BT - the worst customer service I've ever experienced by far! Advice required

Bolando

Reading a few other comments on this forum it seems I would not be alone in making such a bold statement but in my 3 months of dealing with them as a new customer BT have done nothing but waste my time and money!

I now just need to know what I can do to resolve this situation and avoid paying them any more money than I need to.

Back in November we were persuaded to switch our TV, Broadband and phone service over to Sky from Virgin. We were going to save some money and get extra channels so it seemed a no brainer. However if I knew what I knew now theres no way I would have changed and brought BT into the equation.
To be fair Sky have always lived up to their word and my experience of their customer services has been much better. Rather than type everything out here again I have simply copied and pasted two letters I have sent to them in the last month. Apologies for the long post but I'm sure a few of you will be surprised at what you read (then again maybe not!!)...

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Dear Sir / Madam

I am writing to complain about the service I have experienced in the last month from BT.
In November of 2008 we agreed a new digital TV, phone and broadband package deal that would see us leave Virgin Media in favour of SKY. We simply required a BT phone line to be installed for this and so once our TV dish was installed during December we were ready to arrange this installation. In the first week of January I called BT and an appointment was made for 21st January between 1 and 6pm. I will now detail the events that have occurred since that time which illustrate a very poor level of customer service on BT’s behalf:

Tues 20th January – called BT to see if I could be given a more precise time for the installation to avoid missing time off work. I was informed the engineer would arrive at approx 3.30pm the following day.

Weds 21st January – Arrived home at 2.50pm to find an engineer had been to the property at 1.30pm and had left a note through the letter box saying that they would return the following day. I called BT to double check this and was told that the engineers would indeed return on the 22nd between 1 and 6pm. I was also informed that I should not have been given the specific time of 3.30pm since BT cannot guarantee this.

Thurs 22nd January – Again returned home early from work and waited at my property all afternoon. No engineer turned up and I did not receive any phone call to let me know why.

Fri 23rd January – Called BT during the afternoon to find out why the appointment had not been kept. I was not given an explanation. An agent told me she would arrange a new appointment with the Openreach team and would call me back within 20 minutes to confirm the new date and time. I did not receive any call back!

Monday 26th January – Called BT customer services again. An agent apologised and looked into the account. He then informed me that I would get a call on Wednesday 28th from the Openreach team to arrange a new appointment. He also said he would send a form by post that would allow me to claim back lost earnings from the two missed appointments (this form never arrived). However after ending the call I felt this was unsatisfactory and that the new appointment should be arranged immediately having already been frustratingly delayed so I once again called BT customer services. This time the agent re-booked the installation whilst I was on the phone and the date was set for the afternoon of 4th February between 1 and 6pm.

Tuesday 3rd February – Called BT customer services to double check the appointment on the 4th was still definitely going ahead. I was assured it was and the details were confirmed again.

Wednesday 4th February – Waited at home all afternoon and once again no engineer showed and I received no phone calls.
That evening I called BT customer services to try to get to the bottom of the problem. During my time on the phone (well over an hour) I managed to be cut off twice and was also passed between the customer options and customer services team several times. Initially neither department seemed to be able to see what the problem was or what had been causing it.
Finally a new appointment was made, this time for the afternoon of Thursday 12th February. I was informed that for an unknown reason the previous three appointments all had a ‘cancelled’ status. I had certainly not cancelled any of these appointments myself.

Friday 6th February – I received a voicemail message from BT saying that they were concerned that since the initial cancelled appointment on the 21st January I had not attempted to re-book it and if I still wanted a BT line I should call back immediately!

So, that is the history of the catalogue of errors that have been made so far by BT. I have now been waiting over a month just for a line to be installed and activated. The service I have received so far makes me question whether I am doing the right thing in joining BT.
What has amazed me more than anything is that each time I have called the customer services department the staff I speak with never have knowledge of the history of my case. Each call appears to be treated as a new episode with little or no reference to previous episodes. My recent call from BT on 6th Feb clearly shows this. Each time I have had to explain everything that has happened to date. As you can appreciate this has been extremely frustrating and immensely time consuming.
I cannot believe the total incompetence I have experienced over the last few weeks and quite honestly find it ironic that you are a communications company.
I have contacted Watchdog as well as Ofcom regarding this issue. If the line is not installed on 12th February I will certainly be returning to Virgin for our phone and broadband service even though I will be forced to pay a slightly higher amount than before.

Can you please look at the account and the series of events as detailed above. I would like to know how you intend to provide some form of compensation and more importantly ensure that the appointment for the 12th February will not be somehow cancelled or missed. I should no longer be asked to pay for this installation. I have been left without any phone or broadband service at my property, which are crucial for my work. I have also cancelled meetings and lost earnings as a result of the incompetence of BT.

I would appreciate a reply by return post.


