Warning - Orange Broadband

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:03 pm

If your thinking about signing up! DO NOT!

Never dealt with a more useless bunch of uncontacable arseholes in my life!

Must have called their stunningly trained indian call centre 20 - 30 times over the past 2 weeks, every single phone call they ask me the same simplistic questions after already establishing there was a fault with the actual line. However they closed that fault as "they tried to call me back and I didn't answer". Why? Because they have so many faults that if they don't close them after 10 seconds of opening one their database crashes! I didn't answer as they phoned my house and I was at work "could you not have phoned my mobile?".... "no we don't have you mobile number"

YOU'RE F*CKING ORANGE AND YOU PROVIDE IT YOU DUMB barsteward!!!

I could go on but there wouldn't be enough space!

woody · Post by **woody** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:29 pm

Sorry to hear that, nothing worse than crap customer service, but i've had no problems with orange, tbh been quite excellent so far.

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:32 pm

I'm guessing yours worked straight away?

I've been with Orange (mobile) for about 6 years and never really had a problem with them until now.

gorrie · Post by **gorrie** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:36 pm

Amazes me why companies persist with outsourcing call centres to places like India when the perception by customers is so negative. It's not necessarily a race thing either... it's a combination of other factors I think.

Being a Telecoms Consultant/Engineer for one of the biggest Call Centre providers in the world I have seen numerous companies dabble in it (in fact, I've set a number of them up)... only to then pull the plug a year or 2 later.

Sometimes because of either technical issues (perhaps because they try to run thick client software over links that are strangled of bandwidth or via citrix, when the application was never designed for that type of use).... or because they just didn't give the outsourced call centre access to enough tools/applications in order to be able to service the call sufficiently.

Then there is the accent/language issue. Don't get me wrong, some of the people in India speak better English than me.... but, not all... and all to often people just hang up as soon as they hear it's a foriegn call centre. I mean, I'm guilty of it within my own company... I used to raise a Tier3 ticket for a customer after doing fault finding... and then was routed to a Tier2 colleague in France or Hungary... I've already done what they want to check... and trying to explain that with a language barrier wastes time. I'm already getting hassle from the customer, or am pushed for time so the last thing yoi want to do is add to that hassle. Hang up, redial...

Andy.

robin · Post by **robin** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 8:55 pm

Typically the voice quality is poor too - I guess they're using VoIP type of solutions for carrying the calls rather than good old circuit switched TDM

That added to the accents makes it quite hard sometimes to make any progress.

However, that isn't the real issue - the real problem is that the underlying product is rubbish - if you have a poor product and it generates thousands of returns or support calls a week, then with the best will in the world, you aren't going to make those customers happy.

BT got the hang of running the broadband network a while back I would say and their engineers are usually excellent; the whole unbundling thing has destabilised that somewhat as BT are often still contracted to service the wires, but if they cannot find a fault they bill upstream and it ends up losing the service provider (theres a misnoma!) money and/or customers, hence they are very reluctant to pass the fault on and instead ask you to reinstall windows for the 3rd time this week ...

Robin

gorrie · Post by **gorrie** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:06 pm

robin wrote:However, that isn't the real issue - the real problem is that the underlying product is rubbish - if you have a poor product and it generates thousands of returns or support calls a week, then with the best will in the world, you aren't going to make those customers happy.

cough... Sky+ ... cough

Skyenet · Post by **Skyenet** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 10:23 pm

Orange Broadband was Wanadoo which before that was Freeserve. To be honest I have been with them through all these changes and had no major problems. Oops Just remembered not quite true, Orange seem to have messed up my ability to update my websites with them. Had to start of with new ones. However not a great problem as I use iMac for publishing my web stuff now.

When Freeserve introduced their Broadband service and distributed their LIVEBOXES I was worried when I found out they did not support MACS. However I did manage to configure my Macs, both wired and wifi and all working fine.

Have also been with Orange Mobile for years and no problems there either, still on my Virgin price match Tarrif

One company who I thought has a great Internet set up and very good customer services was EASYMOBILE. Maybe providing a good web system and efficient support was too costly for them and they shut the operation down. They negotiated a deal with FRESH for Easymobile customers to move over but their service is not so good and the web provision is rubbish.

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Wed Mar 07, 2007 11:45 pm

With wanadoo for about 2 years now, the only problem is that the line drops pretty quickly when torrenting and I'm not clever enough to work round it. also it does seem to lock up about once a week or so.

