Are Virgin customer services always so difficult?

knightstyle

So we are moving soon and Sky, my current BB provider and others using phone network can only offer up to 10Mbps with no minimum, Virgin 108Mbps, minimum 53Mbps which we want.  So placed an order for BB only, then saw their add for big bundle, BB phone and TV for just £5 extra a month.
Tried to change order online but no joy. Tried using their online chat but after over an hour explaining again and again gave up. Phoned and got cut off after 50mins of muzic. Phoned again and got through after 30mins and spent another 38mins explaining to at least four people what I wanted to do, they were often very hard to understand, as I am older my daughter was with my and she often could not understand either.
Finally got told my new order hd gone through and I would get a confirmation email within two hours.  Six hours later, no email!!!
So I have no idea if it has gone through. What a wasted day!!!!
Seriously thinking of cancelling the lot!

Bigphil1474

Virgin CS aren't the greatest, but bear in mind that the covid situation is affecting all call centre operations with people off sick, isolating, working at home etc. not to mention the upsurge in home TV and broadband usage. I think all BB/TV companies will be getting a double whammy from both sides. You'll probably just have to wait and see, and then try and fix it with them if they haven't got it right. Also, put yourself a reminder somewhere for when the contract expires, as the cost will go up after your initial 12/18 months.

knightstyle

Thanks, the new contract arrived this morning so all OK.  Yes I will definitely be looking at alternatives when the 18month offer expires.  

flyer

I've been trying to contact Virgin for 3 days now, longest wait over an hour and I had to hang up. Does anyone have an email address for them?

Brewer20

flyer said:

I've been trying to contact Virgin for 3 days now, longest wait over an hour and I had to hang up. Does anyone have an email address for them?

Forget email, I'm still waiting for a response via that method, over a week now.
Depends on why you want to contact them, which dept?
I'm in dispute with them over their recent price rise, it's going to get messy because I've had enough, I want to leave for Sky. Trouble is contacting them, tried and got through on one occasion but that was like talking to a brick wall. Raised a complaint and they are supposed to be getting back to me.
It's not easy but I have time to sit and listen to the muzac whilst on hold, I'm retired and it's free.
Depends who you get when you eventually get through, if they want to help they will, if they want to be an a**** with you that day they'll try your patience out, I think I had the latter last time I spoke with them. I think they see it as a game, who'll crack first. They can at least treat you with respect in these trying times, after all with this pandemic on they are only coming out of this with an even worse record of CS than they had before.

flyer

Brewer20 said:

flyer said:

I've been trying to contact Virgin for 3 days now, longest wait over an hour and I had to hang up. Does anyone have an email address for them?

Forget email, I'm still waiting for a response via that method, over a week now.
Depends on why you want to contact them, which dept?
I'm in dispute with them over their recent price rise, it's going to get messy because I've had enough, I want to leave for Sky. Trouble is contacting them, tried and got through on one occasion but that was like talking to a brick wall. Raised a complaint and they are supposed to be getting back to me.
It's not easy but I have time to sit and listen to the muzac whilst on hold, I'm retired and it's free.
Depends who you get when you eventually get through, if they want to help they will, if they want to be an a**** with you that day they'll try your patience out, I think I had the latter last time I spoke with them. I think they see it as a game, who'll crack first. They can at least treat you with respect in these trying times, after all with this pandemic on they are only coming out of this with an even worse record of CS than they had before.

I want to leave after their price rise. Sky have given me a cracking deal!! I've e mailed Virgin's Chief Executive.

karenburton1305

knightstyle said:

So we are moving soon and Sky, my current BB provider and others using phone network can only offer up to 10Mbps with no minimum, Virgin 108Mbps, minimum 53Mbps which we want.  So placed an order for BB only, then saw their add for big bundle, BB phone and TV for just £5 extra a month.
Tried to change order online but no joy. Tried using their online chat but after over an hour explaining again and again gave up. Phoned and got cut off after 50mins of muzic. Phoned again and got through after 30mins and spent another 38mins explaining to at least four people what I wanted to do, they were often very hard to understand, as I am older my daughter was with my and she often could not understand either.
Finally got told my new order hd gone through and I would get a confirmation email within two hours.  Six hours later, no email!!!
So I have no idea if it has gone through. What a wasted day!!!!
Seriously thinking of cancelling the lot!