Yours Faithfully,


Mr M Boland

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Here is the follow up letter:


Dear Sir / Madam

I am once again writing to complain about the customer service I have experienced in the last two months from BT. Please see the enclosed letter which I sent to you over two weeks ago.
Since then no satisfactory response has been made and the situation remains unresolved.

I had a telephone call from a member of your customer services on 24th February who simply wanted to check that our line had now been installed and was working. It was clear that they had not personally read my letter of complaint at all and showed no understanding of the history of problems I have experienced.
When I pointed out that I was waiting to hear how BT were planning on compensating me for the loss of personal time and money he said he would have to discuss this with his manager and would call me back the next day. It came as no surprise that I did not get a call the next day and there has been no further attempt to call my mobile since then.
This really adds further insult to injury and I am utterly disgusted with the complete indifference that BT has displayed to such a serious complaint.

We have now also been informed by Sky that we will have to pay a £25 connection fee to take up their broadband service because we are well outside of the six week grace period they give to new customers to have a phone line installed after they installed our digital TV dish. Because this has been outside of our control and the fault of BT I will be expecting that you fully refund or credit this amount when I send you my next bill.

I have instructed my bank not to allow any funds to be transferred to BT until this issue has been resolved. I am now beyond the point of wanting to call your customer services department to chase this up so I ask that you please contact me as soon as possible.
Perhaps you might ask somebody who has actually read my letters and understands the situation to speak to me next time.
In the meantime I will also be contacting Ofcom once again to update them on the appalling level of customer service I have experienced with BT.

Please note I will be out of the country until Sunday 8th March so please contact me as soon as possible after that date.

Yours Faithfully,

Mr M Boland

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Those letters were dated 8th and 28th Feb respectively.

This company seem to be totally ineffective at anything!! As a new customer I'm really shocked at the total incompetence I've experienced from such a big and apparently reputable company. They really do not seem to care and unfortunately now I feel my hands are tied since I'm with Sky for the next 12 months (all sky customers must have a BT line). This whole thing has caused a lot of stress.

What can I do as my next step? I now feel at the very least I should not be paying the £122 line installation fee. Can I instruct my bank to not allow the quarterly bill to go out? I do not want them taking any money until I am happy this has been resolved.

Thanks for reading

Buzby

What you seem to forget, is there are only 3 'proper' telco's in the UK, BT, Virgin and Kingston. All the others couldn't provide a thing, without BT providing access to ITS network.

Now, BT have the most extensive network in the UK all the other 'pretenders' need to arrange with BT for access - so will you, if you wish to get them to hook you up into their network for onward connection. Perhaps your complaint should be to your preferred carrier? Ask why they cannot arrange a total service, or pick up the tab for connection, like BT does for their customers! If you deal with the monkey (instead of the organ grinder) problems are par for the course.

Clive_Woody

If it's bad customer service you want then I can thoroughly recommend Talk Talk, useless would not begin to describe that bunch!!!


If your stress levels still aren't high enough switch your gas and electric to EON and really watch the bad service experts at work.

HTH

Bolando

Buzby wrote: »

What you seem to forget, is there are only 3 'proper' telco's in the UK, BT, Virgin and Kingston. All the others couldn't provide a thing, without BT providing access to ITS network.

Now, BT have the most extensive network in the UK all the other 'pretenders' need to arrange with BT for access - so will you, if you wish to get them to hook you up into their network for onward connection. Perhaps your complaint should be to your preferred carrier? Ask why they cannot arrange a total service, or pick up the tab for connection, like BT does for their customers! If you deal with the monkey (instead of the organ grinder) problems are par for the course.

I think youve missed the point here...

BT were responsible (via Openreach) to install this line, nothing to do with Sky who as I have stated have been fine all along.
Yes Sky do offer to credit the £122 onto our account upon receipt of an invoice or statement from BT. Yet I still have to fork out the £122 initially and wait over time to have the money back in my pocket which is not so preferrable.
The point here is about terrible customer service, 3 appointments being missed and endless time wasted on the phone to them. There is no 2 ways about it BT are at fault for all that and havent made any ammends.
Therefore I feel the installation fee should be wiped all together and they might make me a little happier by chucking in a new handset.
Something tells me thats being a little optimistic!! :rotfl:

Sun-Is-Fun

Unfortunately, terrible customer service seems to be the norm these days rather than the exception, from pretty much everyone. I can remember when we first moved into a new property and tried to get BT to install a phone line there...they promised to do it on a particular day, etc. - never turned up. It took about a month of phone calls to sort it out, with them saying they would come on a particular day and then didn't. One of the excuses we had was that the man couldn't go up the pole because it wasn't vertical, it leaned a bit to one side ! It's the same with sky and many others. Only 2 companies I seem to have had constant decent service from is amazon and screwfix !