Utility Warehouse (Telecom Plus) Discussion

Meeper

Why would the sales people of one company promote the good service given by other companies in the same sector? That's like someone walking in to B&Q only to be told by the staff in-store that they can buy the same thing in Homebase for 10p cheaper and the girl on the till there wears a low-cut top.

Not going to happen. Not sure I see your point, Plushchris.

Plushchris

Meeper wrote: »

Not going to happen. Not sure I see your point, Plushchris.

My point was the UW salesmen will probably stop bleating on about the which survey and pointing people toward it now another supplier is leveling with them


Actually, they probably wont..

MillicentBystander

Sorry, my fault, peeps. I sort of rehashed Plushchris' second hand claim that OVO would have a million customers by the turn of 2010 (IIRC he was relaying what the head honcho at OVO told him privately) when in fact it was reported by lovemoney financial website in May 2010 that they at that time had 30,000 customers. Just a few months and a not inconsiderable 970,000 customers out with that prediction, then. He's decided to 'fight back' on here (with a daft argument if I'm being honest but that's what temper can do to your judgement). Apologies again.

PS, Meeper is a UW 'salesman' and posted a link to the Which survey the day it appeared online so yet another Plushchris temper-induced accusation shot down in flames.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=40639006&postcount=1265

5bellies_2

5bellies wrote: »

Just left UW.

Moved the phone away a year ago. Just ended the electicity service.

14 attempts to give them Direct Debit instructions is far too many, and since they're now ignoring my emails I'm not trying another attempt.

They've been charging me 10% extra for not having a direct debit set up. They've had my credit card on file for all the time I've been with them, but now have started to charge me £6 for late payments.

Just a quick update for those preferring action from one of the outside courts...

Received a response to my 10am Monday email at 4.30pm Thursday, somewhat outside their stated aim of response. Doesn't explain the six ignored emails though. The guy quickly accepted his call was futile and claims to have noted my account is due for departure.

I do hope so.

Meeper

Plushchris wrote: »

My point was the UW salesmen will probably stop bleating on about the which survey and pointing people toward it now another supplier is leveling with them


Actually, they probably wont..

How confusing. Why would I stop referring to the Which? survey just because there is another supplier who is getting the same results? Instead of being at the top, we're only joint top......

I think there are still massive reasons to refer to this survey, and just because OVO is becoming as good as UW doesn't mean that we won't use it any more. We're not afraid of telling people that there are other options!

Meeper
--UW Distributor

Quentin

Meeper wrote: »

Why would I stop referring to the Which? survey ............I think there are still massive reasons to refer to this survey....

What would they be?

We have heard and seen how uw reps are taught to avoid going into detail when selling uw to their friends.

Here is a good example.

The Which? survey was actually 185 uw members filling in a questionnaire on what they thought of uw.

As there are around 30000 uw reps each with an average 9 customers drawn from their circle of friends/relatives it's easy to see how the results can get biased, with many members having a direct relationship with a rep.

But the reps are cynically taught to use the Which? articles to say that uw comes out regularly the best in Which? "reports".

Just a blatant lie, which you can hear the trainer using here:

http://www.networkerplus.co.uk/audio/jc/Customer_Appt-111209.mp3

In the survey, the uw members give 5 stars to all aspects of uw, and even Which? has commented in the past that they are surprised to see value for money getting top marks when the uw prices are generally so expensive in comparison.

And when Which? actually did their own report on energy companies bills uw came out the worst:

http://www.which.co.uk/documents/pdf/the-which-energy-bills-report-card-218526.pdf

Yet the survey still reports uw members giving top marks for the bills!

MillicentBystander

Quentin is back!! I for one am glad (the share price dipped yesterday).

Meeper

Hooray! Quentin is back!

Still breaking the T&C's of the other website by posting links to information which is expressly for distributors only and not for public consumption I see. Excellent moral high ground you are taking there sir!

UW *does* come out on top regularly based on Which? surveys. As a customer, if I thought service was poor, I wouldn't give something a 5-star rating just to skew the results. Are there some people out there who would? Sure. Does every one of the 30,000+ UW Distributors do the same thing? No.

If UW customers put the service, bills and value for money at 5-star, I'd be more inclined to take notice of that than I would of a "report" done by someone other than the people who actually use the products and services.

Value for Money is an excellent example, and I am glad that you have pointed it out.

Value for Money is not a measure of how cheap something is. I could pay £10 per month for my buildings insurance instead of the £25 per month I currently pay, but the £10 per month premium wouldn't do all of the things I would want it to do and wouldn't pay out in all of the circumstances in which I would want it to pay out. Therefore, the cheapest is not providing me value for money. I would rate my current policy as 5-star Value for Money and the cheaper policy as being 1-star Value for Money for my requirements.

Because of the whole package offered by UWDC, many people are able to pay less out of their banks per month than they did previously, thus making it cheaper for them. They also get UK-based call centres, answered promptly, and so on. Lots of other factors from which to draw a conclusion as to whether they feel that they are getting Value for Money. Personally, I would pay a premium for the excellent service I have received and continue to receive from UWDC, however the fact that I also pay less money out of my bank than I did before adds to the attractiveness of the proposition for me.

I am a distributor. I am however not an idiot. I'm not going to stick with a proposition just because I want to create an image that it's excellent. If it wasn't working or it didn't give me acceptable "Value for Money" I would switch. Why would I throw money away to get poor service, rubbish support and complicated bills. Fortunately, I consider that I get Value for Money, so I have no desire to move away. Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone has Cardew's inordinately high usage or Quentin's flawed view that cheapest = best value.

Meeper
--UW Distributor

Quentin

Meeper wrote: »

Still breaking the T&C's of the other website by posting links to information which is expressly for distributors only and not for public consumption I see. Excellent moral high ground you are taking there sir!

UW *does* come out on top regularly based on Which? surveys. As a customer, if I thought service was poor, I wouldn't give something a 5-star rating just to skew the results. Are there some people out there who would? Sure. Does every one of the 30,000+ UW Distributors do the same thing? No.

If UW customers put the service, bills and value for money at 5-star, I'd be more inclined to take notice of that than I would of a "report" done by someone other than the people who actually use the products and services.

Why would you be upset that we can all hear the cynical training methods used by uw on gullibles? Unless you are ashamed at the way they encourage reps to mislead their friends just to get them signed up??

Or see them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdZcBC0Kf9k

In the first minute the rep "uses" Which? to show the gullible Spanish teachers that Which? has "reported" uw as being "top"!

You miss the point that 10% of uw "customers" are reps, and each rep recruits his friends/relatives. These are the people who filled in the questionnaire.

You won't find 10% of other companies customers being self employed reps with a clear vested interest in seeing their company get good scores.

Meeper

Typical! You have picked out the smallest paragraphs of my post and not mentioned anything about the main point. Welcome back! I'm missed your cynicism.

Whilst 10% of UW customers are reps, that has no bearing on the matter. Of the respondents, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that they are reps, relatives of reps, or anything else. British Gas employees thousands of people in the UK. Perhaps we could say that all of the respondents about BG were also employees of theirs who had a grievance about their employer and so painted an overly negative picture.

Get a grip.

And I'm not "upset" about your use of the networkerplus site links, I'm simply pointing out that as an individual with such a distinct moral compass, blatently ignoring the terms and conditions of a website and posting information here which is not for public consumption is ..... questionable?!