Agree on the crap product comment above.

Our cash back system for example: you have to send in your 4th airtime bill. The bill for your forth month of airtime, which is billed in arrears so it is actually your 5th bill. If they would simply give people money back for sending in their 4th bill out calls would drop by about 50%

Tore a strip off a store manager today (Ooh get me in the job a month and throwing his weight around! :p ) Branch manager advised a customer she needed a SD card for her phone "to store more tunes" then once he had sold it he then discovered that there was already a card in the phone and he hadn't bothered to check. The customer was then told that she had opened it so couldn't have a refund... She was told the only thing she could do was phone Customer Support (ie. me!) and complain... Big mistake pal, a word in your shell like... Pissed off customer swearing never to darken our door again for the sake of £20. There is really no need for things like that to happen!
and relax..

Rich
/maintaining low standard of customer service faction

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:13 am

Finally got through to a Orange agent in Britain last night - who told me there was a fault with the line and to phone back in 24 hours for an update

After a bit of badgering I got his extension so i can call the same guy direct - bit of ownership on the problem should sort it faster I reckon.

Rich - poor woman! Did you have any power to offer her compensation?

While I'm on a naming and shaming roll

One of the biggest tossers I ever met was a carphone warehouse manager in Glasgow. Went by the comedy name of Frankie Hollywood. Really, who is called something like that and isn't a cartoon?

When I worked for Beat 106 we did a promotion with them and he treated us like little pieces of scum. My boss restrained me from telling him that we were working WITH the prick and not FOR him.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:38 am

I used wanadoo once and they were fecking useless. am staying away from orange as a result. will prob use BT.

Lazydonkey · Post by **Lazydonkey** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:27 am

One of the guys i work with has been without t'internet access for 2.5 weeks and he uses Orange.

His advice is simple - avoid

mattg · Post by **mattg** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:45 pm

i moved to sky's max package last week. seemless changeover and regularly get 1.2Mb/sec download speeds

all for £10/mo

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:47 pm

The_Rossatron wrote: Rich - poor woman! Did you have any power to offer her compensation?

While I'm on a naming and shaming roll One of the biggest tossers I ever met was a carphone warehouse manager in Glasgow. Went by the comedy name of Frankie Hollywood. Really, who is called something like that and isn't a cartoon?

When I worked for Beat 106 we did a promotion with them and he treated us like little pieces of scum. My boss restrained me from telling him that we were working WITH the prick and not FOR him.

Stores are interested in one thing on the main, their commission, if you aren't there to buy something you are wasting their time. Some are genuine and really do try on behalf of customers but most simply do not give a toss.

An example of how rubbish things are: redemptions dept had a fax number to send bills in, printed on the contact sheet I was given. I have merrily been giving this out as an alternative to posting bills as I was told, found out today it has been defunct for a week but no one told us. Thanks a bunch. And to top it all the complaints e-mail address is also now defunct... Now that is going to impress the customers...

I'm applying for BAe Systems jobs again as this job is sh*t!

Also have half a mind to go to Watchdog or similar.

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:57 pm

RICHARDHUMBLE wrote:
The_Rossatron wrote: Rich - poor woman! Did you have any power to offer her compensation?

While I'm on a naming and shaming roll One of the biggest tossers I ever met was a carphone warehouse manager in Glasgow. Went by the comedy name of Frankie Hollywood. Really, who is called something like that and isn't a cartoon?

When I worked for Beat 106 we did a promotion with them and he treated us like little pieces of scum. My boss restrained me from telling him that we were working WITH the prick and not FOR him.
Stores are interested in one thing on the main, their commission, if you aren't there to buy something you are wasting their time. Some are genuine and really do try on behalf of customers but most simply do not give a toss.

An example of how rubbish things are: redemptions dept had a fax number to send bills in, printed on the contact sheet I was given. I have merrily been giving this out as an alternative to posting bills as I was told, found out today it has been defunct for a week but no one told us. Thanks a bunch. And to top it all the complaints e-mail address is also now defunct... Now that is going to impress the customers...

I'm applying for BAe Systems jobs again as this job is sh*t!

Also have half a mind to go to Watchdog or similar.

you sure there's not something in your contract that says "talk to watchdog/which etc and we shut you in a dark room for a full cavity workout"??

Rich H · Post by **Rich H** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:02 am

Only if they can find me.... sh*t!

Probably, but I'll have a good read of it all first and see.. Might even get another job first too.....