Talk talk customer service is appalling

watchdog2013

I started to get problems with my Talk Talk ( TT ) Broadband several months ago.
The Broadband (BB) speed was showing 4megs ( i live out in the sticks ) but the line kept dropping and gradually got worse over a week.
I phoned TT and was put through to their technical support team level 1 ( somewhere in India ). I told them that the line was dropping and also the wifi wasn't connecting my wifi devices despite it showing a full wireless signal.
They tested my line and said it was my router. Now before I go any further let me explain that I'm an ex BT engineer and now I own a small Telecommunication company.
I informed the technical team that I had tried 3 different routers and they were all fine and that the fault was on the line outside and that they needed to send out an OpenReach engineer to fix the line. They refused to do so despite my 30+ years in the industry. Instead they sent another contractor to my office to see if the fault was on my router or an internal fault! The so called engineer tested all my equipment and said it was fine and that the problem was on the outside line as he could hear the local radio station on the line which interferes with BB signal.Really?
Phoning back to TT I was this time put through to Manilla ( Philapines ) and through to someone who wanted to test the line again!! Trying to explain to them that the fault was outside was like banging my head against a brick wall.
They could not understand that a broadband test doesn't guarantee that the data being transmitted down a line is good and not corrupted. To explain this a little easier its like water running through your pipes to your taps. the water pressure maybe good but when you turn that tap on you may get dirty water. Get the picture? what's more you can measure the quality of the data usually on your own router! Mine was showing mass problems!
It took about 3 months to get the line fixed in the end. I spoke to and Open Reach engineer and he simply swapped my line over outside onto a different pair of wires! Why wasn't this done in the first week?
I had to buy dongles for my office computers so I could continue working. I claimed back over £600 through the small claims court for the grief that company put me through which included over 4 hours in total talking to over 39 people to try to resolve the problem.
My experience with TT has taught me to never sign up to a company that uses overseas call centres and never have anything to do with TT again.
All my office lines, broadband lines and 7 mobiles are all now with 02 who have provided me with a direct number to a business manager if I ever have any problems. I'm glad to say that one problem I did have was resolved within 3 hours. Never had any problems since.

So go with TT if you want but be prepared to talk to overseas call centres who constantly transfer you thus cutting you off most times and you will have to talk to 'technical' people who do nothing but read from a script in front of them holding you on their expensive help lines. There are no UK staff who can give you any type of customer service whatsoever.
AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Gordon_Hose

If you were paying for Business Broadband then yeah, that's pretty shocking!