Friday 4 June 2010

People, eh?

So, it's late on Friday afternoon. And I find a very curious letter indeed from one of my utilities suppliers waiting on the doorstep.

Dear Sir/Madam

Your final account resulted in a credit. Here's a cheque.


Er, OK. There's only one teensy tiny problem with this. I haven't asked for any of my accounts to be closed.

So, in a state of panic, I phone the number on the letter only to encounter one of those useless motherfucking IVR systems that never seems to have an option for the thing you're trying to do. So, in desperation, I press numbers at random.

Bloke answers the phone (instantly), I explain the situation, he gives me a direct phone number, I phone the direct phone number, different bloke answers the phone, explain the situation again, bloke puts me on hold, comes back after about two minutes apologising profusely for keeping me waiting, tells me what's going on.

Job done, panic over.

Less than 10 minutes in total, at least one minute of which was spent fucking around with a fucking menu system that didn't have "my" option. Prompt, courteous and helpful responses from the people I dealt with.

My faith in people has been lifted again.

Did I mention this was BT?

12 comments:

Joe Public said...

It is not unknown for some Utilities Suppliers' salespeople to falsify 'Application to change Supplier' for a household, just to get the commission.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

Sure. In this case, apparently BT are retiring an application and migrating me over to a new system.

They apparently sent me a letter warning me about this, but I either didn't get it or didn't read it.

John Demetriou said...

I once waited in a queue for 4 hours to speak to BT, and that was after 2 days of trying and waiting for about 2 hours a time.

They are spectacularly useless.

Sounds like you had one of those rare good experiences.

Obnoxio The Clown said...

I think they're OK, once you get to actually speaking to someone. It's their IVR that sucks cock.

JohnRS said...

Ah, now did you remember the "random numbers" you pressed to get to a human?

You just know you'll need them again sometime.

Anonymous said...

My broadband phone and whatnot are provided, at a fucking big price, here in Spain by BT and so far they have been shit hot. Excellent.

Chuckles said...

Based on past experience, I hope you are not confusing 'said they would do...' with 'did do...'

Antisthenes said...

90% of mangers time in most organisations is taken up by correcting subordinates and administrative cock ups. That is what you get when you have an educational system and social attitudes that are not fit for purpose.

PJH said...

I'm confused. The only company I associate with the acronym 'BT' is (ex) British Telecom.

Could someone enlighten me as to the identity of the company that goes by the same acronym that gives such good service.

And who's workers aren't about to go strike.

Miss Dial said...

BT fail to grasp the irony of a telecommunications company that can't even answer the fucking phone.

Shug Niggurath said...

Worth always trying to say the word help twice on those things, sometimes (not always) triggers an operator. Honest.

Anonymous said...

TalkTalk are the worst