BT complaints

A few months ago, the CEO of BT (Ben Verwaayen) said, during an interview on BBC Breakfast, that he regularly received e-mails direct from customers and was happy to do so.

I thought exactly what you just did when you read that first paragraph but made a note of the correct spelling of his name from the BBC caption, made the assumption that, if he was telling the truth, his e-mail address would be [EMAIL="ben.verwaayan@bt.com"]ben.verwaayen@bt.com[/EMAIL], and entered his detail in my e-mail address book.

Towards the end of March, I reached a 'too difficult to do' impasse with BT Broadband regarding something as ridiculous as registereing my e-mail address correctly on their systems and, having an intense dislike of having to spend 7.51p/minute calling their 0870 number to try to get them to correct an error entirely of their own making, decided to try the direct e-mail to the CEO approach.

I sent the first e-mail to him at 10:38am on 27/3/06 and sent my final, "Many thanks for sorting that out for me" e-mail to the person to whom Mr. Verwaayan had delegated the task 27 hours 15 minutes later at 14:53 on 28/3/06. Being old-fashioned and reasonably courteous, I copied that final e-mail to Mr. Verwaayen.

At 15:45 28/3/06, I received the below text in an e-mail direct from Mr. Verwaayen:

:-))

I expect you've got the idea by now ....................

debtfreelondon wrote:

We've had an order for a new line ongoing since 31st March for a new block of flats. We, along with the rest of the block (including the developers who are waiting for a lift emergency phone) can get no satsifaction from BT who claim their contractors have not done the work, not finished the work, can't do the work etc etc.

We have now been given an estimated date for completion of 31st May (ie 2 months after ordering).

Now I know BT is a vast and faceless bureaucracy that doesn't care much about it's customers but how do I complain about this. When customer services refuse to put you through to anybody else, when there is no complaints department on the website, when there is no way of telling somehow just how wrong this all is, what is there left to do?

Has anybody else been in this position and how did you manage to not go insane?

possibly there's a reason they can't do the work until then ? that reason may be beyond their control. could it be wayleaves ?

There is no point complaining to BT..what would they do? listen to your complaint and then sweep it under the carpet and its another day in the office! I made a complaint to BT..and at the end of the day..nothing happens and I just wasted my time and energy complaining with no end result..! I think you should only complain if you get a result from all it. (e.g refund or discount or credit)..but that is just my opinion./.

Next time you phone get the persons name (always makes you pay a bit more attention when you know a customer is going to come back and torture you ) ask them to go through the escalation procedure with you and then follow it. There's nowt worse than dealing with an angry customer who knows what they're talking about