customers become friends despite the fact that a relationship may begin under far from friendly circumstances. The problem with any wholesale business is that, no matter how hard you try - at the 'end of the day' - your performance is often constrained by circumstances (and suppliers) that are completely beyond your ability to control. This, for instance, is the sort of letter I am seeing increasingly being sent to customers: Dear Sir, Thank you for sending the ticket reference number of this issue which helped me investigate it. I have checked on this and to what the support engineer informed you on 5th November, the reason why you're experiencing slows speeds is because there are some network congestion issues at the exchange which is affecting most customers connected to that exchange. The support engineer has informed you that issue would be fixed by 30th of November, relying on the estimation that was given to us by Telstra Wholesale. However we did request for an update today on this issue and it seems that it's going to take longer for it to be resolved. As you may understand this is beyond Exetel's control at this point but I could offer you the following options 1. We have checked on the availability of another supplier infrastructure by way of a pre-qualification check and it seems thatADSL 2 via AAPT infrastructure is currently available. This option is given to you on a special basis, as these AAPT plans by normal procedure are not available to any of the other Exetel customers on Telstra plans. However we do not guarantee the activation of this service because we have to submit the application in order to check the technical availability of the plan. Also there is bound to be 2-48 hours of downtime provided the service can be provisioned at the location. All things going well, the transfer should take no longer than 6 working days. Also, because the Telstra plan is to be cancelled whilst on contract the early cancellation fee which otherwise should apply will not be charged to you in this instance. Further we will not charge you for the plan change fee but there will be a new 12 month contract that would be initiated which is beyond our control because wholesale suppliers impose it as a minimum term. The plans available for this option are one of the plans here- : http://www.exetel.com.au/a_plan_pricing_aapt.php If you wish to go ahead with this option, please let me know and the plan that you'd like to go on, I will have this arranged for you. 2. Regrettably, if we are not able to comply with option 1, or if you do not wish to change plans, you could churn away to a different provider who better suits your needs and we will not impose the $100.00 early cancellation fee on you. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, however I will personally assist you in having this issue completely resolved to the extent that we can. Kind Regards This situation ends up with a lost, and totally pissed off, customer and it makes Exetel look uncaring and incompetent. The carrier couldn't care less that they have caused this unhappiness and will never do anything about it. The wholesaler is judged, quite rightly, to be at fault and all of the people within the wholesaler, from the first engineer who took the call, through his/her supervisor and then on up the 'chain of command' till it reaches the very top of the company, are made to feel helpless and frustrated. Everyone loses, except the carrier, who caused the problem by their own greed and incompetence in the first place. I would like another set of responsibilities whereby, if there is a problem, I can play a part in fixing it. Copyright © Exetel Pty Ltd 2011 Trackbacks
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I recently had a hellish 3 months of up to 47 dropouts per day (on a business plan) fault #4436520. It took the 4th visit from a tech to finally fix some
broken wires in the pit. I had actually ordered a new copper line as apparently my current one was unfixable. It was not Exetel's fault but I did get very pissed off because it affected my clients. I had to escalate the problem myself directly with the supplier (as an electronics technician I know what I am talking about). I am angry at the supplier for trying to force me to churn because of their faulty servce. I am in the process of writing a formal complaint to Telstra for seemingly being unable to fix a childishly simple line fault for over 3 months and for saying that there was nothing wrong with the line. The final tech said that it should have been spotted and fixed immediately on the first visit. If this is the standard of what the wholesaler provides to clients of other ISPs, I am very angry. I would be more than happy to help Exetel complain to various authorities over this if needed. I have full documentation on this incident. After the fix, there has not been one dropout in 2 weeks and counting and I am very happy with Exetel's plans and inclusions and pricing. I believe that Exetel's business plans offer the best value thus far. Comment (1)
All I can say is that if I received such a well thought out email, without having to chase it via multiple phone calls I would be very happy. My last dealing with Exetel support involved connecting up my new flat. Due to a wrong phone number(could have been me, could have been during some retransmission of it) Optus's tech person couldn’t set up a time to come my flat. Sorting this out was extremely frustrating until about 4 days into it when Exetel began ringing me every day, even if nothing had happened, just to update me. The process went no faster (It took us a while to realise that even though Exetel now had the right number it hadn’t reached down to the tech guy) but I felt like I was being taken seriously and, my issue was being dealt with. End result happy customer, Cheers Exetel.
Comment (1)
As a "Telstra customer" can Exetel report problems to the TIO every time you get an issue like this, thus causing Telstra to be liable for the TIO costs associated with every complaint?
Comment (1)
No - the TIO only addresses residential customer issues.
Comments (6)
I recently purchased 2 ADSL services.
The first one was a churn to Exetel - it took 2 days to be effected! (Bloody marvelous!) The second was for a new service. It took 2 weeks - as expected. Thanks! Sometimes you can get "blindsided" by all the "problems" and lose sight of the fact that the great majority of services are implemented on time and to the great satisfaction of the customer! Regards, Harry. Comment (1)
Harry,
Thank you for your, ongoing, support. It is nearing the end of a very difficult year and because we run the company in a way where we 'hear about' any problem that occurs it sometimes gets to you. Comments (6)
I've been with Exetel since pretty early on and while I've had my share of issues (Under-provisioning like the email above etc) - Exetel have been extremely helpful along the way even offering me an interim wireless device (unfortunately no reception in my unit, but it was a nice gesture that won my ongoing support). I've since signed up at least 10 family/friends to Exetel and none have reported any problems or issues that haven't been able to be resolved with a simple support ticket etc. Keep up the great work!
Comment (1)
Thomas, your ongoing support has always been very much appreciated.
Comments (6)
John, I thought your email was very good and for me showed a side of you I had not expected as a regular reader of your blogs. I had a similar problem about 6 months ago and it appeared to me a Telstra congestion problem. While it took weeks to fix and a lot of exchanges they were handled patiently by your staff and I responded in like manner. I think you are a bit too exacting on yourself. I can understand this. Thecontacts I have had,while limited suggest to me you are doing a lot better than you allow. I am happy to stay with you. Merry Christmas
Comment (1)
The email was written by our SL General Manager - Rukshani Perera.
Merry Christmas. Comments (6)
Is December proving to be a hard month for support?
I have started having issues with slow ADSL sync speeds and disconnects over the last few days (Optus based service out of Top Ryde, NSW exchange) and when I called support at 7:30pm I was shocked to hear an estimated 25 minute wait time. I guess I've been spoilt, as I wouldn't blink if it was Telstra but I've never had to wait more than 10 minutes for Exetel before and it's normally well under 5. Checking your forum, Avg approximate wait time stats for Exetel in August & September were 1 minute, October 4 minutes & November 7 minutes. Anything major changed? Is this the result of trying to sort all issues in the first call? 30 minutes waiting to be answered? Anyway a few more reboots and by the time I spoke with your tech sync speeds were back to what they normally are (not great but acceptable). I hope everything's okay in Telco land (well Exetel's part of it anyway). Comment (1)
We changed support 'policy' to fixing all telephone support problems on the first call by waiting on the line while customers carried out instructions to fix their issues rather than telling them what to do and asking them to call back if they still had problems.
We extended support to fixing the customer's end problems rather than confining support to only Exetel line issues. So, we have significantly extended 'support' to covering the customer's modem, router and configuration issues which is taking much more support time. Comments (6)
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