We all have our woes when it comes to calling technical support. In the UK, there is the particular joy of amazing poor customer service for Internet Service Providers. I invite you to raise your blood pressure a little by reading over the letter below that I have just sent to Tiscali, after five months of not receiving the service I am paying for. I post any replies I get from them here, so do check back.

High Level Complaints Department
c\o Tiscali Customer Service
PO Box 7206
Milton Keynes
MK14 6XG

To Whom it may Concern:

Since October 2007, I have had a contract with Tiscali (under the name XXXX XXXXX, but I am a full account holder) that offers free line rental. Tiscali has been unable to switch my line from BT as of yet (though I am assured that this is imminent). I have been calling Tiscali roughly every other week for over five months now to sort this. Perhaps today’s series of conversations can shed some light for you on the service I have received.

I received a call from ‘Dev’ in technical support, who had apparently been working on my case. He called last week as well. This time, he was requesting authorisation to resubmit the request to have my line rental activated. I authorised this, only to receive a call from him shortly thereafter saying that he was unable to process the order on his end and that I would have to call the Cancellation Department to do it myself. His instructions to me were unclear, but said that as soon as the person in Cancellations looked through my record he/she would know what to do. This is the first complaint I have: members of different departments do not appear to be able to talk to each other.

I called Cancellations and talked to a gentleman, who, after looking over my record, assured me that this was something that could definitely be handled by the Technical Support Department (Broadband Division). I said I wasn’t sure, because ‘Dev’ seemed pretty certain in his conversation. Before I could discuss it further (and get his name), however, he transferred me to someone else in Technical Support. Here is my second complaint: Ideally, ‘Dev’ would have explained the issue to someone in Cancellations by talking to him or her directly. The next best thing would have been to pass me back to ‘Dev’, since he had been working on my case for a week.

Now back in Broadband Technical Support talking to ‘Franky’, he was quick to point out that this was not a problem for Broadband Technical Support because it was a problem with the Tiscali Talk package. I therefore needed to talk to the Talk Technical Support, and he transferred me.

Now talking to ‘Tenzi’, she said there was nothing she could do for me because this was part of the ‘free line rental’ offer, and I would therefore have to talk to the special Free Line Rental Technical Support Department (whose direct number is 0870 423 2531).

She transferred me to ‘Jayant’ in Free Line Rental Technical Support, who actually went into my record and found what seemed to be (at least part of ) the problem. Apparently, every time Tiscali had tried to request to transfer the line from BT, they requested to transfer our old number (01865 202 042) instead of the new one. BT, of course, had been refusing this because the line no longer exists. I would like to point out here that Tiscali is (or should be) well aware of the new number (01865 XXX XXX) as our broadband has been working on it since October. ‘Jayant’ said that there was nothing he could do for me, but that I should talk to the Provisioning Department (0845 3620 344). This brings me to my third complaint: It should have been obvious to all of these people that my issue was complex, as my record must be exceptionally long by now. That ‘Jayant’ was the first to look for the problem with any effort is appalling customer service.

So I was now talking to ‘Abhihra’ in Provisioning, who was quick to point out that, as the line rental issue was ‘pending’, i.e. not fully set up, there was absolutely nothing he could do for me. He assured me, however, that if I called the Tiscali Talk Sales Department, they would be able to sort out the order, change the number to the right one, and all would be well. As you can imagine, I was beginning to get irritated with so many ‘assurances’ leading to more transfers, and no sense that I was getting anywhere. Nevertheless, I persisted, having now spent over an hour on the phone.

I now reached the Tiscali Talk Sales Department, and found myself talking to ‘Elaine’. There were problems immediately. I gave her my number and she asked me for my name and she said that I had no access on the account. I explained that I knew that XXXX XXXXX was the full account holder, but that he granted me full authorisation on the account. She said that there was no record of me on the system. I recited the multifarious people I had talked to today, all who were able to verify my details. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She said he wouldn’t be able to help either. I persisted, asking her to call any other department and they would be able to verify me. She declined. I finally got her to speak to her supervisor, and after a few moments she returned, asked for my account number and email address, and proceeded to deal with my question. She did not apologise for the inconvenience. This leads me to my fourth complaint: It is obvious that the information systems between Sales and Support are not synchronised accurately (apparently because Sales are outsourced). That ‘Elaine’ should prove so unhelpful at the outset was understandable; I could have been trying to impersonate someone. But that it took so long for her to speak to her supervisor after multiple requests, and was not apologetic, is unacceptable.

At the end, ‘Elaine’ said that the problem was, as ‘Dev’ had correctly pointed out, to do with the pending line rental request having the wrong phone number on it. This was not something she could fix, and told me, as ‘Dev’ had, that I needed to call Cancellations, thus coming full circle. I apologised if I had sounded short with her, and hoped that she could understand my frustration at this point. I made her give me explicit instructions on what I should tell Cancellations so that they would know what to do this time, and then I called them.

Back in Cancellations, I talked to ‘Arpita’. She was amazingly helpful, partly I am sure because I knew what to tell her (that I needed to ‘cancel the line rental upgrade offer’, not my full account), but also because she immediately began conversations with her manager about my issue. After a few minutes and a few queries, she said that she could sort the issue, and gave me a full synopsis of what the problem was (which I had almost pieced together by this point) and what needed to be done. She then suggested that I contact the High Level Complaints Department with my case.

This was just today’s discussions. I have been having conversations of a similar nature (usually 15-45 minutes; this one was over 1.5 hours) every two weeks or so for the past five months. I invite you to have a look over my record. Here is my final complaint: An issue like this, whol ly the fault of Tiscali and not myself, should have required absolutely none of my time, even if it took six months to fix.

Upon earlier advice, I have sent in a request (dated 6 March 2008) for reimbursement for my BT bills, which I hope you will honour in a timely fashion, as you have been in a legal contract to provide this service.

I would be very receptive to any attempt you may wish to make to recover the very significant amount of customer loyalty and trust that you have eroded because of this matter. I should note that the time spent on the phone with you was time that I should have been working on my job, and was thus not able to bill it. As a low income earner, this had a visible effect on my finances (not to mention having to pay for two line rentals a month).

Perhaps ‘Arpita’ was right and the issue will now be sorted. Long experience, however, has now taught be that my optimism is unfounded. Perhaps there is a way for a single person to follow this through to the end, contacting me until I actually have the service I am paying for? I have posted this letter on my blog, and will include any responses you may give there as well.

Below, I offer a series of suggestions derived from my complaints, in the hope that you will implement them and thus prevent another customer from undergoing the tedious and thoroughly unnecessary process I have so far endured.

Recommendations

1. Allow Departments to speak to one another.
2. When transferring calls, make the person transferring remain on the line to ensure the new department understands the problem.
3. Synchronise authorised account holders between Sales and Technical Support.
4. When calling the customer to ask them to fix a problem Tiscali created, instructions to the customer should be crystal clear and there should have been enough background work (e.g. internal conversation and
   notes on file) so that I make one phone call and the problem is fixed. Asking any more from the customer is absolutely unacceptable, unless you immediately offer compensation for the undue burden on them and use of their working hours.

Sincerely,

Samuel A. Evans