This is Virgin in a nutshell - I've been trying to solve an issue since November and the amount of times I've been cut off or not had actions followed through is exhausting. I'm always pushed from team to team with no handover so it always takes at least an hour of my time on the phone with no resolution at the end! Customer service staff seem to have limited powers with actions which is so frustrating when your problem doesnt fit into an exact box. 

I've found that using the messaging feature in the app CAN be useful because you can screenshot responses there which is useful! It's usually a few hours until you hear back but it's useful for records. 

Brewer20

My experience with contacting VM over the last 10 days....First off after getting the price increase letter I gave them a call, third attempt after getting cut off twice and a total of waiting on hold 1hr 30 mins I managed to speak with them, retentions. They had the cheek to tell me I should have accepted the phone offer of £4 discount for 6 months, now you have got through we can only offer £2.50 off for 6 months.
My contract lasts for another 12 months so as promised when I took it out 6 months ago there would be no price rise, not even when they apply their annual increase. Others have been told this too. So the answer was, you shouldn't have been told this it was wrong, so I was lied to like another forum member has said on another thread about Virgin. Not happy with the situation and the offer they told me I can raise a complaint which I did. They said we will in agreement with myself contact me via email and not call on the phone number I have lodged with them on the account.
It's been over a week since this happened and nothing from them in email about my complaint. Today I had a letter from them re my complaint, it says we haven't been able to get in contact with by phone as I didn't answer their call. Another lie, they haven't called me and certainly not emailed me. The letter goes on to say we have slipped up this time please contact us to get offered one of of our special deals which can be found on our website. 
I phoned again, retentions,  was offered £3 off for the remainder of my contract (12 months) or keep the same price of £63 and recontract for a further 18 months and no price rises. Sounds familiar I said no price rises, but you said that before that's why I'm here right now in dispute with you.
At this point I told them I have agreed to have Sky ring me back today as I've just got to agree to join them, I have an installation date from them already.  Nothing more offered from Virgin, quite frankly I wasn't interested if they did, I'm out. I've given them 30 days notice and Sky TV will be installed next  week and broadband the week after. I'm already enjoying watching Sky TV on my tablet via the app so no need to wait for that.
Out of the frying pan into the fire, only time will tell. After 20 years with NTL/Virgin I'm done with them. Got more for my money with Sky for just 60p pm more, remains to be seen whether their BB is as good down the phone line, let's hope it's adequate for my needs.

Bigphil1474

Brewer if you are on Virgin cable broadband, then Sky will unlikely be better in terms of speed unless you get fibre to the property. Where I live, the fastest speed I can get through the phone lines is about 50mbps, while I'm on 200mbps from Virgin.
I'd always recommend using the chat function in your 'My Virgin' account, far quicker than phoning.

Brewer20

Bigphil1474 said:

Brewer if you are on Virgin cable broadband, then Sky will unlikely be better in terms of speed unless you get fibre to the property. Where I live, the fastest speed I can get through the phone lines is about 50mbps, while I'm on 200mbps from Virgin.
I'd always recommend using the chat function in your 'My Virgin' account, far quicker than phoning.

My son lives around 1 mile from me and his Sky BB is good. He's got a large family, gaming, streaming etc everything done online even his TV viewing, he doesn't have any TV package with Sky. He had a Virgin package with BB but he had problems with it, the BB compared to the Sky previously was pants. He's back with Sky now, no problems. A few  neighbours near me have BB with various related companies down the line, I know they've not long ago been upgrading the fibre, even been in our street. I've been on the BT Openreach website, says we can get fibre.
So with all that I've taken the leap, bit apprehensive about it all going smoothly, you don't know until you go for it though. I have Virgin until 11th March, Sky install next week the TV, then BB/phone a few days later, so time to test drive it and so they say 30 day cooling off period. 
Virgin tried the old, but our speed is better than Sky line, I said I know but you CS is an absolute joke I'm off.